Nice, chic place for breakfast and more (From Echo)

Nice, chic place for breakfast and more

11:30pm Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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THERE’s nothing that quite hits the spot like a good breakfast the morning after the night before.

It was with this in mind I hit the fancy tables of Stop the World with my friend and my two sons .

The Parisian patisserie-inspired cafe, in Leigh Broadway, which sells teas, mikshakes, smoothies, cakes, breakfasts and lunches, describes itself as being a “purveyor of all things nice”.

It is a pleasure to sit inside. The decor is luxurious, but without feeling too exclusive.

Staff are friendly and accommodating and the atmosphere is informal and relaxed.

The tables spill on to the pavement meaning you can sit and relax, and watch the world go by on a nice day. This is just what we did.

The menu doesn’t advertise children’s’ portions, but the staff are happy to serve up half portions of adult meals especially for the kids.

Oscar plumbed straight for the fluffy American-style pancakes with blueberries and a side order of maple syrup, which he got very excited about being able to drizzle on himself.

The berries were plentiful inside the pancakes, which Oscar said were “scrumptious”.

Herbie went for a breakfast bacon baguette with a side order of ketchup, Jo chose a breakfast pannini – a nigella and sesame seed toasted pannini filled with Cheddar cheese and parsley omelette, grilled bacon, fresh tomatoes and ketchup.

While Herbie wolfed down his bacon baguette, Jo felt the pannini, although tasty, was a bit of a disappointment.

Excited by the description in the menu she expected it to be a big fat thing bursting with the filling. Instead it was a thin, rather modest affair and, she thought, at £5.20, a tad too expensive.

I went for the full breakfast, which was poached eggs, grilled crispy bacon, Cumberland sausages and field mushrooms all piled up on a toasted ciabatta roll with tomatoes gratin on the side.

Being a bit of a mushroom fiend, I also had an extra portion of mushrooms. The whole thing was heavenly and lots of it. On a minor point, I was disappointed with the poached eggs which were obviously cooked in one of those poachers and had hard and rubbery-edges, rather than the wibbly-slippery sides you get when eggs are dropped to cook in simmering water.

However, this didn’t detract from the lovely runny yolk oozing over on top of the carefully stacked morsels of food on the plate.

Overall I found Stop the World a lovely, light and welcoming place, with lots of lovely chatter and background noise going on, making it a great place to stop at any time of the day.

l Stop the World is open Monday to Saturday 8.30am until 5pm, Sundays 9am until 3pm.

What we ate Pancakes £5.20 Baguette £3.95 Pannini £5.20 Full breakfast £6.95 Cafe latte £2.40 Juices £2.40 Our verdict (out of five) Atmosphere 5 Food 4 Decor 4 Value 3 Service 5 Disabled access Yes