Restaurant review: Village Cafe and Bistro, Banstead

Christmas Eve, when it is also a Saturday, is going to be a very busy day on the high street - and restaurants and cafes most likely benefit from the increased footfall as well. So we were lucky to get a table at the Village Café and Bistro in Banstead, Surrey, given they made a mistake and messed up our booking!
We were spending Christmas Day with my family so wanted to see my husband's family on Christmas Eve. His sister-in-law had decided to take her family (husband, her mum, and two kids) to a café for brunch in the morning and extended the invitation to me and my husband and his parents. So in total there were nine people, and my sister-in-law had booked a table for 11am.

As we arrived I was surprised to see a long table in the centre of the café already in use, and every other seat was a table or booth for no more than 4. Wondering if they had an upstairs or where they were going to put us, we spoke to the waitress, who seemed confused and went back to the counter to check with a colleague - it turned out they had no record of the reservation! My sister-in-law had rung to change it when we added more people, and we think this is where the mistake occurred - that they either cancelled the booking or misunderstood and thought she was changing it to a different time or day.

Luckily at that exact moment the family around the larger table got up to leave and the staff were able to add another small table onto the end to make it big enough for us.

The menu is extensive with a wide range of breakfast choices; I was torn between several different things and noticed there was even a 'build you own' cooked breakfast - most people I know who like a full English would prefer to have it without the baked beans, or with an extra sausage, scrambled eggs instead of fried, or with mushrooms instead of the tomato and so on. This way you can pick exactly what you want, which is just what my husband did, and he was really pleased with it.

I had eggs benedict, one of my favourites. It was served on what I think was a thick piece of sourdough rather than an English muffin (though I could be wrong, I am a bit delayed in writing this review!) with smoked salmon, two pretty good poached eggs, and some sprigs of greenery, sliced cucumber and sliced tomato (a bit unnecessary but it looked pretty on the plate) and the hollandaise sauce in its own little jug.

The food was good, and the service wasn't bad considering how busy they were (if you forgive the mistake over our booking) and the prices are very reasonable - this is definitely somewhere I would consider coming back.