Tiffin is billed as a traditional Tea house serving fresh food and homemade cakes. It is situated on Abbey Road about 5-10 minutes walk away from Central Avenue in West Bridgford. It does not look too much from the outside, but inside it is a very English Tea shop, china teapots, tea cups and saucers, lace tablecloths and a good selection of ‘ladies what lunch’. I don’t think that the ‘ladies‘ are part of the decoration but it is very definately ‘West Bridgford‘ when you walk in to the place. I really liked it.

We only came in to get a sandwich to takeaway but once we saw the menu and realised what a nice place it was to sit and take tea, we decided to stay and have something a little more adventurous. I was quite keen on a few of the dishes, the ‘Welsh Rarebit’ sounded nice “A blend of mature cheddar, egg, cream & mustard grilled on toast” for £3.95. A ‘Tiffin Club Sandwich’ which was a sandwich of “Toasted bread with chicken, brie, bacon and salad served with a few chips” for £5.95. This almost tempted me as I really like a good club sandwich and I was really intrigued to try one made with brie. Despite that though I was always going to have one of my rarely seen favourites the ‘Croque Madame’

The ‘Croque Madame’ was “Gammon, whole grain mustard & mature cheddar grilled on a slice of bread with a poached egg” for £4.75. It came with a pretty decent salad, some crunchy leaves, sliced cherry tomato and some sliced cucumber. The salad did need some dressing and they provided a quite nice light mustard vinegraitte to pour over it. OK but back to that ‘Croque Madame’ the poached egg was just about perfect, a nice runny golden yolk which oozed slowly onto the toast as you cut into it. Any criticism? not really, but I would have loved a bigger yolk. There was a really good thick slice of gammon just above the bread, with a topping of good mustard and well flavoured cheese. I thought that this was a really good, well prepared dish.

My companion chose one of the many paninis that were available on the Tiffin menu. There were quite a few to choose from ‘Ham and Cheddar’, ‘Pesto, Mozzerella & Tomato’, ‘Bacon, Mozzerella & Mushroom’, ‘Goats Cheese with red onion chutney’, and ‘Tuna with capers & Mozzerella’. She opted for the ‘Bacon, Mozzerella & Mushroom’ which sadly was not quite as tasty as it looked (I had a big slice as well). I thought that it was a little bit lacking in flavour, the cheese was bland, the bacon had no flavour, the best bit was the mushroom. If there had been some seasoning it may have been better, if the bacon had been smoked that might have helped too. It was a little bit of a shame, with four of the five panini options containing the Mozzerella, then I fear that they could all have suffered the same fate. Having said that I don’t want to be too negative, all the panini needed was a ‘little something else’ whether that was better quality ingredients, some salt and pepper, a little mayo, or even all three, then it would have been a decent sandwich.

A lot of people I know have been saying that I should try this place and I am glad that I did, my Croque Madame was excellent, one of the nicest that I have had for quite some time. It was a very pleasant lunch and the girls behind the counter and in the back were very happy and pleasant. It is worth trying it out, and if you have a panini and I am wrong about that Mozarella please tell me.

Check Tiffin out on their website and on their Facebook page or on their Twitter feed. It is located at 35 Abbey Road in West Bridgford.