Although this place has been around in Falkirk for quite some time we, for some reason, have never before crossed the threshold. For a while we thought it was yet another charity shop, like the Soroptimists or something? So, perhaps it was the name. Perhaps it was the somewhat uninspiring interior … whatever, we have always just passed by. Today though, partly because we were parked directly opposite, we decided that we should try it out. I

t turned out to be a mixture of disappointments and surprises. The biggest disappointment is the general ambience of the place. There isn’t any! Sometimes we wish the owners of independent coffee shops like this would visit some of their multinational competitors. There’s a Caffe Nero, and a Costa just a stones throw away and they didn’t become multinationals by not paying attention to detail. Places like this can learn much from them about service and presentation. Not that there was anything wrong with the service. If anything it was a bit over friendly.

So the general look of the place was the disappointment but the big surprise was the scones. There was a selection of plain, fruit or treacle all made by Agnes earlier in the day. We decided on fruit for both of us … they were delicious. So light that we struggled to keep them from floating away. Slight exaggeration! In our family, if a piece of baking had turned out too heavy and solid it was described as “doesn’t need pegging down”. Well these scones did! Well done Agnes. In spite of all the inadequacies in this place we felt we had no choice but to award a topscone … cause for celebration! In case you were wondering Sorochas is owned by a lady called Sarah and the coffee shop takes its name from the Gaelic equivalent.

Ultimate deterrents

Another cause for celebration?? Apparently, the UK now has a two new ginormous aircraft carriers with which we can go around the world bullying everyone who doesn’t have ginormous aircraft carriers. This also involves pretending that the UK is some sort of powerful nation instead of just a puppet of the US.  Anyway, how else would you deal with an enemy wearing flipflops? Oops, forgot about all our Trident nuclear missiles!

Scone songs

Following the revelations in the last post about the introduction of scones to Austria we got a note from our Maryland correspondents in the US who were introduced to scones in Scotland back in June. Back home in Maryland, of course, they are dangerously close to the impending armageddon referred to in our last post. Therefore they have been  baking lots of shortbread and scones in an attempt to spread their civilising influence as far as the White House. We wish them all the luck in the world. They also asked if there were any songs about scones. Well there are. You can view one attempt by clicking here.

If anyone out there can do better, please let us know. How hard can it be? There are also organisations that bring people together using the power of songs and scones … fantastic! In the meantime in the unlikely event of the scones failing to at least delay armageddon, our correspondents can find sanctuary in Scotland anytime.

FK1 1PL      tel: 01324 227610        Sorocha’s Coffee Shop TA