Fitzbillies mmmmm.....

My brother Pete, and his girlfriend Jo looked after our gals over the weekend, which meant that Delia (my wife) and I could go away. We stayed at their house but spent most of our time in Cambridge. It was a bit of an eating fest (one of our fav past times:). We went to a fish restaurant on Saturday evening, but the best find of the weekend was 'Fitzbillies', a bakery and cafe on Trumpington Street. It's well renowned (even outside Europe!), especially for its Chelsea buns, which are amazingly delicious, wonderfully moist and full of fruit and cinammon. And the cream cakes are something to behold too.

All of this and the fact that it's unique - it's not part of a chain - made a great find. And I think this is a main point - serendipity. Many high street cafe brands pride themselves on the fact that you can go anywhere in the world and you know you're going to get . (Starbucks is the pinnacle of this boast.) Fitzbillies' cakes and their great tea are better than anything you will find in a branded high street cafe (plus there's no piped music, and mobile phones are frowned upon), but you won't know this for yourself until you visit it. Perhaps one of the reasons we were so taken with their cakes is that we have become accustomed to food that's bland, pointless and really quite bad. We just didn't know what 'bad' was until we found something a good deal better.