Week of Breakfasts #2: Eastside Cafe

Here’s Richard Trengrouse’s pleased as punch take on Eastside Cafe, Coventry Street – the second on our Week of Breakfasts

Day 2 Eastside Café: Junction of Coventry Street and Meriden Street

Repaired the puncture last night, cycled in from Hall Green up a deserted Stratford Rd with a hint of rain in the air to the Eastside Café in the very heart of Digbeth, to join my intrepid colleagues all of whom managed to arrive before 7.30!!

Like many of the cafes in the Digbeth area the Eastside was formerly a pub called the Dolphin. In the late years of the nineteenth and early years of the last century almost every street corner in Digbeth could boast a pub. These made good money on the prodigious lunch time thirst of the metal bashers of the area and at night from the denizens of the dark courtyards and alleys where many of the new arrivals to the City lived.

I was welcomed by Dil and Jay-no sign of Matt (still in bed?) with a cup of steaming tea, the cafe has the homeliness of a front room, welsh dresser with a tea service on its shelves, big farm house refectory tables and a full range of papers, what other cafe has the Birmingham Post as well as the Sun?

I had veggie bubble and squeak breakfast, free range egg, tomatoes and mushrooms on a bed of freshly made bubble and squeak, pure heaven.

The carnivores indulged themselves with the excellent small breakfast, again free range eggs, bacon and sausage black pud with beans or tomatoes a really good set up for the day. The toast just has to be mentioned no sliced white here!  Hefty chunks of locally produced crusty white and granary bread stuff that you can really get your teeth into.

Where-ever possible Dil tries to purchase her food locally, at the end of our feast she produced a plate of croissant for us to try, made that morning just on the other side of the middle way. They will certainly be a valued addition to the menu. Even though it is not breakfast I just feel compelled to describe to you the wonders of the Baked Potato I consumed at Eastside last week. An enormous spud, crisply baked, filled with mature cheese and creamy coleslaw, the best I have eaten in my 54 years.

There really is no excuse all of Brum should be eating at Eastside Cafe at least once a week.

I went with the budget breakfast (more for my poor waistline than my wallet), but I got to have some fun with it all the same.  As well as being careful to source good, locally sourced produce Eastside Cafe also stock some pretty amazing coffee from Monmouth Coffee Company, who apparently insist the beans are changed for new every five weeks to keep it quality fresh.  So next time you’re waiting in Digbeth Coach Station and fancy a coffee, take the time to nip accross the road to get it if you can. Tomorrow is Bordesley Street Diner at the  bright and early 7.30am.  If the big breakfasts don’t kill me, these early mornings will.