Panera Bread – Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Panera Bread is a chain operation, let's make no bones about that, but it's good and worthy of mention. The one I've been visiting for breakfast over the past day or two is located within the same building as my hotel, the Quality Inn.

Paper cups – showing Panera's fast food credentials.

When I first visited Panera Bread I was a little unsure whether I liked it or not. It has a fast food store formula, combined with a bit of the Starbucks methodology of a separate area where you can put skimmed or whole milk in your tea and coffee. There's a bank of cashier terminals behind which is the store's menu displayed overhead like in a McDonald's.

Panera offers up a very spacious environment and, it has to be said, a homely atmosphere. It's even got a private dining area and larger tables for those who want to conduct meetings.

What I found impressive, apart from the cheap prices – $11.30 for a Power Sandwich (ham, egg and cheese) a Bear Claw (a pastry of which I'll explain more in a second or two), a hot tea (a ginger and orange concoction that was very enjoyable) and a bottle of fresh orange juice – was that the portions were not huge. You might think that a Power Sandwich would be a huge sub overflowing with crap, but it was just under the size of a normal sandwich in the UK and, it has to be said, was so tasty I could have ordered another

The pastries were a little on the large side and I discovered what I believe to be the best pastry ever – the Bear's Claw. I don't know what's in it, but in essence it's a Danish pastry shaped like a bear's claw and it was delicious. Worth every cent at $1.79 (roughly a quid in the UK, although, in the UK it would cost the best part of £3.00, probably just under, but equating to roughly $6.00).

I had a Bear's Claw yesterday too and loved it so much I couldn't resist another one this morning. f

Panera Bread is independent from the Quality Inn and is merely sharing the same building, but that's good news for Quality Inn customers and for Quality Inn as it doesn't have to provide a restaurant.

You can't beat a Bear's Claw – I could eat another one!

The lift in the hotel has one floor marked as R. This is the Panera Bread floor from where I have just hot-footed it to my hotel room to write this post.

That's a large plate and a large Danish pastry

Panera Bread is open throughout the day and right up to around 9pm in the evening. It's good and just what the doctor ordered if you don't like those poncy hotel breakfast services where you're checked in, directed towards a table and then asked if you want tea or coffee and so on. To be honest,  I like the poncy breakfast experience, but sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

There are standalone Panera Bread units too. Check out the link by clicking here.

Addy's Restaurant, 99 St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, 44113 USA

A cup of tea for $1.19 in Addy's in Cleveland...nice place.

Restaurants like Addy's have largely disappeared from the high street and replaced, more often than not, with rubbishy branded operations that think they can charge a fortune and get away with it purely because they offer consistency. Yeah, right, like a consistently high price and the same old boring product wherever you are in the world. It's all a result of globalisation and it means that wherever you are in the world, there's a danger you might find a Claire's Accessories or a Starbucks or any other big brand name you might care to mention. Suddenly, the world is no longer an interesting place.

Well, as Buzz Lightyear said, 'not today!' In these troubled economic times I expect to see more restaurants like Addy's, not less of them. In the UK, in a Surrey town going by the name of Redhill, there used to be the Belfry Café. It was the sort of place where you could buy a huge brick of bread pudding and a large mug of tea for next to nothing, served by school dinner ladies. It's now an expensive Costa Coffee.

Addy's, I'm told, has been around for a long time and is part of the Cleveland furniture, so to speak. This, of course, is music to my ears and I'm starting to think that somebody would make a killing if they set up a 'cheap' restaurant like Addy's in the UK. It's all about volume in a place like this, but I'm guessing that Addy's does all right because people don't want to spend a fortune at lunch time.

Inside Addy's – note lack of tablecloths and tabletop condiments. Excellent!

I'd just had lunch in a slightly 'poncy' restaurant a few blocks away and while it was fine and I had a couple of glasses of cabernet, Addy's was where I should have been: sauce bottles on the table, no tablecloths, a laminated menu – heaven! And, most importantly, it won't break the bank.

But it's more than just price, it's the food on offer. Why is it these days that you only get to eat chopped sirloin and onions, roast beef dinner or grilled liver and onions when you visit grandma? It doesn't have to be that way. At Addy's you can get meals like these for $6.99 – wow! That's £3.50 thereabouts (the price of a cup of tea and a cookie in a UK-based Costa Coffee). Or how about shrimp in a basket for $6.99? Addy's is value personified, but sadly, I just had a cup of tea ($1.19) and had missed the earlier lunchtime bustle.

I say open more restaurants like this, even if it's goddamned chain, although chains = greed = extortionate prices, so let's just support our independent operators.

Addy's gets top marks just for being Addy's.

Arabica Coffee House, Standard Building, Cleveland, Ohio

I was determined to find some kind of independent coffee house in Cleveland, but kept getting directed to Starbucks – or rather, not directed to Starbucks, but when asked about coffee shops that was the name that was on most people's lips. Still, I managed to find the Arabica Coffee House and at first I was confused as to how to get inside.

The Arabica Coffee House is part of Cleveland's historic Standard Building, owned by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a union of some kind and still the driving force behind this amazing building.

To reach the Arabica Coffee House you go into the Standard Building first and there it is, designed no doubt, for those working in the building. It's pretty basic, but the staff are friendly and the prices are ridiculously low when you compare it to a Costa Coffee in the UK. Put it this way, I had a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie and a medium-sized paper cup of tea – for $2! That's about £1 in UK money. Had I ordered the same thing in a Costa, it would have set me back much more. That cookie would have been, at its cheapest, £1.75 and a pot of tea (carrying much less than my medium-sized paper cup) would have been roughly the same – that's £3.50 (or about $7).

Good value, friendly staff – Arabica Coffee House, Cleveland, Ohio.

When I told the girl serving about this she gasped with horror at the thought of paying so much for just tea and cookie.

I sat down for all of a minute when the phone rang and the girl said I'd have to go as she was getting a delivery, so I went out into the lobby of the Standard Building and watched the Ariel Castro sentencing on the television. Oddly, the whole thing had happened live across the street earlier in the day.

In Cleveland they pronounce 'Arabica' differently from the way we do in the UK. In the UK it's 'A-RAB-ica', but in Cleveland, it's 'ARA-beaker'. Strange but true.

Verdict: nice place and good value for money compared with the UK and, indeed, the Starbucks near the Cleveland Marriott, but they lost points for kicking me out when a delivery arrived.

Sun, sea and the Lobster Pot in Felpham...what a great combination!

I haven't visited the old Lobster Pot for a while and I think the last time I was there I moaned about having to wait one hour for a sausage sarnie. Well, fair enough, but I'm never one to bear a grudge, certainly where my all-time favourite caff is concerned. And even if the larger-than-life lady is no longer around, the Lobster Pot abides, which is good news for Felpham and good news for people like me who remember the place from their childhood days – when it was called Perdido's – and who simply love the place.

This is an old photograph and I need to take a new one.

I've worked as a journalist for some time and I've spent a great deal of time writing about hotels, pubs and restaurants and once, it has to be said, I took somebody fairly senior in the foodservice industry to the Lobster Pot for lunch. Normally we'd have gone to some swanky joint with tablecloths and polished wine glasses, but instead we basked in the glory of the best caff on the South Coast. I'm going back to the days of the larger-than-life lady, of course, but I'd take business associates to the Lobster Pot today too, especially now it's open in the evenings, although I live too far away to make it practical without a hotel stay being involved.

So, anyway, here we are, talking about the Lobster Pot again and you're probably wondering why. Well, it's because I've been there again, last Sunday to be precise, on a scorching hot day. It was good, there was no long wait for food, we ordered the soup of the day, a bowl of chips and a chicken and chorizo sausage sandwich plus tea and milkshakes and the bill hovered around £21 – not bad at all!

The place was crowded with loads of people sitting outside taking in the sun, the tide was going down, revealing the wet sand and rockpools and, all-in-all it was worth another mention.

I'm no longer a foodservice journalist, but that won't stop me bringing business associates to the old Pot if the situation demands it.

To conclude, the Lobster Pot rocks. We returned for ice cream and I enjoyed another mug of tea too.

Le Metropole, 24 Place Rihour, Lille

Le Metropole, Lille.

I was really looking forward to finding a cosy café in which to settle down with a book for half an hour or so, but despite wandering around a grey and rain-soaked Lille looking for an ideal spot, I couldn't find anything and settled for Le Metropole.

Le Metropole doesn't really fit the bill, but it had to do. There was an old man sitting under an awning outside and behind him the darkened interior and the diner-style seating made me feel that it was the closest I'd get to luxury – although I was disappointed on so many levels. It just wasn't cosy enough. There were banknotes stuck to the walls and it was licensed, which means it doesn't strictly follow TeaShopandCaff guidelines.

I was in for breakfast – or rather a pre-breakfast as my official breakfast at the hotel beckoned. Having said that, had Le Metropole offered a decent breakfast, I might have settled in for half an hour or so before making tracks to work.

A teapot without a proper lid containing hot water – it just isn't cricket!

The French, I've discovered, just don't understand tea. If you order tea, they never provide milk and you have to ask for it, which is a bit of nuisance. And this time, I ordered my tea and a croissant too. The teapot didn't have a lid, but instead a small plate. There was hot water, not tea, in the pot and I was provided with a tea bag in a sachet, a wrapped biscuit that one normally gets with after-dinner coffee and the croissant, served as is, with no butter. I had to ask for milk and was given a small jug so I poured in a little dash of milk and returned the jug to the bar.

There were two other customers inside and they didn't seem very happy. One, in fact, seemed positively irritated with me for ordering tea and then having the audacity to ask for milk.

I drank my tea, finished my croissant and left having paid the EUR5.10 bill.

Not an ideal place, I thought, wondering if I would ever find the perfect cosy café. Later, I found a bar and enjoyed a medium-sized Chimay prior to catching the EuroStar to London. The Moulin D'or (31-33 Place du Theatre, 59000 Lille) was the perfect place and, if the truth be known, I probably could have ordered a pot of tea there, but it was early evening and a beer fitted the bill nicely.

Rosi's Sit Down Café, near The Moor, Sheffield City Centre

Ignore the graffiti, this is a great caff and worth a visit

The sun was shining and I had a little time to kill based on the fact that I'd risen early and was ready for a bit of fresh air at 7.30am. My hotel was in the city centre so I headed out for walk through Sheffield, following the tram lines as I was told by the hotel receptionist.

It goes without saying that I was on the look-out for an independent café, but all I could see was the well-known brands: Costa, Café Nero, Starbucks and Gregg's. I walked for what seemed like a fair bit of time, but was only 15 minutes, when I reached a sign saying The Moor. Looking ahead, it was a dead end, but I walked towards a strange-looking sculpture and had no option other than to turn left.

My journey had taken in plenty of closed down shops, which was depressing, but even more depressing was the lack of a decent 'caff'. But then I spotted Rosi's. It was open and I peered through the window to see what it looked like on the inside. It looked great: linoleum floorings, tubular steel chairs, tables covered with plastic tablecloths – tasteful ones.

Food was frying on the griddle and there was a friendly woman in charge, although she wasn't Rosi. Or was it Rosie? She told me that everybody calls it Rosie's, meaning that a letter 'e' might be missing from the name (although no space for it must mean that it's Rosi's).

The bright and cheery interior of Rosi's

I was the only customer, but then it was only 0745hrs. After a short while two young girls, probably on their way to school, came in and ordered something, bringing the total number of customers to three.

I liked the name of Rosi's Sit Down Café. It was the 'sit-down' bit I liked, something you don't hear 'down south'. Aren't all cafés 'sit-down'?

I ordered two slices of toast and a mug of tea and took a seat at the back of the restaurant where I perused the laminated menu. This was my sort of place: roast dinners, omelettes, snacks, they did everything here, even home-made pies (with gravy and fresh vegetables).

My mug of tea and two slices of toast – lovely!

In fact, let's take a look at some of Rosi's fine fayre: the aforementioned roast dinners are £5.00 (£4.50 for pensioners); the home-made pies range from £4.10 to £5.10 and there's one option with free tea or coffee. There's home-made quiche (from £3.10 to £4.10) a wide range of omelettes, jacket potatoes and pasta dishes. I mean, this is a caff's caff. If you live in Sheffield, go there today.

The toast was good and so was the tea, but I decided not to have a big fried breakfast and instead, after about fifteen minutes, I left and walked back to my hotel, past the branded coffee shops and bakeries, the shuttered shops and the Peace Gardens where water cascaded and fountains forced frothy water out of the ground.

I'm so glad I found Rosi's. The bill, incidentally, for two toasts and a mug of tea was a respectable £2.10p. What more could you ask for, I thought, picking up a newspaper and reading how Ken Barlow had been charged over 1960s rape allegations. What, I wondered, is the world coming to? I later read that veteran broadcaster Stuart Hall played his joker and owned up to various distressing crimes. He gets sentenced in June and is now branded a 'sexual predator'. Whatever next! Well, there's plenty more 'veteran broadcasters' coming up in front of the courts...

Chez Sophinette, 184 rue Cardinet, Paris

Chez Sophinette, Paris, 19 April 2013.

This small little café adjacent to my hotel, the Abrial, on the Rue Cardinet, Paris, looked a bit like a snack bar when I first passed by. There were 'meal deal' posters on the window, which is always a bad sign in my books. So, I weaved my way towards the Rue Brochant where, the night before, I had spotted a nice little café, but, alas, it was closed, so I walked around the block and went back to the Chez Sophinette.

It was a small place with tables by the window and a servery, behind which a rather attractive French woman was busying herself with whatever people who work in cafés busy themselves with.

"Bonjours!" I said with a smile, adding that it was the only word in French that I knew, but then, as I sat down to await my breakfast, I realised that I was mistaken: there were loads of words, especially if you took into account all those French words that have made their way into the English language, like 'entrepreneuer'.

I ordered tea, fresh orange juice and bread and jam, having turned down the traditional croissant, which, incidentally, the girl behind the counter DIDN'T pronounce in that awfully pretentious way that English people do: 'cwass-orr'. I hate that and found it refreshing that the French don't pronounce it that way, just poncy English people. I might be wrong, of course, and would only know the truth if I conducted some kind of survey by asking random Parisiens to say 'croissant'. Needless to say, I couldn't be bothered.

Petit Dejeuner – a small breakfast on a small tray, but then came the bread!

The breakfast was pleasant (see photo). A pot of hot water, a trendy tea bag (English breakfast), a can of fresh orange juice – rare to see these in the UK and, I have to admit, I thought she'd handed me a fizzy drink, like Fanta, but no, it was genuinely fresh, 100% orange juice with no added sugar. The bread was amazing. Not a slice of bread but a kind of crusty baguette thing smothered in strawberry jam. Oddly, I'd asked for marmalade and she told me I could have apricot or strawberry, not understanding, perhaps, that in England marmalade is predominantly made from oranges. Later, as she prepared my baguette she confirmed that I wanted 'red fruit'. Why didn't she say strawberry? The breakfast arrived on a small melamine tray and was nicely presented.

Within seconds of my arrival, others turned up and made similar orders as I gazed out of the window hoping that my toothache wouldn't return. The previous evening I'd gone out for dinner in a local Italian restaurant, not far from Chez Sophinette, and was in unbearable, jaw-breaking pain. So bad that I got the bill and left and, as I write this from my hotel room (room 406) I can still see the half bottle of Valpolicella with a cork stuck in the top. It's wasted and I should have left it in the restaurant. I had the choice: painkiller or wine? In the end I opted for the former.

The view from Chez Sophinette's window was not good: building sites, cranes, that sort of thing, and a busy road in front of it all, but that was the only down side and I'm guessing that once the building work is completed, the view will be much better. This was, effectively, a snack bar, not the sort of place to get cosy while reading a book, in my case, Cycling Home from Siberia by Rob Lilwall, which I finished on the Eurostar home.

The bill for my petit dejeuner was EUR4.50 – very reasonable. Downside? Not many, but it could have been a little cosier in my opinion.