The Early Bird Cafe on Mutley Plain is a family run independent cafe with a small artisan bakery. We had originally headed up to the plain looking for the Goodbody’s Diner in the hope of some random Plymouth greasy spoon action, that place was closed up so fate took us to the rather excellent Early Bird instead.

We arrived just too late for breakfast so we were on the Brunch menu but luckily that menu had plenty of breakfastesque options for us to eat so it was all good.

I had my eyes on the Early Bird, which is where it might get confusing for a moment as their signature Brunch dish is named after the place within which it will be scoffed

The Early Bird for £5.95 was officially listed on the Brunch menu as being “Thick cut butcher’s bacon, traditional handmade Cumberland sausage, fried egg, grilled tomato, mushrooms, hash brown, Heinz baked beans & sourdough bread.“

That sounded like just what I was after so we ordered two of those, one each not two for me (although that has been known to happen)

The Early Bird Brunch

The Bacon which was described as Thick Cut was as stated, it was meaty and just the perfect level of crispiness that I like. It said that it was “Butcher’s bacon” and to be honest I didn’t know that they was any other kind, maybe the Barber next door was trying to get in on the sliced cured pig action, maybe they just meant it was from an actual butcher and not out of a packet from the supermarket ( I know I am over analysing that 🙂 )

The sausage was a nice well cooked and well herbed effort, it said it was a Cumberland sausage and I was assuming that they meant flavour and filling wise as it wasn’t in a little curled up ring, well anyway it was really good too

I liked the fried egg with a white that was just cooked, and a soft runny yolk. I also was pleased to see that it was lightly seasoned with a little sprinkling of black pepper which saved me the bother.

I usually find that the tomato on my breakfast plate to be a bit of a sad affair as it is usually out of a tin or just an undercooked half. Here though at The Early Bird it was a somewhat joyous experience as it had been grilled perfectly. If anything I was saddened that there was only one half, perhaps the breakfast gods had posted a message on the breakfast tomato message board to suggest that I was a lost cause and not to bother turning out en-masse.

I have to say that this is one of the best cooked breakfasts I have had for some time. Pretty much every single item on the plate was cooked just as I wanted and for once everything had a place and was enjoyable.

I usually find at least one ‘clunker’ that I wish was better quality, or better cooked, or even not on the plate, but honestly here at the Early Bird I had no complaints, well none except that I wanted more of everything and to be fair that is not really a genuine complaint as I could have had The Big Bird for £8.95 which is the Early Bird doubled so presumably two of everything 🙂

The Early Bird is located at 51 Mutley Plain on the corner of Lisson Grove. If you know where Goodbody’s Cafe Diner is? Well its just along from there