What’s he doing posting about a café, you might be asking yourself. It was only the other day he was reporting back on a meal at the second best restaurant in the UK – a meal that cost £155 a head, just for the food. Well, it’s because sometimes good food costs £155 and sometimes it costs seven quid.
We’ve been visiting the Gordon Rigg Garden Centre, once or twice a year, for well over 30 years. Even though it’s getting on for an hour’s drive. In the early years, there was nowhere to get a drink. Then they installed a vending machine. But, in recent years, they’ve opened a shop selling homewares in an old cotton mill directly opposite the garden centre. And it’s got a proper café. Now, when I say “proper”, I don’t just mean the physical surroundings. Oh, no, I mean the food as well. This is a place where lunch might be rag pudding and chips. Or cheese & onion pie and chips. Or, like today, a seasonal special sandwich of turkey, cranberry and, yes, chips. This is the north, you know – we like chips – often and in large quantities.
But we were too early for lunch. But not too early for breakfast – which is served all day. And I mean the “Full English” breakfast – two sausages (very decent ones), two rashers of bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, grilled tomato, baked beans, fried egg, two slices of toast and tea/coffee. Yep, that’s a breakfast that means you’re not wanting lunch. And a bargain at £7.25. My companion in life was much more restrained – two slices of cheese on toast. Thick cut bloomer bread, sharp mature Cheddar. What more do you want from cheese on toast.
