World famous in NSW, we had heard about BSB weeks before we planned our girls weekend away – and actually ended up visiting twice! Our return visit occurred largely because the bakery was in close proximity to our accommodation and due to our hangovers we needed food ASAP.  This post is about our second visit, which as a disclaimer, I should state was a lower quality experience than our first visit.

BSB is cute and quaint, in line with the village feel, however unfortunately the service didn’t deliver any village charm. Set in a restored century-old building, the breads and treats on display will test all willpowers, but we did manage to hold out for brunch.

On this visit, I went with the bowl of house baked beans with chorizo, poached eggs and sourdough bread. While a decent sized serve, the baked beans were nothing remarkable and could actually have been out of a can. The chorizo was definitely lacking, and I could only source 3 bite sized pieces. This differed to our first visit which had served up copious amounts of chorizo. On the positives, the eggs were poached perfectly.

Eggs benedict was also ordered, but this time my friend specifically requested bacon instead of the ham advertised on the menu. We had the benedict with ham on our visit the day previously, and once again, had different experiences between diners. My ham had been perfect ham off the bone, whereas my companion had quite a fatty gristly bit of ham. The hollandaise was also requested on the side, but unfortunately this was forgotten. The hollandaise is somewhat different to what we are used to – quite a strong lemon taste mixed with that of onion soup. All in all, this is a pretty sizeable breakfast meal, overall solid quality, and I consider it good value.

On this particular morning, my other two companions decided to go with the eggs, smoked bacon and roasted tomato. Usually served with fried eggs, they ordered poached and scrambled eggs respectively. BSB again proved its egg prowess with both sets of eggs cooked perfectly, although the accompanying tomatoes seemed under cooked and devoid of any real flavour. I also think that only one slice of toast (from a place famous for its baked breads) was a little stingy. Not a bad breakfast but far from being great.

Our coffees on the prior visit were rather weak, so two friends did specifically request strong flat whites on our return visit. Perhaps the request was considered patronizing and that didn’t warm the waitress to our cause?? Nonetheless, my companions declared their flat whites much better and ‘Sydney quality’ (yes, I’m pretty sure we were considered patronizing town folk!). My sparkling apple juice did just the trick for the hangover!

Return factor? For the delectable mouth watering sweet treats (one of which I ordered to take away and savoured on the car ride home) and pretty appealing savoury cabinet food, yes. The jury is out on their menu meals. I think the main problem was consistency (or lack of) with the varying quality of the same orders. Service is also a bit of an issue –  we struggled to solicit smiles from our wait staff and their general demeanour was stand offish. Worth a try anyway and you be the judge!