We are back from house sitting and had a lovely day in London to meet up with another friend from Australia.
Penelope was only in London for one day so we drove down on Sunday, parked at Kew and navigated the London rail system to Hampstead to meet up with her. It was a rather miserable day so we chose to sit in a cafe, Carluccio’s, for a coffee. After having placed our order Steve noticed that the barista had an Australian accent so he was quick to change our order to flat whites! We miss flat whites! The Aussie (from Brisbane but lived in Sydney for 10 years) was happy to make them and little did we know that it would create a huge debate amongst the italian staff wanting to know what a flat white was. Very humourous indeed. They were convinced that what we were asking for was similiar to an Americano. NO WAY! Next they believed it was similar to a macchiato. Close but not quite.
So what is a flat white? 1/3 espresso, 2/3 steamed milk which has been volumised (therefore it is a bit thicker in consistency but def. NOT frothed) then served in a small cup (215-240ml size) so it is a relatively strong coffee.
Anyway, we ended up having 2 of these each. Bliss.
It was great catching up with Penelope and felt like we had seen her just yesterday not over a year ago. We then went for a few photos up on the heath before we departed. The Hampstead area is pretty nice, obviously a rather wealthy area judging by the homes and cars parked around the place. Steve is now convinced that the Maserati is his car of choice!