The Green Café (now Austins)

Our eating places today were both characterised by really good food and unfortunately surly waitresses!

For lunch we went to The Green Café in Richmond. This is, as you might guess, situated on The Green – although there is a bit of a play on words there as it is a health food café, with freshly made smoothies and healthy, vegetarian foods, so a ‘Green’ café in that sense too. It is a small café with not many places to sit, however it does have a couple of outdoor tables (something we prize in restaurants and cafes!) and we eagerly grabbed one as soon as it was vacated. The view from this café is out across Richmond Green which makes the outdoor tables here even more worth having than in many other cafés.

To drink I had a fabulous melon, banana and mango smoothie. It was too filling for me to finish and Charles obligingly helped me out there, but ooh it tasted good! Just the right combination of fruits for perfect sweetness and perfect taste. I shall definitely have that one again! To eat I had a roti wrap and I was pleasantly surprised by this. It contained falafel (which were honestly the nicest falafel I have ever had), with a little yoghurt and lots of freshly chopped salad. The part that pleasantly surprised me was the salad combination – this was no pre-prepared soggy lettuce leaf and slice of watery tomato, my roti was stuffed with chopped red pepper, bunches of fresh coriander, fresh chilli… whooo the chilli nearly blew my ears off! Such a tasty wrap, and nice to find genuinely healthy food rather than food that merely makes a pretence at being healthy in order to be trendy.

Charles had a mozarella, tomato and basil panini with salad. At least, he asked for salad, but the panini turned up without any. Not a problem we thought, we just called the waitress over and pointed out that we had asked for salad with the panini. But, ooh dear, you’d think we had accused her of personally picking the Pope’s pockets or something! Instead of just taking away the plate to add salad, as we had expected, we got a grilling about how salad costs extra, how paninis don’t usually come with salad, how the girl inside was eating a panini with salad but that’s because she worked there… blimey! Charles gave in to the verbal beating-up and agreed not to have salad then!

Dear Waitress on the Green,
Please try to be just a little bit friendly to your customers – we really don’t go there to be told off for our food choices!

The Green Cafe, 29 The Green, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1LX