Home Sweet Home - Manchester

Home Sweet Home fills a hole in the NQ for cheapish (£6-8) decent sized portions of US diner style treats. They cover all the usual junk food mainstays with a solid brunch menu incorporating ‘bennies' (eggs benedict), coffees, waffles, French toast and cooked breakfasts. The core menu goes on to tick off other staples such as burgers, hot dogs, wings, chicken in a basket, some of the cheaper steak cuts, milkshakes (soft and hard!), loads of soft drinks and a couple of decent beers on draft. The main attraction is the cake cabinet stuffed with some of the most over the top cakes you'll ever see.

We're not talking ace of cakes design nonsense but real cakes that you'd actually want to tuck into themed in the most imaginative ways. Any kind of calorie control is rightly thrown completely out of the window.

On this occasion I tried the following:

Double cheeseburger with fries - despite being from the same family as Almost Famous, HSH take their own slant on burgers. Think well flavored McDonalds patties, decent in their own way but i'm so used to these inch thick rare burgers that everyone serves these days that this type of thing doesn't do much for me anymore. It was served with a mountain of fries which were well salted.

Goats cheese, red onion and spinach brioche - this was the special of the day and came served on a huge bed of salad. Since I was having a giant ice cream shake I thought I'd make a token effort at ordering a healthy version and this was a nice alternative to a burger - the brioche had plenty of filling and the flavours sat together well.

Latte - their filter is usually pretty decent but the latte didn't hugely impress, the base coffee had that soil taste you often get if beans are past their best. Honestly, if I wanted a strong fresh coffee in the NQ i'd head over to TeaCup or North Tea Power every time.

Shake - incredibly rich and thick ice cream and blueberry shake with fresh cream and fruit loops as the topping. Completely over the top and definitely very enjoyable as a result.

I had been on a run of bad service which had taken the shine off slightly and put me off dropping in for a while but things are definitely improving - the two waitresses who dealt with me on this trip were fantastic, very chatty and helpful. There were noticeably more staff hanging around than there had been previously so hopefully they've noticed the problem and dealt with it.

Home Sweet Home did exactly what I was in the mood for - well done comfort food staples served quickly and for a reasonable price. Food wise if I compare it to similar options within the city it doesn't hit the heights of Moose coffee for me with regards to but the cakes are the real highlight and not to be missed. 

If you're heading in late in the day (ie after work) then have a nose through the window as they do often seem to sell out by late afternoon which is a real shame as dropping in late evening for a piece of cake and a cold beer or coffee would give them a great late-night café vibe that the NQ could really do with. Now summer is here and the tables outside can be put to good use it's one of the most fun spots in the NQ for a quick lunch.