Sultans Cafe

I saw this greasy spoon as we were walking by and had already decided we must get a bacon sandwich there the next morning. I was a little taken aback at the extensive menu. While I initially had in mind a normal bacon sandwich, I ended up ordering a sausage & bacon baguette… I was not disappointed! It was much larger than I expected and could only manage to eat half and had the rest later. The staff were friendly. The tea was good and fresh. Would definitely go again.

An empty, hungover belly meant my neurons were misfiring when I decided to eat here. It had people in so I presumed it must have its merits. It really doesn’t. Sometimes there’s a backwards logic which says that dives must have redeeming features to survive. Here I found none.
When people complain about English food, they’re talking about places like this. Vats of steaming baked beans reduced to a tasteless putty, prefabricated chipboard hash browns, sausages of alarming uniformity, bouncy eggs, cheap brown sauce, powdered black pepper. I ate this stuff up with no relish — by the end, it was a chore. It was cooked by someone who surely does this simply as a way to get paid, but derives no pleasure from their work. Accordingly this is food for people who don’t like eating.
Calls to mind that stomach-​turning scene from Withnail and I where that grotesque shebeast takes a big bite of an egg sandwich and it dribbles down her chin. Eugh.
To be fair, I got exactly what I deserved. A greasy spoon is a greasy spoon is a greasy spoon, but you’d get better fare from a Tesco café.

Soggy food and surly staff
I have visited this café several times as I have friends who live near to it and use it as their local.
On every visit I have been disappointed for one reason or another. The lunches are ruined by vegetables which have been boiled to oblivion. Eventually, after trying various different options in the hope of finding something edible, I resigned myself to the fact that all of the lunch choices were soggy, dull and tasteless.
Thankfully, the breakfasts are not blighted in the same way, however, depending upon the staff working on the day, the service can be poor and rude.
Today, the breakfast I ordered was given to another customer; by the time the waitress realised, it was too late and he had already tucked into it. She offered no apology to me and instead tried to get me to accept the other customer’s order, which was quite different from what I had asked for. When I declined it and asked to have the order I had originally placed, she was rude to me, despite the blame lying entirely with her. This was the final straw and I have now decided to stop using Sultans Café.

A brilliant little greasy spoon on Garratt Lane that deserves a mention on Unilocal is Sultans Café.
They do everything here — breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s really inexpensive and the atmosphere is friendly and down to earth — no frills. They’re even doing so well that they seem to be building a little extension onto the place too.
I would recommend this if you fancy eating somewhere, where you can read the papers and take a bit of time to yourself in chilled surroundings with tasty homemade grub.