Friday 12 September 2014

Cote Cambridge

http://www.cote-restaurants.co.uk/Cote_Restaurant_Cambridge.html

As far as dining in Cambridge goes, Côte is usually a safe pair of hands in many respects. You're generally not expecting to be blown away, but you're also not expecting to be let down. Like many of these chain places, that can see key kitchen and waiting staff turnover fairly regularly, it can suffer from inconsistency. "Life is like a box of chocolates..." etc. Would we pull a green triangle (Mmmm!) or a strawberry cream (eugh!)
Classic Cambridge window seat view

Seefud
GREEN TRIANGLE FOR THE WIN! Thank you Côte, it can be done!  An almost faultless breakfast experience!  Maybe... no, I have been suffering from sub-par breakfasts recently (cough... Bill's) but I don't think that's why I enjoyed this so much. I think it was genuinely a great breakfast. Maybe not 11/10 amazing in any one department, but just very good in all departments.

Firstly, it's a nice atmosphere and you can almost always get a window seat for breakfast. The service was spot on, a very professional waiter and service and delivery time was very acceptable. The menu is pretty good with the "Formule" offering being the stand out value choice. A Full English, choice of apple or orange juice, and choice of coffee for £9.50. The coffee was good and hot if unspectacular, the apple juice was pretty nice and iced. There was water bought to the table too, and life was good.
Côte has breakfast beverages pretty well covered!
Then it just got better when the food arrived.

There was a couple of rounds of nice wholemeal toast with butter in a dish go with it. Initial concern that the eggs were overdone was unfounded, they were just well basted but with runny yolk. The sausage done just how I like it, and a nice breakfast banger, porky and only a little herby. The tomato was lovely too, once I'd scraped off a slight excess of dry herbage. The only slight issues were the bacon was a bit old and rubbery, and I could have done with more mushrooms and the other half of the tomato. But very tasty overall, and not at all heavy with grease. I even had enough toast left over to have a couple of pieces with the good quality jam that was already on the table in a jar (nice touch). One happy boy!

I want to go back tomorrow!
  • Food     4.5
  • Value    4.5
  • Service  4.5
  • Ambience 4.5
  • Coffee   4 

Troby
Hit the nail on the head!
We decided to go here as opposed to the greasier end of the scale today, and I'm glad we did. I've had a variety of different experiences at Cote, and today was one of the good ones. 
We got a great table by the window overseeing the hundreds of commuting cyclists - ambience is great here, with decent background music, and somehow a french feel, maybe a certain je ne sais quoi? Service was friendly and quick and our coffee soon arrived. 
There are a few options on the menu, I went for the "formule" which is full English with juice and a coffee included for £10. Slow service has been a bit of a bugbear recently, but the food came soon, while my coffee was still hot. The food was great. I went for scrambled eggs, fresh orange juice and brown toast, and there's also tomato 2 bacon, sausage, and mushrooms. All the ingredients were good, especially the sausage, which was a herby number, and the the bacon, which although was a bit overcooked had a nice smokey flavour. Another bonus was the toast, which was the seeded kind which gave good crumb. 
My only negatives were the small portion of mushrooms, and the scrambled egg was slightly rubbery.

Overall however, just what I wanted, a tasty and well valued breakfast served with panaché.
  • Food      4
  • Value     4
  • Service   4.5
  • Ambience  4.5
  • Coffee    3.5

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