Monday, February 3, 2014

Cafe Nero, Banana & Caramel Frappe

I'm a big fan of 'frappe' type drinks. Lots of people will tell you "if you're putting whipped cream and syrup on coffee...it's a milkshake", to which I always respond so what. I didn't claim to be a puritanical coffee kinda person when I ordered the Vanilla Whizzbang with a shot of peppermint, so lay off.  Maybe it's that attitude that helped me gain 20 pounds in the last year, haha.

So, not only am I a big fan of frappes & milkshakes, my favorite flavor is banana. So after a long walk to an industrial estate that Google claimed had a KFC (it didn't) I was very let down. I was looking forward to a Krush'em, and in my sadness back in town I found myself in Cafe Nero.

The banana & caramel frappe came out ages ago now, alongside a chocolate & coconut and a strawberry & vanilla. I've been wanting to drink it for awhile, but it's been difficult to justify for the past few months. Finally I had an excuse in that very disappointing walk.


They didn't skimp on the cream. As luck would have it, the caramel sauce pump was broken so I got probably triple the amount necessary because the lady just had to ladle it in there. Allllright...
The banana flavor was so pleasant, not at all overwhelming or artificial. I think the UK has banana flavor down, whereas in America most banana stuff tastes like these horrible jerk candies, in the UK it mostly tastes delicate & like a real banana. This was a bit like a more natural flavor of banana than Frijj. The dollops of caramel add a lot of sweetness when you hit a vein, but the over all experience isn't over sweetened. Then again, I'm pretty over sweetened myself so I might be deluded by years of Tootsie Pops.

The cream was really good, probably my favorite part - an unsurprising fact to anyone who has ever spent more than a day with me. It had that coffee shop cream taste - vanilla and very 'fatty'.


It was really a great drink/dessert, and if you're a fan of milkshakes and you have somewhere in the region of 400 calories going spare, you'd be much better off with one of these than a Frijj or Yazoo.

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