Thursday 5 June 2014

Don Pasquale - Cambridge

12A Market Hill 
Cambridge
CB2 3NJ




Its a good job I got this exterior pic when I first sat down, we eventually walked away in disgust!




 We were well aware it would be a tourist breakfast but as we couldn't find anywhere else nearby we decided to chance it.




 It was a hot sunny day so sitting outside was a bonus.




I wasn't exactly spoilt for choice and beans cost an extra 90p.




 I looked into the ashtray wondering what we had let ourselves in for..



My wife and I had been out to see some bands in Cambridge and spent the night in the campervan on the side of the road. The following morning we were up fairly early and left the campervan and headed into the centre of Cambridge with our hangovers looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. Most of the places in the city centre seemed to be trying to attract tourists meaning economy sausages were almost a dead cert. After looking for quite sometime we saw a breakfast menu at Don Pasquale, it looked ok and had an outside seating terrace, perfect on this hot sunny day we thought!

Upon entering - I never actually ventured inside but the area outside looked fairly pleasent looking out onto the market place. The tables had an ashtray, salt, pepper and sugar, the table we sat at was really wonky and set at a bit of an angle which had we stayed could have been a bit tricky to eat at. Behind us sat some guy shouting "why would I be eating macaroni cheese at this time of the morning" we wondered if he was drunk maybe? Moments later his macaroni cheese arrived and he piped down to eat it. 

Service - As we entered the outside terrace my wife asked a member of staff if they did a vegetarian breakfast, "Not on the menu but I can sort something out for you, take a seat" he replied. Great we thought and took a seat, moments later the same chap came over to take our order. I ordered a coke to help the hangover and my wife asked if they served freshly squeezed orange juice, the waiter wrote this down and them in a very loud and unfriendly tone replied "not freshly squeezed today but you know fresh orange juice" rolling his eyes in the process. It was at this point I realised that customer service was not his strongest point and we were feeling like we were an inconvenience and he had better things to do. I then placed my order for the Full English with beans which he scribbled down on his note pad. My wife asked what the vegetarian breakfast would include, "I don't know what ever we can find, corgettes, asparagus, stuff like that" he replied very abruptly. My wife made it very clear she was happy with just the Full English without the meat but didn't want any courgettes, asparagus or veg on it. My wife then ventured inside to use the bathroom, on the way out she heard the rude chap that had taken our order telling the chef "Any veg you can find, courgettes, asparagus, anything, just chuck it in". This was the not going well so we walked away and as we got a few meters away heard an abrupt voice shouting "I take it you don't want your breakfast then?" 

Being made to feel unwelcome, an inconvenience, spoken to abruptly and not being listened to is not the key to scoring well in this catagory. This guy (I believe he is one of the owners) was the rudest person to ever serve me and the proud owner of my first ever 0/10

Around ten minutes walk away we then found another place to eat breakfast called Tatties, full review here.



4 comments:

  1. Watch out Inspector - you might find a horses head in your bed! Seriously, I'm off to Cambridge next weekend, will give this a miss. Thanks for the blog, tried several top places for brekkie around the old city as a result!

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  2. More reviews like this please - most entertaining! Must have graduated from the Basil Fawlty school of hotel management.

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  3. Sorry to hear you didn't get a chance to eat there. We enjoyed a good breakfast this morning. A review posted on Cambridge Breaksfasts blog.

    http://cambridgebreakfasts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/don-pasquale.html

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  4. will never go here , its strange that in the uk there are so many bad italian run places but its not so strange really as I have eaten really mediocre in many places in italy. the worst was a place in galatone near lecce=uneatable and the worst caff was an italian one in acton =terrible

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