King's Lynn's Best Cafe Sausage 2015 - Part 1 of 10 - Pedlar's Hall Cafe

Way back in 2011 we visited four cafeterias in King's Lynn aiming to find out which of them (if any) served up half-decent sausages with their breakfasts. The answer was disappointing, and even the best of the four bangers we tried would not score very highly if we had reviewed it properly. But the testing process was a lot of fun and our convoluted points system caused much confusion - just the way we'd planned it.

Fast forward four years and we're doing the whole thing again, but bigger, better and more difficult to understand. We'll be visiting ten cafes instead of four, and the raiding party will double in size with Junior Sidekick joining yours truly. And instead of the cheapest breakfast that includes a sausage we're upgrading to the second cheapest. The amended rules can be found at the bottom of this review. One innovation this time round is our calling card - we'll be leaving a trademark tip of £1.23 at each eaterie, just to let them know that we've been....we're calling it the Mark Of Zorro Money. I wonder if any of them will notice?

Our first target was the winner of the 2011 competition - Pedlars Hall Cafe which is located right next to the bus station in beautiful downtown King's Lynn. We opted for Breakfast 2 which offers 6 items from - bacon, sausage, hash brown, egg, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, toast and tea OR coffee. JS opted for a milkshake which was added to the overall bill.


Service & Cleanliness: 3.0   Pedlars Hall is the preferred cafe for bus drivers and passengers alike, and is a very traditional establishment. Bolted down tables, unmatched cutlery, very few stains, great! The lady serving behind the counter was very friendly and brought our food quite quickly. If visiting with children be aware this is a working man's haunt and there may be occasional fruity language.

Sausage: 3.5  Last time we visited we said "The sausage was not as bad as expected, and although it was finely chopped it crumbled quite nicely when cut.  Rather over seasoned though." Has that changed at all? The simple answer is yes, this time round we were presented with sausages that all looked different to each other, crumbled apart quite well when pushed, and tasted....pretty good. Flavour was akin to a Lincolnshire, albeit a factory version. A real improvement in the sausage department for Pedlars Hall, hence the decent score.


Rest Of Meal: 3.25   The two photos show our choices of items. The quality was reasonable and not badly presented. The beans come as a virtual lake which is a bonus, although the bacon was fairly small and a little on the salty side. Altogether a decent £4-worth.


Price: Our meals averaged £4.55, which means that the price score for Pedlars Hall Cafe is 3.44.

Scores On The Doors (after 1 round):

P1 - Pedlars Hall Cafe 13.19 - the reigning champions are in the lead!


Scoring & Rules:

Points will be awarded in four categories; Sausage, Service & Cleanliness, Rest Of Meal and Price. The first three will be scored secretly out of 5 by the two of us and the scores averaged. For Price we are again using the Little Chef Olympic Breakfast (£7.99) as the benchmark, subtracting each cafe's price from this, and the resultant figure is their score (minimum score is zero). Simples!