Cafe Hay — Restaurant in Wales

My husband was very happy with his full English breakfast and steadily worked his way through the very large plate. I ordered blueberry pancakes and asked for bacon too. I'm sad to say they were not at all what I was expecting. Three small (saucer sized) thin pancakes with blueberries on the side (instead of the fluffy pancakes with blueberries in the middle I was expecting). They were quite oily and tasted of slightly old oil, and I was unable to eat them after the first bite. No one came to check if we were happy with our food and if they had, they'd have seen my uneaten pancakes on the plate. The blueberries and raspberries on the side were really high quality lovely fruit, and there was a good portion of maple syrup. The very sweet waitress asked if I wanted any sauces and (before I'd tasted my pancakes) I asked for a spoon of Greek yoghurt which she happily brought - in a decent sized bowl. So my breakfast was bacon, Greek yoghurt and berries. All very nice but not what I was expecting and involving absolutely minimal cooking, with ingredients I already had in my fridge :( Like most of the eateries in Hay, prices are VERY punchy (£9 for a baked potato?) and I didn't feel the quality of the food matched the pricing unfortunately. No atmosphere - hard wooden floors/wooden tables and chairs so no character, which would have been forgiven if the food had been top notch. There are better options a few...

Go elsewhere.

Walked in as this cafe had plenty of spare tables and two or three people eating the breakfasts. The venue looked very well kept but did have a greasy spoon smell, usually to my liking. Was met with vacant stares and clearly miserable staff. It was only 11am. We chose a table, looked at the food menu, decided and I waited at the till for 3 mins, again with waitresses just staring at me as they stood there by the coffee machine three feet from me making no attempt to serve me or anyone in the que. Eventually I decided to brave conversation and smiled asking for food for table 9. I was rudely told 'what?' and when repeated 'we aren't doing food'. Obviously I was confused, as when this was said two breakfasts were brought out next to me to a table. I asked and she said 'yeah we're busy' and that was that. Very disappointed, you couldn't manage food orders for under half your capacity and just expected customers to know this. Put up a sign instead of watching us stand and wait. And with regards to the attitude and staring, get...

I'm not saying this is the best full English in the UK but for my part I can't imagine how it could possibly be improved on. First off, as any fool knows, the most important thing about a breakfast is the quality of the components and this was absolutely superlative in every part. The bacon was perfect: tender, and tasted only of bacon rather than heaven knows what. Superb sausage with no unpleasant textural surprises in it. Fresh egg, perfectly cooked. I was a little unsure about those vine tomatoes at first, but the chef had seasoned them with a decent sprinkle of rock salt and that transformed them. Even the fried bread - such a difficult thing to get right - was ideal: crisp and tasty suggesting that fresh oil had been used. The café itself was clean, pleasant and quiet without being weird. All in all, this was a full English for the ages and a sublime experience which I savoured...