In this series of reviews, Alfie Mulligan and Harry Warner will be delving into a world of cooked breakfasts and scrutinising Salford’s kaleidoscope of cafés and diners. From Blackfriars to Boothstown, Kersal to Cadishead, in the name of public service (and not for their enjoyment) they will ultimately crown one of them Salford’s best full English.
Today’s review once again takes our band of merry breakfast reviewing men back into Eccles in conquest of our next destination, Rosie’s Café.
Located on the right side semi-detached house, this converted café takes an unassuming role in the mise en scène dominated by the historic redbrick ‘The Grapes Pub’, built in 1903, directly next door.
If its presence is modest, so is its food.
Upon entry the size of the interior was baffling, as if Doctor Who had given up the day job and transformed the Tardis into a brunch-based café to go and serve full English breakfasts to the good people of Eccles.
The normal equation for these sorts of establishments is minimum shop floor surface area divided by maximum chair density that can only be likened to the proverbial tin of sardines.
Rather bizarrely, this is what creates charm and personality in cafés whose walls resemble hospital corridors and whose windows showcase ‘this English life’.
In its essence, its about community and Rosie’s Café may have forfeited the luxury of space scarcity by having such a large belly.
@likwid_media Yes, we are back with a bang in Salford and once again taking up the mantle of the search for Salford’s best Full English Breakfast! 🥓 Today’s review takes us to our beloved Eccles where Rosie’s café can be found at the end of its golden miles of 12 pubs. 🍳 The breakfast was average with the meat being the standout aspect while the amount of liquid on the plate spoilt it. Service was as frosty as the weather outside and the interior of the café bare. Certainly a respectable option if nearby, but not one to go out of the way for. All this earns Rosie’s Café a 2.8/5 from us. #breakfast #salford #food #fullenglishbreakfast #tasty #foodreview #eccles #beans #sausage #bacon #egg #scran #cookedbreakfast #foodie #foodtiktok #manchester #breakfasts #mufc #delicious #rosiescafe #cafe #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #xyzbca #abcxyz #goldenmile #cameronjerome ♬ original sound – Likwid Media
This faux pas seemed to be contagious as we were met by staff who greeted us with a tone of duty rather than friendly community spirit.
In keeping with Rosie’s Café’s theme of bigger is better, the menu was a veritable smorgasbord of ‘English Tapas’ featuring enough plates to give even the most established of chefs a migraine. The menu board was probably the dimensions of a table tennis table and including everything from the cooked breakfasts we had come to hunt down, to steak and milkshakes.
Elsewhere the menu offers some intrigue with its £22 ‘Mega Plus Breakfast’ which features six of all sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding and hash browns along with many other trimmings.
I ordered a small breakfast: sausage, bacon, egg, beans, tomato, mushrooms, toast, all once. This is the same combination whether you order medium or large just with varying quantities.
At £5.50 this seemed steep for what effectively, upon arrival, resembled a full English soup rather than breakfast. The beans were drowned in a watery tsunami of tomato sauce, while the tidal waves of chopped tomatoes and mushroom rubble made for one natural disaster of a cooked breakfast. In fact, rather ironically, the one thing that wasn’t wet was the egg yolk, which was as solid as a hockey puck.
The redeeming elements of this breakfast come in pork form; the sausage was the best I’ve eaten so far on the pursuit and the bacon was the perfectness thickness and full of salty, smoky flavour.
Unfortunately, however, this is not a sausage and bacon review and when all the instruments play there is no harmony in this confused edible orchestra. The combination of dry and wet seems disproportionate. Why serve already diluted beans with chopped tomatoes and mushrooms? For that price at least use whole tomatoes or takeaway the mushrooms and tomatoes for the holy grail of full English breakfasts, the black pudding.
Sure, there is always the possibility of catching the café on a bad day, we’re all allowed them. This is suggested by reviews on Just Eat, with one reviewer writing: “The best breakfast I’ve ever had delivered – every part of it was fantastic and it was the perfect size to make me feel totally stuffed! It’s not often I can afford the luxury of a delivered breakfast but whenever I can, it’ll be from here!”
However, as always, others beg to disagree with another saying. “It was okay… but wouldn’t order again.”
This polarization was echoed amongst our own party with some finding the breakfast better than average, nevertheless I cannot see it this way.
However, back to the small breakfast, it’s hard to justify the food and its quality for the £5 price. Brunch Munch were using Aldi ingredients sure, but they were cooking it well, and weren’t flushing out the plate with liquid, all for one Great British pound less.
The bacon and sausage were the highlights of an ultimately soggy disappointment that gets a 2.8/5 from Salford’s most notorious food reviewers.
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