Went in a cafe of the wrong class today. [sad face]

[TiggyD]

There were 2 cafes near each other. I picked the wrong one. I'm lower middle class and the cafe was for middle middle class to about lower upper class. I should have guessed by the little accent they put over the 'e' in the name.

I went in and up to the counter and asked for a sausage roll and a hot chocolate and they didn't give it to me. I was told to go sit at a table. My sausage roll came served on a plate with salad which, and you might not believe this, somebody had drizzled on! I'm guessing it was basil oil or some such frippery, although the cafe with an accent was next to a boating lake the same colour.

I should have gone to the other one where I'm sure I could have just taken the sausage roll in a bag or on a paper plate without being drizzled at.

It's hard being English.

Oh dear, TiggyD, you should have been much more careful. I dread my next visit to London Town in case the same thing happens to me. And I'm not English but Scottish - can you imagine the confusion? My accent, my bank notes, my much lower expectations. Just think Maybe I should stay where I belong and stick with my deep fried Mars bar.

vanilla I thought you meant the artisan sandwich artist/caff worker was wearing a flat cap, which was bad enough, but the bread was served in flat caps?!?!

THAT'S JUST DISGUSTING

I think we've all learned to frequent the new Greggs cafes. And since I live in Newcastle I can say that I purchased my arsytisnal bread from a local bakery. Whilst shoving my 2 for a pound yum yums into my gob.

We have a posh greggs by us. When you ask for a pastie or sausage roll they ask "Do you want dipping sauce"

Dipping sauce is HP brown sauce in a little paper medicine pot sized thing.

Now THATS posh

Hot tub? Oh no, no, no, no...they're akin to white Range Rover Evoques and eyelash extensions.

They're just not done dahrling...

And here it's been drizzling all day. No need for a cafe, just open the back door.

Er... darlings... I hope this isn't too late to be useful, but if you're going to start using de rigueur (as several were about 3 pages ago), may one respectfully suggest that you learn to spell it first?

Now seems like an opportune thread to share this..

Superheroes

I wonder if they got the idea from the cafe that served "fish and child" to an earlier poster?

Pots of brown sauce to dip your sausage roll in? Excellent.

I ordered a cocktail once. It came in a frickin PLASTIC BAG (with a straw).

I once had deep fried ICE CREAM in a Scottish restaurant (posh one too, it came with a raspberry coulis). T'was one of the bestest things I've ever put in my mouth. [ 😝

Poor Baby Tapas . Are they kept in a cage and only let out when in Adult customer eats? That's barbaric.

This is why I stick with Greggs. You know where you are with Greggs

Well, you'd think you are, but I was nearly thrown out of one in the West Midlands for asking for a sandwich in a breadcake, forgetting that no-one outside Yorkshire knows what a breadcake is or why you'd want ham in one. They kept pointing me towards the sliced bread in triangle packet things, which are a vastly inferior way of making a sandwich IMHO.

Mention of chip shops in the south west above reminds me of the time I was with a colleague who had the misfortune to ask for a fishcake only to be presented with a tiny breadcrumb covered disc of disappointment filled with mash and fish flakes.

He didn't realise that outside Yorkshire they don't have real fish cakes in their chip shops, poor sods.

(In Yorkshire, a fish cake is a slice of fish between 2 slices of potato which is then battered and deep fried. They can be substantial enough to serve as a small meal or decent snack on their own and look like:

DH and I had lunch at a boho-artisanal cafe up in The Lakes at the weekend.

There was French linen bunting, and a blackboard message informing us there was no WiFi because 'it's good to talk.' (DH and I have been together for 25 years, WTF do we have left to talk about?)

On being served a salad, DH was horrified to find nasturtiam flowers in it and sprigs of mint. He had no idea how to proceed.

Finally, after much consternation, he carefully placed the foliage on his napkin, declaring quietly "If I'd have wanted to do some f*cking gardening, I'd have brought my spade..."

Isn't deep fried ice cream just baked alaska ? very popular in the 80s. for those who are old enough to remember. It sounds good.

I love this thread!

I think we need the Queen to appoint Grayson Perry her royal cafe counsellor. He should be given the task of drawing up a Domesday book of every cafe in Britain, with its exact class status marked. It could become the Michelin star system of Gregs through to artisan olive bread and nasturtium flowers served on a slate, with (right at the top of the class tree, because they want food that reminds them of school dinners at public school) sausage and mash and spotted dick and custard.

Surely aspirational lower middle class would refer to it as a Sausage en Croute served with salad a la jardiniere with a basil oil emulsion. They would eat it with a knife and fork (held properly) and use a serviette.

Upper class would use their hands to eat and dunk it in brown sauce and use a napkin whist studiously avoiding all of the vegetables as the watery carrots served in boarding school had put them off for life.

I usually give up and go to McDonalds.

Psammead thanks for the tip. Will pass it on to FidGirl who bakes. I put a lot of effort in when the children were small, I leave it to her (thankfully) these days. Don't like baking, don't like cake. Do love GBBO though Might be an expat thing.

this week I went back to my roots in East St Walworth and tried some marvellously downmarket cafes - the only artisanal items in there were the builders slurping tea and scoffing vast plates of chips.

You can usually tell if you are in a lower-middle class establishment or a middle-middle class establishment I find by the hot drinks menu. For example a lower-middle class establishment will advertise that they sell 'tea', but a middle-middle class will tell you they serve Earl grey, Darjeeling, English breakfast, Red Bush and a variety of herbal teas. In the latter establishment unfortunately they tend not to serve PG tips, so you must request an English breakfast tea as the nearest suitable alternative. You are probably in an upper-middle class establishment if they have the audacity to offer you lemon with your tea rather than milk.

one of them even had sarsparilla on the menu

Good God, surely no one drinks Earl Grey with milk in it, do they??? Are they monsters...?

actually I am just about to McQueen......

The last time I ate a sausage roll, it was filled with wild rabbit and thyme, served on an unbleached paper plate, with matching napkin and a wooden fork. No drizzle, or salad.

Imagine my confusion!

The cafe had the words 'artisan bakery' in its name, and I was on a bike... which class do I belong to?

I am so confused by this thread!
'Upper middle', 'middle lower' class - is there a 'middle middle' and 'upper lower' or indeed 'lower upper' class??

And how does this apply to me?
Not being a Britisher n'all?!

Nasturtium flowers taste nice