Steam took over Roo Bar a good year or so ago and has turned it from a dingy student hangout with a heavy love of sports to…well honestly I don’t really understand the decor at all, it’s steam punk meets haunted mansion with some damn fine decking out the front.
Aesthetics aside they have been teaming up with Beats and provide a unique space in Clifton where there is plenty of outdoor seating and room to move around and great public transport links. So far so good.
Admittedly I am one of those people with a “crap sense of humour” who don’t find their Mother in Law burger amusing and it has put me off going there. Luckily i’m also someone who enjoys getting a bit pissed in the afternoon and has tried most of the other bottomless prosecco brunches in Bristol I swallowed my pride and told some friends to book and come get merry with me.
We nabbed one of their outside benches under a lovely new awning and was presented with a bottle of prosecco, a cool bucket and a really lovely waitress (please give this woman a raise, she’s amazing). The menu choices were good, lots of variants on stuff on bread or stuff on pancakes, good filling stuff. Most of the table went for the “Big Sur”, a take on the Full English, one for fried chicken on pancakes and one for courgette bread with egg and avocado.
We had warm pastries served first, blackberry, pecan and custard danishes that had been warmed. Not homemade as far as I could tell but I really wasn’t expecting them to be. They were devoured quickly by the group and all agreed it was a nice start, with leftovers kept for breakfast pudding.
The Big Sur was indeed big, a thick slice of toast with a bubble and squeak patty, sausage patty, bacon, poached eggs, fried potatoes and sides of salsa verde and refried beans. The good – the sausage patty was full of flavour, the toast was buttered generously, bacon crispy and salsa verde/refried beans were a welcome change to the usual beans on a fry up.
The niggles were the poached eggs, which were a touch on the underdone side, but most of the time I will eat the yolk and leave the whites anyway. The bubble and squeak wasn’t fried at all and under seasoned. It would have been great to have h a that fried, thick, brown crust I associate with Sunday evening leftover suppers.
The prosecco kept coming and that was a major plus as well as the service being fantastic and the brunch being very enjoyable I will go back again. £26.50 was very reasonable for the amount we drank and the quality of the food offered. The place was criminally quiet for a somewhere offering a pleasant outdoor boozy breakfast to be enjoyed with friends and we were encouraged to have another bottle 10mins before our service ended to “enjoy for as long as you like”. I think I rolled in about 3pm…
Get your tickets from Steam via Wriggle for Saturday and Sundays, 11am – 1pm sitting or 1:30pm to 3:30pm sitting.
Bedsit Bonne Vivante 