Here’s Richard Trengrouse’s account of the last day of our Week of Breakfasts on Friday:
Day Five: Sbragia’s Cafe and Sandwich Bar: Fazeley Street
As I had to wear a suit today, came in by train. If I get it right I can be in town from home in fifteen minutes. It’s always an enjoyable journey and views from the train as it passes over the Rea Valley Viaduct are fantastic, it gives you an almost ariel view of Digbeth looking down on amazing variety of roofs and still a lot of chimneys.
Alighted at Moor Street Birmingham’s Edwardian Gem, it’s hard to believe that only ten years ago the abysmal Rail Track were talking of knocking it down and set off down Fazeley Street.
To be quite honest Sbragia’s was a bit of a flyer, I didn’t even know what the cafe was called until yesterday and only had noticed a door with sign outside when I was cycling down that way a couple of weeks ago. To be quite honest I had been for an excellent curry the last night and had been rather dreading the fifth breakfast of the week.
Sbragia’s opens at about 8.00 am so there was an extra half hours lie in, and Nicky, Pat and Michelle were all there right on time accompanied by a admirable fellow from the Citizenship Foundation, whose name I have forgotten, sorry put it down to approaching senility.
Sbragia’s is a gem. We were made feel welcome from the moment we stepped inside the door, customer service, attentive without being over the top. We were able to effectively design our own breakfasts. Pat asked for poached eggs with tomatoes and mushrooms and I followed suit, Nicky had the egg and bacon bun and the bloke from the Citizenship Foundation had the full breakfast. Help I cannot remember what Michelle had but she liked it. There was a choice of breads, brown, granary and white all of which were of very good quality.
Pat and my poached eggs were done to a turn and served on very hot plates, the mushrooms and tomatoes were also piping hot. Perhaps one of the criticisms of the week is that very often the plates were not hot enough and the food goes cold before you finish eating, particularly if you are like me and like the sound of your own voice!!
Nicky’s bacon and egg bap was awesome; the bap was huge and wonderfully fresh with lashings of bacon freshly cooked. While daunted, true to form she did manage to eat it all.
The bloke from the Citizenship Foundation’s full English contained all the usual ingredients that we have grown to expect from the Digbeth breakfast and was well presented benefiting from the very hot plate.
Most of Sbragia’s trade is take away, but their eating area, called ‘The Lounge’ is wonderfully idiosyncratic, there is some very interesting ‘Sex Pistols’ memorabilia on the walls. Including a print of a certain Mr Rotten, now better known for selling butter, and a huge sofa, which will be great to sink into while drinking tea and eating toast next week.
Thanks to Becky, Emma and Noleen for making us so welcome and the offer of the free cup of tea, which we had to refuse as we had already been so well fed and watered! We all agreed that we would be back
Are there any conclusions to draw from our week of breakfasts, certainly that great English institution is alive and exceptionally well in Digbeth. All are good solid transport cafes which give great value for money in a friendly homely atmosphere. Eastside Cafe is very much a crossover between the traditional transport cafe and the environmentally conscious local sourced food movement and in doing that is unique in Birmingham and I expect in the Midlands.
Would I do it again? I think once or twice a week will suffice in future, although with all the cycling I have actually lost weight over the week!!!
Hmmm…would I do a Week of Breakfasts again? I’m really not sure. I loved it, I met some great people and the breakfasts were gorgeous – I’ll never be stuck for a hangover cure around here. But I’m not exactly a morning person and eating such a full meal at the start of each day is a bit of a shock to the system. So what’s next? Week of Pubs? Week of Art Galleries? Week of Empty Building Sites? Comment if you think of one, and I’ll see what I can do!
On the fourth day of our Week of Breakfasts we were in Barn Street Diner. Or were we? On stepping inside we seemed to be in Pauline’s Diner.
Wherever we were, Richard Trengrouse liked it:
Day 4: Barn Street Diner Think that this could evolve into a column on the philosophy of cycling. This morning cycling in, it was blisteringly cold and some cars coming in from the south were covered with a light sprinkling of snow. The potholes on the Stratford Rd just get worse and I was reminded of the famous ‘Third Policeman’ by the Irish writer Flann O’Brien. Where if I remembers correctly, one of the coppers who had read a smattering of atomic theory, believed that the effect of the potholed Irish Roads was such that the transfer of atoms between his backside and the bike was making it difficult for him to tell where he began and the bicycle ended. I think I can see where he was coming from.
So at 7.15 in a state of confusion I arrived at Barn St Diner to be joined not much later by Nicky, Pat,and Michelle, who gave us a graphic description of the shortcomings of her alarm clock which had let her down yesterday.
Barn Street Diner is another converted pub according Pauline, our welcoming host, it might have once been known as the Falcon, but she wasn’t sure. The place is very brightly decorated with nice table cloths and gate back chairs and again well used by the workers from the local factories who were consuming breakfasts of gargantuan proportions.
Being a wimp I plumped for a fried egg sandwich and my colleagues for the ‘small’ breakfast which effectively means that you don’t need to eat for the rest of the day.
The service was very fast and the food was piping hot. My fried egg sandwich was excellent and like all well made sandwiches of this sort the yoke exploded and dripped down my shirt.
I think at this point I must make reference to the impact of tomato sauce on a good breakfast. For an aficionado the quality of the tomato sauce can make or break a breakfast. Heinz or a similar brand are fine, but many of the catering brands have a nasty weak acidy taste which detracts from the enjoyment of a good meal and have been no nearer a tomato than a pot of paint.
The tea at Barn Street Diner was a joy, strong and full bodied you could almost cut it with a pair of scissors.
The conversation as ever was excellent exchanging anecdotes about our bizarre and surreal experiences in Ireland, and one of our companies infestation with fleas when working with the homeless in Cork (me actually).
I have to interject here with a great story Richard told about who tramp who shouted, “you can’t sit there, mate,” when Richard tried to sit next to him. When Richard asked why the tramp pointed to an army of lice making their way from his person to Richard’s. Ewww.
As a final point I have to mention the very fine views of the City Centre, particularly St Martins Spire, the Beetham Tower and Selfridges’ all of which glowed in the early morning sun, sad to think that this wonderful compliment to a good breakfast will be lost when Beorma complex is built at the top of Digbeth.
The small breakfast I had was not small by anyone’s standards, and I felt too stuffed to move afterwards. But if you’ve more stamina than me, you can have a nice, post-meal game of pool in the back room.
Tomorrow’s the last day and we’ve decided to celebrate by giving ourselves a bit of a lie-in and starting at 8.00am. Come join us in the Diner on Fazeley Street next to the Fellows Moreton Clayton building, which has some weird Italian name I can never remember, for the last stop in our little crawl.
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.
Beautiful morning, cold with a hint of frost, set out to cycle from home to our first breakfast cafe, Salters on Bradford Street. Bottom of the road got a puncture and had to go back home and pick up the car.
Arrived at 7.15 to a warm welcome from Daz and Jason, with a piping hot cup of tea. The others arrived from 7.30 onwards and by eight there were six of us.
Breakfasts in Digbeth are on a massive scale, and the full version can often involve consuming two eggs two sausages, three rashers of bacon, tomatoes beans hash browns fried bread and toast washed down with very large mugs of tea. OK if you are working on a building site, but if you are a pen pusher like me the sure route to bye- pass surgery by the end of the week.
The half breakfast at Salters did not disappoint, for me the veggie breakfast consisted of a well fried egg, veggie sausage hash brown with lashings of beans and tomatoes and accompanied by a mountain of toast. My carnivorous pals commented on the wonder of the black pudding and the very excellent bacon.
The second mug of tea was a welcome end to the feast, the conversation then degenerated into musings on the wonders of white pudding and the complete absence from Birmingham of the delectable Irish delicacy Crubeens-jellied pigs trotters. I’ve looked on the web and there isn’t a veggies version!
Onto Eastside Cafe tomorrow (Tuesday)
It seems we have the redevelopment of Five Ways to thank for Salters being in Digbeth – the owners were forced out of their home in Auchinleck Square and chose the unit in Bradford Street as one of the handful of places available with an A3 license, which are like gold dust thanks to Birmingham City Council.
Richard’s right when he says the black pudding and bacon were amazing. And here’s why:
Bugger Lent and stuff yourself silly with Richard Trengrouse’s Week of Breakfasts. We will commence a whole week of munching Full English Breakfasts, Digbeth-style, on Monday. The itinerary is:
Monday 2nd March: Salters Cafe at the top of Bradford Street
Tuesday 3rd March: Eastside Cafe on Coventry Street
Wednesday 4th March: Bordesley Street Diner
Thursday 5th March: Barn Street Diner
Friday 6th March: Diner on Fazeley Street
Please come and join us between 7.30-7.45am each morning for a great, greasy start to the day. I will naturally report on my breakfasts and physical demise as the week progresses.
After finishing the Digbeth Type and Architecture Tour it was back to the Googlemap drawing board with another set of film clips, this time from the Richard Trengrouse Tour of historical Digbeth, which was far from a Christmas card image. The evil-sounding ‘Peaky Blinders’ made it a no-go area at night. Saltley was safe though, on account that it stank of sewage.
Apologies that the sound isn’t too good on this one, this tour was done earlier in December when I was still getting accustomed to my Flip.
nikki pugh » signage – Coming accross the above ‘Ouch’ on today’s Digbeth tour by Ben Waddington reminds Nikki Pugh of other strange signage she’s found on her travels. You’ll have to bear with me for the footage of Ben and Richard Trengrouse’s tours, I’m hoping to have time to get through it over the Christmas break.
An old style boozer with ~100 capacity upstairs function room complemented by a decent sized beer garden (covered in a stroke of genius by a large army surplus tent), staffed by efficient friendly bar staff and stocking some half decent beer. With a regular roster of faces and some great gigs…Hopefully it can survive the upcoming redevelopments which are threatening to put the kybosh on other (well established) Digbeth music venues…
Now I’ve got my new Flip I’ve been looking for things to film on it. Local historians Richard Trengrouse and Ben Waddington have been true gents and come to the rescue – both offering me their extra special tours of the area.
I’m meeting Richard Trengrouse at the Eastside Cafe at 8.30am this Saturday, from where we’ll set off after a hearty breakfast.
Ben Waddington’s tour starts from The Old Cown Pub at midday on Sunday 21 December – a great escape from the pre-Christmas madness!
Both tours should take no more than 1-2 hours. Please feel free to come and join us. If you can’t make it, watch this space for the Flip filmage instead!
