THIS is A Tale of Two Breakfasts and Three Eggs.

Like the proverbial Curate’s Egg, it is good in parts.

And eggs are the thing here at Yolk Farm – the “world’s first egg restaurant on a free-range egg farm”. As claims to fame go, that’s quite something but I’m not entirely sure what. Is it impressive or just weird hyperbole?

Whatever, it’s fairly new (open about a year – and what a year!) and word has spread about its novelty.

Yolk Farm Kitchen is part of the award-winning Minskip Farm Shop beside the A1 just outside Boroughbridge. The farm has 6,000 hens that supply the shop and the Kitchen, which has the humble egg at the heart of its menu – almost everything served here features eggs in one form or other.

It’s all a bit of a concept. Everything is either egg-shaped or coloured yellow. The branding is ubiquitous. Everything about the place is “on message”.

Someone for whom a message about eggs will always be welcome is Sylvia. Eggs are something of a specialist subject. Her quest for the most golden yolk is a long-running one and one I fear never to be completely fulfilled. But you can understand how curious she was to see just how the Yolk’s yolks measured up.

But there’s more to an egg than the yolk and there’s more to brunch than just eggs which the menu embraces. There’s some exotica to choose from alongside the traditional breakfast fare.

Like Get Fresh (£11.95– a sweetcorn fritter flavoured with lime and coriander, accompanied by a red pepper and courgette salsa, fresh chillis, spring onions and salsa verde). Oh and I almost forgot – two poached eggs and some edible flowers.

Or Just Beet It (£10.95) – a “modern art masterpiece” according to the menu of beetroot and potato croquettes, a poached egg, goats cheese fritters, crushed roasted nuts and more edible flowers.

The more conventional options were the English breakfast (egg, bacon, sausage, tomato, confit mushroom in truffle and garlic, and butter and hot sauce baked beans plus toast – £9.95) and the full “Yolk”shire breakfast (£14.95) which was all the above plus black pudding and a sweetcorn fritter.

Sylvia went traditional with the English – minus the confit truffle and garlic mushroom thing – and I went trendy with avocado and poached eggs on sourdough (£8.95), which come to think of it isn’t trendy at all these days. A bit passe probably.

On trend or not my breakfast was definitely better than Sylvia’s – even with the nonsense that is edible flowers. Pretty they are but tasteless. Two golden-yolked poached eggs only very slightly overdone, on top of well-ripened avocado slices on top of a good chunk of sourdough were lovely as was the crispy bacon I’d ordered as an extra (£2).

Sylvia was mightily disappointed. While her fried egg’s yolk was as golden as mine, it was definitely overcooked and the white seemed to be mostly missing. Her sausage was burnt and the bacon was beyond crispy to the point where she struggled to even cut it. The baked beans were not unpleasantly spicy.

We’d also ordered some brown toast to share and this was disastrous and not just because it was almost burnt black on one side. I’m sure all of you will know that if you take some hot toast fresh from the toaster and pile it on a plate it will inevitably go soggy which is exactly what happened.

I’m sure Yolk Farm can source some egg-shaped toast racks somewhere which will instantly solve the problem.

We both had coffee to drink and noted that Rountons Coffee, near Northallerton, were suppliers.

Sylvia found her latte on the bitter side. My cappuccino was fine, perhaps because the cocoa took the edge off the bitterness.

We liked the surroundings (a converted barn lined with rough-hewn timber and lights created by using upturned wooden crates as shades).

We liked the service too, especially from the young lad learning how to take an order using the tablet ordering system and the manageress who took off the costs of the coffees and the toast from the bill after we’d gently complained.

The bill with those deductions came to £20.90. You’ll definitely find a cheaper breakfast elsewhere.

We hesitate to say Yolk Farm is triumph of style over substance but it could be much better if those in the kitchen stopped mucking about with edible flowers and just got the toast right.

Yolk Farm Kitchen

Minskip Road, Boroughbridge, York YO51 9HY

Tel: 01423 329063 Web: yolkfarm.co.uk

Open: Mon-Fri 9.30am-4.30pm, Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 9-4pm

Ratings (out of ten): Food quality 6 Service 8 Surroundings 8 Value 6