Neighbourhood Cafe — Restaurant in Belfast

I've been in Belfast for a month and I come here at least once a week. Safe to say it's my favourite to go place for breakfast/brunch.

Favourites:

1. Eggs Benny for savoury: The benny eggs are always consistent and compliments well with the rich hollandaise sauce. The bacon's are personally my fav bacon around town, they are crispy and punchy with umami but they've somehow swapped the croissant and bacon base with the toast they use for French toast and fatty pork belly base. Not sure why but I thought the original combo was refreshing and innovative! Preferred the former yet the newer combo was yummy too with the juicy pork belly that goes well with the sauce and benny!

2. French Toast for the sweet tooth: nothing but good things for this fresh, nice fruity French toast that comes with caramelised whatever sweet magic that cracks when knived and melt-in-the-mouth French toast. One can imagine the sheer amount of wicked butter the masterminds have thrown into this fine piece of work. As someone who tries French toast from everywhere, this dish has dethroned my fav drury French toast in London and is hereby crowned as my favourite French toast of all time.

The side characters:

1. bacon naan: lovely bacons though the naan can get a bit bready with a flour-ish taste (would be better if the naan is crispy and thinner).

2. peanut rayu + scrambled eggs on sourdough toast: this one's good, the chilli oil, peanut, eggs combo taste well. And with the crunch of the sourdough it's just perf. I'd say the chilli oil is the heart of this piece.

3. seasonal hash: veg-friendly! For someone who is picky on veggies, I enjoyed the kale they made it crispy and edible.

4. salt beef on sesame bagel: standard as you'd expect from a salt beef bagel. A filling dish.

Drinks: Good, nutty coffee. Dirty chai was ok. Chilli hot chocolate was ok though I was expecting real, chopped chilli instead of chilli powder mixed with hot...

Really wish I could give this a higher score but the manner in which this establishment is ran is a joke. The crowd I was in took over an hour just to get inside despite multiple free seats, the queuing system is a joke. I loved the neighbourhood when it was in the old building before the fire, the service was better, the portion sizes were also larger but since then it has gone downhill. I once recommended people to go here, but I can’t honestly recommend it anymore due to how badly ran it is: from the queuing system, to the menu prices not being consistent online and in shop.

We spent 1 hour in the line only to find the queue also went inside. The system works by standing outside, once inside and it’s your turn you will order at the til before then being seated. Some people were directed on where to sit and others just has to find their own seating.

Prior to the new location you would have been directed inside, sat at a table and then your order taken. The new system is terribly inefficient and the waiting times show this. Multiple people in the queue were complaining about waiting, especially when you can see free tables on the inside with no one seated at them.

2 stars because the food was good but there are better brunch spots in Belfast that are cheaper and won’t have you standing out shivering in the cold...

Waiting 45 minutes outside in a queue before anyone came out to see us, I don’t think anyone knew what was going on. Somebody eventually came out and gave us a menu and when we were asked to come in we had to queue again for another 10 mins. We ordered our food and drinks at the counter to then be seated. At the counter I also noticed they had lovely tray bakes and pastries however they weren’t covered and customers were coughing over them. Our tea and coffee took atleast 10-15 mins to get to the table and we waited another 30 mins after our drinks to get our food. So we had no drinks when our food arrived. No one came to check on us or asked if we would like another drink. We both had the avo toast with bacon. It was alright - tasted nice but we were hungry after waiting over an hour and a half for sourdough avocado and bacon. It said it was supposed to have feta. It didn’t. The avocado was a scraping spread on the toast with not a lot to it. Disappointing. A lovely place, good location as town doesn’t have a lot of decent brunch spots and has a lot of hype around it. But could do with attentive staff letting you know what time you could be waiting for and if your food/...