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. 

Over the Moon Unit 16 Hays Galleria, Tooley Street, London SE1 2HD

Over the moon is a cheap cafe in the  Hays Galleria  which is a shopping arcade near London Bridge underground station.

 

Over the Moon offers some of the best value food you could wish to find near London Bridge station.

 

The food seems to consist of various sandwiches some of which are made fresh while you wait, a soup of the day, various pies, chips, a pasta dish and possibly some other hot food.

 

I had Steak and Kidney pie and chips followed by Chicken Soup (Yes they were delivered in that order) and a can of diet coke for £5.10

 

The pie and chips were really disappointing.  I realise I ate there at about 1.45 which is towards the end of the lunch time period.  That is however no excuse for the chips which appeared to have been heated numerous times and then left to go cold.  I got them just about warm.  they were large enough but they were soggy and tasteless. 

 

The pie had been microwaved I think.  it had too much puff pastry which was full of air with just a bit of sludgy gravy and small stringy bits of steak and a couple tiny cubes of kidney in the bottom.

 

This was mediocre school dinner standard at best.  It was No better, and probably worse  than the cafe in Preston bus station about 15 years ago.

 

The chicken soup was somewhat better.  It was hot, it had a reasonable amount of chicken and vegetables in and it tasted as though some milk had been used to make it.  I suspect it was home made.  Disappointingly it came with no bread.

 

Staff were friendly.  They read me the menu and guided me out of the cafe afterwards.

 

The prices represent great value and for that reason I would probably go back and try some of the other dishes that might be less sensitive to being stored in a hot cabinet for ages.

 

I would consider going back to Over the Moon if I was in the area because of price and helpfulness of the staff.  The chicken soup did show some potential.

 

Overall I give Over the Moon 5.5 out of 10.  I will go back in the future though and change the mark up or down depending on my thoughts second time around.