Or to be more precise ‘of two parts of one city’ viz Cambridge.
I’m a sucker for routine and part of my routine is coffee mid morning, that’s proper coffee mind you instant coffee is another drink. Along with my coffee I do like to eat and that might be my fall back Quaker Porridge to Go, a low sat fat cereal bar. Or it might be a croissant, but no butter or jam since my diabetes and cardio scares from pre-Covid times, a Danish or, if it’s on the menu, eggs of some sort.
Last Friday I was on medical transport duty to take my wife for a diabetes eye test in Chesterton. That was timed for 1100 and would take half an hour or so which gave me enough time to walk to CB4 Café which in previous days might have been of the greasy spoon variety with its customers being local with lots of workmen fuelling up for the day.
It’s moved on of course with a proper coffee machine and smoked salmon offered with scrambled eggs alongside the full English which its regulars demand on the menu. But sadly no avocado so I ordered plain simple scrambled. ’What kind of bread?’ I was asked. Hopefully I suggested sour dough but no the choice was white or brown!
The eggs were a tad anaemic but not overcooked and clearly scrambled my hand. And butter for the toast came separately. Sauces were already on the table: Heinz tomato and HP. For what more could you ask? I’d give it 3 stars out of a maximum 5.
On Saturday I continued to be a good husband and joined my wife shopping. We went to Waitrose south of the city close to if not exactly in Trumpington. It draws its clientele from the comfortably middle-class residents of South Cambridgeshire. There’s a café, the coffee’s fine and it does breakfasts. This time there was no choice of bread, it was sour dough, but there was avocado on the menu but no option to add it to other dishes. Strange.
The eggs at Waitrose were a rich yellow but they were overcooked and looked like they’d been through some sort of chopping machine: lots of straight edges and an otherwise a rather homogeneous texture. Sauces were available and service was very good but as a breakfast only 2 stars.
So what’s it take to earn 5 star scrambled eggs and where can you get them in Cambridge? The answer used to be simple: Brew, the independent coffee shop at the Marriott in Eddington. Sadly it is no more, probably the victim of an accountant’s number crunching, but when it was you got good yellow freshly scrambled eggs on sourdough with avocado if you wanted and chilli oil as another must have extra. The baristas were friendly and competent and, because of its location, you often found yourself sharing a table with interesting people who were just passing through.
I don’t know any other 5s but there’s a good solid 4 at Hot Numbers. Sadly the two everyday cafes in Histon don’t do scrambled eggs. Tara does but it’s only open for breakfasts Friday and the weekend. On those days it scores a 4 but it’s not as good as it used to be (see photo above) when I’d have given it a 5.
Elsewhere in Cambridge there’s the 121 cafe on Milton Road, the Michaelhouse Cafe on Trinity Street and Coffee Tree on the Histon Road.
Further afield there’s the Taproom in St Ives, Lot 25 in Willingham, Willow Grange on the Ely Road at Chittering and Café Amigo in Fowlmere, all worth a journey.
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