Coasters

Coasters is a lovely little independent café in the centre of Sale. It’s full of parents, prams and kids at the weekend but is a nice place to go in the week as the atmosphere is much more relaxed. I really like the décor and art work on the walls. I ordered the Veggie club sandwich which was filled with feta, tomatoes and tzaziki and the bread was really fresh too. The cakes at Coasters are delicious too. They have a good selection that change daily. You can see them on the counter. I’m a fan of the lumpy bumpy cake in particular which is a chocolate cake crammed with marshmallow and biscuit.

Normally this place and like many coffee shops in the area are crammed full of parents, prams and kids! Luckily, me and my friends ventured late in the afternoon and the place was pretty empty. This was only a pit stop and a start of a health kick which doesn’t seem to have stuck with me and we only had hot chocolates, teas and coffees. The staff seemed nice and there are lots of pictures on the walls of roller coasters.
I definitely will be back if I can get a seat and try out their food.

We got here around 9am. This was our first visit to this café as we usually opt for the very good coffee house on the other side of town. It was a miserable, very wet morning and we were well soaked through as we went in. It was pretty cool inside too, no heat to speak of and this was not good on a wintry day. We both had scrambled egg and bacon — this choice wasn’t on the menu, but it wasn’t a problem for the friendly server. Also we opted for a large flat white and a large skinny cappuccino to warm us both up. The plates and the food serving were both disappointedly quite small — we were served up two slices of very lightly grilled bacon each and I’d say two eggs each. The bacon rind was barely coloured. A tip — cut off the rind and cook it longer and put it on the plate work the already cooked bacon. The French cook and dry out bacon rind and grind it to powder as a seasoning. The menu here boasts free range eggs, bacon, home — made bread and cakes and while this is laudable we both thought that the breakfast portion size was on the mean side, especially at £4.50 each. The unit cost of two slices of free range bacon and two eggs would be less than £1. Toast was offered when we placed our order and we declined, but once the small plates arrived we regretted not taking toast. We got brown sauce on the side, which came in a tiny dish, about a 2 tablespoon squirt of sauce. The coffees were quite good, but over priced and brought the breakfast total cost for two up to £13.50, so all in all this was pretty far from value for money and we don’t like poor value. The lack of any heating combined with the top of the range food and drink prices has certainly deterred us from returning here — Sale has plenty of food places, and we don’t regret having tried this competition once. While I know there’s always a balance to be struck between portion sizes/​price and profit mark — up it’s pretty clear that in here the balance doesn’t fall on the side of the customer in either the food or coffee prices. That’s two customers lost.

New year is the time when I get on the scales and curse all food for the result but though shalt not take the lumpy bumpy cakes name in vain.
Serving a variety of beautiful, original homemade cakes of which lumpy bumpy (brownie base, cream, chocolate and fudge drewl inducing middle with a genache topping) was far and a way my favourite thing about Christmas this year. Lots of nibbles and sandwich type things are also available but well it’s not cake is it and we all know how I feel about cake…
The coffee is locally sourced, the soup looks and smells great and the whole place smells of freshly baked happiness in a way that reminds me somewhat of how I would feel if I were Charlie bucket in willy workers factory. As an added bonus the place is fairly kind to those old purse strings which are definitely on a diet for me this January. Having said all this the take home message must be lumpy bumpy cake. You really won’t have had anything like it. Feel free to bring me a slice and I will marry you.