Baguette Express is something of a local success story. Having started life with one shop in East Lothian, then expanded to a small chain of five shops, based in Edinburgh (Gorgie), Musselburgh, Tranent, Hawick, and Galashiels, bright sparks the Stenhouse brothers have grown it into a national chain of franchise stores, across the UK.
Exterior
Occupying something akin to the middle ground between Pret and Subway, the slogan promises “fresh, healthier food”. Today’s visit didn’t take advantage of the healthier element, but things were prepared to order, so certainly met the fresh bit.
I was in the mood for substantial breakfast fare, so opted for their “big breakfast box”. It seemed to contain rather a lot of elements for the £3.40 price tag, so I was intrigued to see what awaited me.
The first good sign was that the excellent counter man immediately got to work cooking all the items from scratch, rather than plating up reheated items. The beans were nuked in the microwave, but the rest of the elements were cooked up on the grill.
Big breakfast box
It took a minute or two for things to come together, so I had time to survey the deli counter, which had a good array of sandwich fillings.
With the grill items prepared, the chap carefully spooned in the beans to the tray, then added brown sauce, at my request, in a little space he’d left for such condiment goodness. In the end, the dish looked like a filthy great fry up, but the care and attention of placing the elements was appreciated.
I was soon tucking in, and while it was not the finest set of breakfast items I’ve ever tasted, I was pretty pleased with it. The haggis and black pudding were both very good, as was the bacon. The tattie scones were good, too.
So overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Baguette Express. I’ll need to pop back for lunch, at some stage, as the selection looked good and the prices seemed very reasonable. Certainly their breakfast represented really good value, so next time you’re looking for a hearty breakfast fill, pop by this place.
Scores
Blythe scores the Baguette Express
3.5/5 for food
3.5/5 for presentation
4/5 for service
3/5 for setting
giving an overall 14/20
Today’s quester was: Blythe
I ate: “big breakfast box” comprising two slices of brown toast, two potato scones, sausage, haggis, black pudding, fried egg, bacon, baked beans, brown sauce
I drank: nowt
I wore: new stripey socks
Total bill: £3.40
