Caffe Toscana streak in front (From Halstead Gazette)

Caffe Toscana streak in front

10:00am Saturday 23rd March 2013 in News

IT’S a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Bacon Connoisseurs’ Week began on Monday and it would be wrong not to mark it in some way, given the number of fine eating establishments in Halstead.

The Gazette team stepped up by ordering bacon butties from four town centre cafes, to decide which would streak away as the winner.
 

IT’S not every day you get told to drop everything and go and get as many bacon sandwiches as you can, bring them back to the newsroom and eat them.

But this week, that was my job. One of them anyway.

I’ll have to get this in early doors, our office is in Braintree, so I had to ferry the sarnies on masse from Halstead so they probably didn’t arrive in the mouths of my fellow tasters in first class condition.

First up was Halstead Cafe, in High Street.
 

The quality of the rashers varied through the sandwich, with one colleague blaming me for some stringy bacon she discovered.
 

But to be fair, the taste of the bacon never varied and at the bargain price of £2.10, it’s hard to argue.
 

The team decided on 16 from a possible 25.
 

Next up was Prego, also in High Street. It threw the team a curve ball by serving smoked bacon but we quickly got over that once we’d had a few bites.
That rasher quality was top notch and the bread played its part, too, but at the second most expensive, at £2.45, it was marked down for value for money, leaving an overall mark of 17.
 

Blacksmith’s was a little hard to find, but the team was glad I did.

At £3, it was the most expensive of the four, so it had to be good to compete.
 

And it was. Mostly because we quickly realised why we paid a little extra, given the extra slice of bread stuck in the middle.
 

As a result, we settled on 18 out of 25, and we thought we might have a winner.
 

But, storming through in first place is Caffe Toscana, in Bridge Street.
 

The news team decided the bacon was as good as you’re likely to get, while the bread had an army of admirers.
 

And at £2.30, it doesn’t break the bank, leaving Caffe Toscana the outright winner with an unassailable 19.