The Three Monkeys Coffee and Teahouse, West End

After my Thai meal last night, I went to The Three Monkeys for cake.  The Three Monkeys is a reliable destination for such an indulgence.  The cake is always of a very high standard.  This makes me wonder how the Three Monkeys, and similar cafes and bakeries can make cake so good.  I'm no slouch when it comes to baking, but it is only on rare occasions that my cakes can even begin to compare with The Three Monkeys and others.  This time I ordered a slice of mud cake.  Cream was complimentary, but ice-cream cost extra.  If I had my time again, I would have forked out the $1.45 for the ice-cream, but I didn't.  Despite this, the cake was almost exactly what I was expecting.  It was dense, moist, and rich and the cream worked well as an accompaniment.  Sometimes, cake is served with an insufficient amount of cream to blend with each bite of cake.  This was not the case on this occasion.  The other potential pitfall when ordering a rich cake, such as a mud cake, is that the icing can be unnecessarily richer than the rest of the cake.  However, this time, the icing was just about right, and was consequently a very satisfying conclusion to an evening out.