Cafe Rouge

We tried the newly refurbished Cafe Rouge in Cambridge.

Cafe Rouge breakfast menu

Troby:
We settled in and ordered coffees. Service was friendly and efficient. The place looks the same after refurbishment so far as I could see. I was last here about 15 years ago. Not that the decor is bad, it's the red curtain on the door, and french pictures one the wall style.
I'm currently on a hunt for good scrambled eggs - So I went for "L'Anglais" with scrambled. Brown toast wasn't an option. The coffee was fine.

The coffee was acceptable

Breakfast came in reasonable time. And was quite good. The sausage was tasty, bacon fine and I like my beans on 'on the side'. However the toast could have been more toasted, and the mushroom portion was just a nod towards a portion of mushrooms.

Mushrooms in hiding

The egg didn't look great

Not winning any beauty awards, but tasty

But actually tasted pretty good, and was well seasoned.

Overall not a bad breakfast. One of our party had various discount cards and schemes, and it turned out to be very good value for us that day, but at full price I think Cote just down the road is a bit better.

• Food     3.5
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 3.5
• Coffee   3.5

Seefud:
I just fancied bacon and eggs. There was nothing majorly wrong with this breakfast but nothing really stands out as being that great either. The toast was a bit under done, but that's not a big deal. If I had to pick a highlight it would be the bacon, which, whilst fairly standard thin sliced smoked back bacon, was cooked to absolute perfection in my eyes. Crispy fat and juicy non-leathery meat.

Bacon and eggs

The ambience, service and coffee were fine, but again, nothing special. I didn't really expect much more from a chain like this though. The value was ok, but only with some discount deals. At full price I'd have been disappointed. If  you're in this area, it's got to be Cote I think.

• Food     2.5
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 3
• Coffee   3

Hitit Cafe

http://www.hititcafe.com/

A new cafe on Hills Road, where Cafe Avalanche used to be. Turkish based, but they do a full English too.

Troby

Quite a plateful, but those beans weren't to my favour

It's a pretty good breakfast - Not a budget one at £7 - but it's big. It's also a case of the Good the Bad and the Ugly!

The Good:
Within seconds of ordering, I could hear sizzling coming from the kitchen at the back. Service was good (there was only one other customer mind you). The breakfast came pretty quickly, probably in less than ten minutes, piping hot from frying pan onto plate. The bacon and mushrooms were particularly nice the egg was done perfectly. Tomatoes were also good and the hash browns were lovely and crispy, but a bit unflavoursome in the end. Presentation was nice, with some green stuff sprinkled over to make it look like they cared, and they did. All comes with toast and mini jam.

The Bad:
Sausages - budget, low on flavour, a bit weird let the side down.

The Ugly:
Wet beans, stealing important plate space, albeit separated by a sausage barrier, were not great.

I noticed they also do a Four Items breakfast, for a fiver, and I think I'd have been happy value and quality and size wise with just a bacon, mush, tomato, egg combo. Maybe next time.

Coffee was fine, from expresso machine.

Ambience slightly lacking as it was pretty empty, and annoying local radio playing weird music mix including some dreadful warbling Dexy's Midnight Runners b-side.

Views of the Price Regent, Hills Road.

• Food     3.5
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 3
• Coffee   3.5 

Seefud

Yes, this was a bit of a mixed bag. On the downside, way too many beans for me, I'm rarely pleased to see a deep fried frozen hash brown, and the sausages were economy style. But the rest was really quite good, especially the mushrooms, which I enjoyed possibly more than Cote or Browns. It was nicely presented too, the service was good, and I did enjoy the coffee.

Ambience wise, it was quiet. And definitely more Cafe than Café. I get the impression the cook does care about food, but doesn't quite love a full english. It's not a destination dining experience but if I go back, it will be to try his Turkish Breakfast:

Turkish Beef Sausage (sucuk), Egg, Tomato, Halloumi, Olives, Feta Cheese, Turkish Bread, Butter - Jam

Cheeky!

• Food     =average(2,4)
• Value    3.5
• Service  4
• Ambience 2
• Coffee   3.5

Afternoon Tease

http://afternoontease.co.uk/

I know what you're thinking: what do afternoons have to do with breakfast? Or teasing, or teas, for that matter? Well it turns out that this Cambridge foodie hotspot also does breakfasts, of a sort:

French Toast, bacon, and banana 

This cost £6.50 (not including beverages, more of which later). I'm not a French toast expert - in fact I was previously under the impression I hated the stuff - but this was very nice. Soft brioche, slight crust, maple syrup, the bacon was streaky and good quality. Not crunchy but that was OK and the taste meshed well with everything else (except possibly the banana, but then I was too scared to try that combo).

Now, coffee. Afternoon Tease is one of these gourmet places that probably have freshly roasted posh beans but insist on serving it small and tepid. Possibly this preserves delicacy of flavour, probably it matters less for espresso or milky drinks, but in any event my Americano was a gutless disappointment. Breakfast coffee should be punchy, substantial and hot; this failed on all counts. It cost £2.20.

Lastly, a word on ambience. You will be cocooned in posh hipster moronising. The seating is cramped so there's no escape. Either this will matter to you or it won't. This isn't a criticism of the staff who seem very pleasant.

Overall a good alternative to a traditional English, if you can find somewhere nice to sit and have enough company to insulate.

• Food     4
• Value    3
• Service  4
• Ambience 2
• Coffee   2 (but 4 if you choose wisely!)

Newhills Café

This used to be called Chapter 2, but now Newhills Cafe. We'd overlooked this before, but on a casual bacon roll stop (where free coffee was included) it was noticed that they did FRIED BREAD. So we had to give it a try.

Overall, this is a pretty good place. And great value if you arrive before 10am as the coffee will be included, so you're looking at a full English with coffee for about £5.45. There are a three breakfast options here: a large (which would be massive), a standard one with hash browns, but no tomato or mushroom, and a third option which I went for and added an extra black pudding portion. There's also a list of extras, including the fried bread. We didn't try swapping off ingredients, eg I would have prefered two bacon to the sausage, but with the list of extras the possibilites are mathematically endless.

Quality wise, I was pretty happy except for the black pudding being a bit underdone. I also had issues with the mushrooms, which appeared deep fried. I tried a bit of Seefud's fried bread, and it could have done with a little extra frying. It's quite a pleasant place to go though, with prompt service and friendly enough staff and I'll probably return now I know some of the parameters.

Troby

• Food      3   
• Value     4
• Service   4
• Ambience  3.5  
• Coffee    3.5  

Seefud
This was a pretty good breakfast and not bad value at all. I had the smaller set breakfast to avoid hash browns, but added black pudding and fried bread. I also added coffee and orange juice and the total came to about £10.50 I think.

The bacon was nigh on perfect for me and the herby-economy+ sausage was fine. Beans were in a ramekin which was nice, but it was slightly on the small side (and I'm not even a massive fan of beans). Even though they were ring-style and either flipped or very heavily basted, the eggs were still nice and runny.

The tomato was pretty good, if not completely hot, but the good portion of mushrooms seemed a little on the deep fried side. I can't stand it when they overcook the black pudding, but actually here it could have benefited from an extra minute each side. I still enjoyed it though. I also added fried bread, a rarity in these parts, which was great but could also have done with slightly longer cooking.

The Orange juice came from a bottle in the chiller cabinet but I did get a glass. Coffee was nice enough but nothing special. Overall, this isn't a bad little place and I suspect we'll be back. You probably won't go out of your way to sample it, but if you're up Hills Road it's worth keeping in mind.

• Food     3.5
• Value    4
• Service  3
• Ambience 2.5
• Coffee   3

Coffee Tree

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coffee-Tree-Cambridge/267788913401445

Histon Road has never been overly blessed with coffee shops. At one stage the best option was the machine in Kwikfit. A few years ago the Nasreen Dar started doing coffee, but with the best will in the world, it’s still a shop that sells coffee, rather than a proper coffee shop. So when an independent coffee shop opened in June this year it was probably long overdue for an increasingly middle-class residential part of Cambridge. Commuting past it fairly regularly, it first it looked like a coffee and cake place. Then it started advertising bacon rolls. Then a beguiling “bacon, sausage, beans, and egg”, and then finally, recently, they came out and proud with “Full English” on the board. Time to investigate…

English Breakfast at Coffee Tree

Seefud

It’s a fresh clean place inside with ample, if not generous, seating and a few tables on the pavement. There was some very good, and homemade looking cakes on the counter and the usual array of coffees. I didn’t explore the menu much more than that as we knew what we were after. Black coffee and Full English. The “small” i.e. normal sized coffee for £2 was pretty tasty and good value. The service was pretty good, and friendly. The breakfast was solid but unremarkable. It all seemed pretty freshly cooked and there was plenty of toast. The sausage was non-economy, slightly herby, style which was fine, but not a stand-out feature. The bacon could have done with being slightly crispier maybe, and the egg slightly less cooked. But there was the right amount of beans (and not too much juice) and the tomatoes were done fairly well. I think the presence of some nicely cooked mushrooms and maybe upgrading the bread for the toast could have me coming back here regularly. But I will be back for the coffee and probably a go at the homemade cake.

• Food     3
• Value    4
• Service  4.5
• Ambience 3.5
• Coffee   4 

Troby
"Bog standard". The breakfast was nice, and the ingredients were ok. The thing i liked about this place most is the "homemade" feeling, like it it had been made with love.
I would have liked mushrooms though, and my sausage was just on the tepid side of warm. I was jealous of the breakfast that got served next to us, steam rising and piping hot, with tomatoes slightly blackened. I recon it'll get better here though, and I wish them success. Overall the experience was good enough that I'd like to go back again. I think they need some greenery in the cafe, but mebe that would spoil the 'clean lines'.

• Food     3 
• Value    4
• Service  4.5
• Ambience 3.5
• Coffee   3.5