breakfast on east coast line

While travelling up to York on the East Coast Line yesterday I opted to buy a full English breakfast from the buffet.
This is cooked fresh and includes smoked bacon, fried or scrambled egg, one sausage, a large flat mushroom, 4 cherry tomatoes, baked beans, black pudding and a potato cake.
This breakfast costs  6 pounds 95.
Generally the food was good though the sausage was no better than a Sainsburys butchers choice so it was of higher quality than a typical basic cafe sausage but not outstanding.  The black pudding had good coarse texture but it was not really spicy enough and it was a little bland.  The breakfast did not include toast but there was a potato cake which helped add bulk.  The cherry tomatoes were a nice touch as they are sweeter and more tasty than larger tomatoes.

 

The breakfasts are cooked fresh and served to passengers in first class on plates with proper knives and forks.  When you buy the breakfast from the buffet however it comes on a plastic tray with a lid and you only get plastic knives and forks which always feel a bit insubstantial.

I also bought a coffee which cost about £2.00.  . It was proper ground coffee and it was the best coffee I have had on a British train.
Amazingly there was also instant coffee available.
Are there really people who prefer instant coffee to freshly ground coffee

 

Over all I felt this breakfast represented good value for on-train catering.  It probably cost 2 pounds more than a similar breakfast would cost in a cafe but the quality was very higher than average.

 

I would give this breakfast 7 out of 10.  I would have liked a little more of it.  2 eggs and 2 sausages would have been good and the option of toast would have been welcome.