Brunch at Milk, Balham... Christmas Cheer

Brunch at Milk, Balham... Christmas Cheer

Yesterday felt like the beginning of the christmas holidays. We went out first to brunch with a group of my dear close friends, and then back to their place to eat cake, have mulled wine and drinks. We eventually had dinner and stayed till about 10pm, talking, laughing, and generally enjoying each others company. Coco got plenty of cuddles, kisses and spoiling from her 'Aunties'. I remembered that I would also like to have a collection of restaurant reviews, paying particular attention to how child friendly the restaurant is, so heres the first. I have only just realised I didn't take any pictures of the restaurant or our food, which is rather unfortunate. I had to borrowed this picture of the 'Convict' dish, see picture source below. I will do better next time.


Milk, in Balham, London [score: 2/5]

Who & When

Tuesday 1pm. Four adults and one baby.

Welcome

The lady at the door told us there was no room for the pram so we would need to seat outside. She wasn't particularly welcoming in her tone, either so we left. After trying a restaurant close by and finding that was closed, we returned to Milk. A space on the high benches inside opened up, I managed to convince the same lady that I could fold and park the pram by the window and finally we we were seated and ordered some hot drinks.

High hair & Pram space
No high chairs available. It's a small space, though it has been used efficiently, so it didn't feel tight. Getting the pram in and out was very awkward and we had to ask a diner to please make space for us to manoeuvre it out from where we had it parked by the window. Thankfully, he was very nice about it. 

Other Families dining

There was a family with one child that looked about 6 or 7, but most of the clientele were couples and friends.

Order

The menu at the restaurant is a little different to the one on their website, and I've been told it changes frequently. We had:

Our Order

• Convict with sour dough instead of a muffin. Convict is a sausage patty, hash browns, fried eggs and bacon with a chipotle sauce. It also comes with grated cheese.

• Corn bread with honey

• Sweet corn fritteria with grilled halloumi, bacon and avocado

• Poached eggs with white sourdough with bacon, spinach and salmon

• Fried eggs with spinach, sausage and a side of salmon

• A selection of teas and coffee

Food

I had the convict and the corn bread. The sourdough bread was delicious, as was the cornbread. I was not keen on the chipotle sauce or eggs, but the sausage and hash browns were tasty, and the bacon was crispy and just the right side of salty. Everyone else cleared their plate and was generally happy with their food.

Service
Our welcome was a bit terse and I felt like we had to insist on being allowed to seat indoors with the pram. We asked for sourdough instead of the muffin to avoid dairy in the 'convict', but the dish arrived piled high with cheese, which is not listed as an ingredient. They did apologise and offer to make a fresh one but I opted to scrape the cheese off the bacon, for the sake of time, I was starving at that point.The rest of the service was OK.

Other comments
I would go back for the food because, I wanted to have pancakes but they only do those on the weekend apparently, so that's what I will be ordering on my next visit. I wouldn't be keen to return with the pram though, as that was an issue (though I was not sure it really had to be big deal) and that really let down the service, which is a bit of a shame. If I do go back, I will update this review to reflect that experience.

Overall Baby & child friendly score

2 out of 5

picture source

  x

Brunch at Milk, Balham... Christmas Cheer