Now that we have the little boy keeping us busy in the morning and taking up all of our time we don’t get to spend that much relaxing time together, so myself and Mr Gourmand try our hardest to make the most of the weekend we usually start with an early Saturday morning breakfast. We have been really lucky recently with the quality of the breakfast places we have visited so we thought lets have a wander over to Warwick and see if they have anywhere to compete with our current favourite in Leamington.
We had a look at a few reviews and decided on The Rose and Crown. This place was lovely inside, very professional staff, nicely decorated, and more importantly very busy – so busy that we weren’t sure if you had to wait to be seated or seat yourself because the staff were running around keeping the hungry public happy!
We ordered a couple of coffees and an orange juice for Mr Gourmand while we poured over the menu. What a fab way of presenting the condiments, and who can resist a small bowl of smarties! The menu was quite expensive, a little more than some of the places visited recently, but you have to try somewhere and see if its worth it don’t you!
Breakfast time, and unsurprising we went for the full English and the Vegetarian – to be honest I feel this is a really good test of a breakfast eatery. The full English must use good quality sausages and bacon, the eggs must be done well, and to be honest if that part is done well, then rest is just a bonus! The Vegetarian is a bit more tricky. This is usually a test of how inventive the cafe and chef want to be. After all, its easy to throw on some fake bacon and Linda Mcartney sausages, but in my opinion, that is not good enough. As you know I’m not a vegetarian I just don’t eat pork so I actually want the Vegetarian breakfast to explore a few options and become its own distinctive meal, not just a fake full English with no imagination and ‘non meat alternatives’!
Mr Gourmand looked a little bit huffed when his arrived. The quality was there, the taste was there, but to be honest the portion size was not. It was also missing something like beans to play with and mix in with the glorious bread. He remarked how tasty it was, but sadly in the back of his mind I could tell he was comparing to somewhere else, and I couldn’t blame him. It was quite a bit more expensive than his current favourite Leaf.
I was rather impressed with the vegetarian breakfast, I have no idea what the item that resembles stuffing actually was but it was so delicious that I actually want to go tomorrow morning just so I can sample it again! As you can see there is no fake bacon or sausage here, to be honest it wasn’t needed as the unidentified item and fried bread more than makes up for the meat. The scrambled egg was creamy and cooked in a pan rather than blitzed in a microwave and the beans tasted like Heinz which always gets a thumbs up from me.
The breakfast here is a little more expensive than our usual place of choice so I couldn’t justify coming here every weekend for breakfast, I would place this in my top 5 places for breakfast in Warwickshire though and I’m looking forward to our next visit.
If someone can tell from looking what I had on my breakfast I would be most grateful.
Madame Gourmand 