Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market – Week 17 and Deb’s
The latest in our expedition around Norwich market stalls was Deb’s which specialises in burgers, breakfast rolls and the like, perhaps the sort of location that many people would associate with the market. First impressions were positive, it looked clean and organised, with the team member coming straight over to welcome us.
I ordered a bacon roll which is always slightly risky for me in culinary terms as I don’t like how places such as Greggs serve the bacon, which is effectively near raw in my eyes and attached to a heap of fat. I don’t want any Ed Miliband moments with bacon rolls. I accept I’m just being very picky, but I thought I’d ask here if they’d cook the bacon a little longer for me. To my surprise and delight, they pro-actively offered to remove the fat without me mentioning that, as well as checking how crispy I wanted the bacon. I’ve never had such a cooked to order bacon roll before, this was a delightful piece of customer engagement as far as I was concerned and the server mentioned she likes bacon cooked the same way. And she’s absolutely right with that.
That bacon is served perfectly and I merrily put lots of ketchup on. This is a proper market roll from a proper market stall. They accepted cards and it came to £3.80, which I felt was entirely reasonable as there was plenty of bacon in the roll. This was like Americans serve their bacon, which is crispy and firm, no limpness here. The bun was light and fresh, it might not be exotic but this was a simple pleasure I can say.
James went for a bacon, sausage and egg roll, which he spoke highly of although in a perfect world he would have preferred a runnier egg. However, for next time, I’m sure that they’d cook everything just as he wanted it, this felt like that sort of place. James seemed to feel the need to pay immediately when they didn’t seem hurried, whereas I was already halfway through eating my bacon roll and conscious I’d pay when they asked. No point in delaying eating, especially when the bacon looked so delicious.
The server was conversational, engaging and pro-active, this was a laid-back and inviting stall. There are ledges around the outside of the stall for people to eat at and the food was served on proper little plates. It’s a small element of luxury in what is a traditional market stall that I’m looking forwards to returning to. Definitely one of my favourite stalls so far in this experiment. All very lovely.
