I like to think that I am totally in tune with my readers. Like when it’s January and everyone is still pursuing their New Year’s diet, I write a post about Chingford’s Biggest Chocolate Brownie. But you know what else January is? It’s dark and rainy and miserable and sometimes you just need a big brownie in a cosy cafe. Which is why we ended up at Oh My! in Chingford yesterday. Reuben, Eva and I all had a touch of the January Blues and I’d long heard of this happy place in Chingford Mount that served cake and had toys to play with. Could this be the place we were looking for?:
It was, and you can see Reuben here making the informed decision to head towards the cake rather than towards the “No Cake”. There’s a boy who’s in no need of a January diet. No, really. There’s no fat at all on that boy and he pushes my Jewish Mother instinct into overdrive. Cake it was then.
We found a comfy squishy sofa and ordered some brownies and coffee. The kids went to play with the toys at the back along with a couple of others. I was shocked to turn round and see Reuben manhandling a much smaller child than him as the toddler tried to grab at the toys. So, naturally I told him to let go of him RIGHT NOW, at which point Reuben looked up from the toys he was quietly playing with in the corner. Turns out that a) there’s more than one child in Chingford with a dinosaur hat and b) the hat is the only way I can identify my first born. Parenting win.
Clearly, active parenting was not working out well for me, so I sat down and had my coffee instead. And, of course, a giant, giant chocolate orange brownie. I was halfway through before I remembered to take a photo, so I’m not sure this really sums up the scale of it:
But it was huge, glittery, warm and – as Reuben described it – “Double Triple Yum”. For those who aren’t mathmatically inclined, I make that 6xYum. Which is very yummy indeed. Apparently it was also gluten-free, so that’ s virtually virtuous, right?
As ever, we paid a visit or two to the toilets while we were there and I was happy to find reading material all over the walls, in the style of the Rabbit Hole. I was trying to work out what all the books were and think I saw some “Famous Five”, “101 Dalmatians” and something along the “Mallory Towers”/”St Claire’s” kinda line. Am I right?
We’d gone to the cafe after school and it closed at 5, so we didn’t have very long there (plus Eva was entering her inevitable 5pm meltdown) but it was a good way to shake off the winter blues for a little while. After all, as one of the table signs said “It is a good day to have a good day”. And what makes a kinda poor-to-average day a good one better than a giant brownie? Double. Triple. Yum.
