Breakfast
The Koffee Pot serves breakfast until 2pm daily. The full English will set you back £5.50 including a tea or coffee. Just about every component of my fry-up was lovely, so here is a thorough examination of what made it so.
1. Bacon
Quality is important here, you don't want the really thin cut stuff that exudes white foamy stuff when you cook it, then shrivels to virtually nothing. This is not that. It's thick-ish with plenty of piggy flavour, and is cooked just right so the fat has crisped up.
2. Sausage
A budget sausage lets down many a fry-up. This is a decent sausage; a thick, juicy, well-seasoned plain pork banger. Perfect for breakfast. I don't like excitingly flavoured sausages in the morning, anything with leeks, apples or heaven forbid garlic in it is inappropriate at this time of day as far as I'm concerned.
3. Black Pudding
It's hiding behind the bacon. A nice slice of Bury black pudding. The good stuff. No further comment required.
4. Egg
I'm open to any variety of egg on my breakfast, today I stuck to the classic fried. It was timed correctly, with a soft golden yolk and no trace of hideous snotty uncooked bits of white.
5. Beans
Certain purists will tell you that beans should not be included in a traditional full English breakfast. They are wrong. Essential tomatoey lubrication.
6. Hash Brown
An often optional extra, but perfectly welcome when fried properly, which this was. Nice and crispy. Undercooked hash browns that turn into a greasy mush on the plate are not pleasant.
7. Tomato
It's not exactly prime tomato season yet, but they managed to serve a grilled tomato with some sort of taste, so full marks here.
8. Toast
Two slices from a bog standard sliced loaf. No complaints here, this just works with a fry-up. Not buttered with butter though. I've said it before and I'll say it again, everything is better with butter.
9. Tea
Served in a mug, with the bag left in allowing the punter to choose the strength of their own brew. Good.
10. Condiments
HP sauce is positioned in large bottles on every table. Ketchup is also available if you're that way inclined.
I ate the lot rather too quickly, and sat back to read the paper basking in a warm, porkulent glow. The portion size was just right, I was fully satisfied without needing to resort to digestive hibernation. If you're exceptionally greedy they do a larger breakfast that is essentially two breakfasts piled on the same plate.
Tea and Cake
My first visit to the Koffee Pot was just for a cuppa. I'd planned to check out North Tea Power, but it was rammed to the rafters and I couldn't be bothered to wait for a table. Plenty were available down the road.
I ordered a mug of tea, then the dicussion with the nice chap behind the counter went something like this:
Me: Have you got any cakes or puddings or anything?
Chap: We've got this toffee cake (points to a large loaf of not very interesting looking cake half covered in cling film).
Me: (pause, waiting to see if there are further offerings) Ok then I'll have a slice of that.
Chap: I could warm it up with some custard for a quid if you like mate.
Me: Sounds perfect (assuming it's a quid extra on top of the usual cake cost).
Chap: That'll be £1.90 please.
£1.90 for a mug of tea, a large slab of cake and a lake of (I think) tinned custard. The cake was actually rather nice too. Good music playing in the background as well (a bit of Marvin Gaye).
If I was cool and lived in a converted warehouse flat in the Northern Quarter, I'd probably come here every day. Unfortunately I'm not and I don't, but it's probably a blessing in disguise as I'd get too fat too quickly from the all the fry-ups and cakes and tinned custard.
9/10
The Koffee Pot
21 Hilton Street
Stevenson Square
Manchester
M1 1JJ
http://www.thekoffeepot.co.uk/
