Café Diana
Leytonstone High Road
Leytonstone
E11 3AJ
by Hashley Brown
Café Diana is a very friendly greasy spoon on Leytonstone High Road – an area not noted for its wealth of Michelin starred eateries. As well as a sexpartite breakfast special menu, imaginatively named Diana Specials Nos. 1-6, they serve roast dinners, and the odd kebab. A jack of all trades, if you will, in a culinary wilderness.
Blinded (or bewildered?) by the diversity of choice on the specials menu, I plumped for the Brunch combination. Double sausage, double bacon, double egg, mushrooms, tomatoes and tea. Good tea, but this was the Exxon Valdez of breakfasts. As I ate I could feel guillemots struggling with blackened wings against the eco-disaster that was rapidly taking over my mouth - it felt dirty. But it was a greasy spoon, and that it did well, if a little over zealously. After wading through half a brunch platter, the bloated queasiness I felt didn’t endear me to persevere with the still rather full English that stared back at me from the glistening plate. There was no problem with being underfed in Café Diana – and for £3.60 that’s no bad thing.
A functional, breakfast-serving establishment that, although lacking finesse, did the job. Standard ingredients, cooked in a greasy way. Much to their credit they eschewed the easy route to fried mushrooms via the deep fat fryer, which inevitably produces yellowing spongy funghi tasting solely of old oil, and opted for a more delicate, less intrusive cooking technique - something many other cafés would do well to imitate.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Cilicia, Broadway Market
Cilicia
1 Broadway Market
Hackney
E8 4PH
by Malcolm Eggs
Cilicia, right at the end of the lovely, bustling Broadway Market, is a Turkish restaurant with a justly formidable breakfast-making reputation. What brings this publication here is a splash of innovation: a full English with a mediterranean twist. The 'Cilician breakfast' keeps the egg, the hash brown and the mushrooms but replaces sausage with fried spicy salami, the bacon with grilled halloumi and throws in a handful of stuffed olives just, you imagine, to see what happens. The result? Largely worthwhile.
You can't argue with halloumi - and this was at a perfect stage of golden succulence. The spicy salami made a welcome, moreish change from standard-issue sausage and the presence of a deftly fried egg (and friends) was enough to satisfy the purist factions of my tastebud population. The one gripe was the olives which, stuffed as they were with garlic and chillies, constituted a slightly over-zealous intrusion. Splendid terracotta terrace, though, on which to prepare for a glorious sun-soaked day at the tail-end of an English summer. Just make sure you leave with plenty of time if arriving via that surreal, barely functional Silverlink rail-line, which is surely just a forgotten entry on some distant Texan share portfolio.
1 Broadway Market
Hackney
E8 4PH
by Malcolm Eggs
Cilicia, right at the end of the lovely, bustling Broadway Market, is a Turkish restaurant with a justly formidable breakfast-making reputation. What brings this publication here is a splash of innovation: a full English with a mediterranean twist. The 'Cilician breakfast' keeps the egg, the hash brown and the mushrooms but replaces sausage with fried spicy salami, the bacon with grilled halloumi and throws in a handful of stuffed olives just, you imagine, to see what happens. The result? Largely worthwhile.
You can't argue with halloumi - and this was at a perfect stage of golden succulence. The spicy salami made a welcome, moreish change from standard-issue sausage and the presence of a deftly fried egg (and friends) was enough to satisfy the purist factions of my tastebud population. The one gripe was the olives which, stuffed as they were with garlic and chillies, constituted a slightly over-zealous intrusion. Splendid terracotta terrace, though, on which to prepare for a glorious sun-soaked day at the tail-end of an English summer. Just make sure you leave with plenty of time if arriving via that surreal, barely functional Silverlink rail-line, which is surely just a forgotten entry on some distant Texan share portfolio.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Mario's Cafe, Kentish Town
Mario's Cafe
6 Kelly St
Kentish Town
NW1 8PH
www.marioscafe.com
by Dr Sigmund Fried
And lo, having tried - and failed - to penetrate the hallowed walls of Mario’s due to it being inexplicably closed three weekends on the trot, this humble hack did finally break there early on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September. I had reliably been informed by friends for quite a while that Mario’s does the best breakfast in Kentish Town if not the whole area (comprising Tufnell Park, Camden Town et al), and so this coquettishness on the part of the proprietor possibly built up my expectations of what lay in store to such an extent that only a truly Olympic standard fry-up was going to make the grade.
In reality then it was more akin to the Commonwealth Games: of a pretty high standard - and very reasonable at £4.50 for sausage, egg, bacon, mushrooms, tea and toast - but as a spectator, one gets the feeling that there’s probably better out there. Slightly dodgy analogy put to one side then, Mario’s problem is that it lets itself down on the details - deep-fried mushrooms when fried is preferable; cheap sausage where a fat, meaty Lincolnshire/Toulose etc is essential. Indeed, the location (on a quiet and colourful street just off the main road) and interior (pleasingly quaint, homely and relaxing with some good quality, colourful original art on the walls) are hard to fault.
I’d hate to think I’m being unduly harsh, and so I must stress that if you live in the area it’s absolutely worth checking out – it’s just a shame that, at the moment, it’s not quite the world-beater that it could so easily be.
6 Kelly St
Kentish Town
NW1 8PH
www.marioscafe.com
by Dr Sigmund Fried
And lo, having tried - and failed - to penetrate the hallowed walls of Mario’s due to it being inexplicably closed three weekends on the trot, this humble hack did finally break there early on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September. I had reliably been informed by friends for quite a while that Mario’s does the best breakfast in Kentish Town if not the whole area (comprising Tufnell Park, Camden Town et al), and so this coquettishness on the part of the proprietor possibly built up my expectations of what lay in store to such an extent that only a truly Olympic standard fry-up was going to make the grade.
In reality then it was more akin to the Commonwealth Games: of a pretty high standard - and very reasonable at £4.50 for sausage, egg, bacon, mushrooms, tea and toast - but as a spectator, one gets the feeling that there’s probably better out there. Slightly dodgy analogy put to one side then, Mario’s problem is that it lets itself down on the details - deep-fried mushrooms when fried is preferable; cheap sausage where a fat, meaty Lincolnshire/Toulose etc is essential. Indeed, the location (on a quiet and colourful street just off the main road) and interior (pleasingly quaint, homely and relaxing with some good quality, colourful original art on the walls) are hard to fault.
I’d hate to think I’m being unduly harsh, and so I must stress that if you live in the area it’s absolutely worth checking out – it’s just a shame that, at the moment, it’s not quite the world-beater that it could so easily be.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
McDonald's, Somewhere or Other
McDonald's
Generic High St
Standard Town
MC1
www.mcdonalds.co.uk
by Hashley Brown
I’d like to say that this was a review driven by a quest to mine the depths of breakfast iniquity, but I can’t. For the record I was driven by a deep carnal desire for a Sausage and Egg McMuffin. It’s not clever and I’m not proud. And I will never do it again.
You know the faux healthy advertising: the smiling people eating salads, the children playing with fruit, the pictures of grinning cows. But when it comes to a McDonald's breakfast, none of this washes. The inspid pork ‘patty’ that dripped grease came coupled with an egg that bore more relation to a greying slap of polystyrene than anything that’s popped out of the noble chicken. Topped with processed cheese and encased in a generic McMuffin, this breakfast was a tasteless, immoral affair.
From a purely fiscal point of view, the £2.29 handed over bought the aforementioned culinary aberration, which was joined by a hash brown and a bottle of Tropicana orange juice. The hash brown, which had clearly spent the morning imbibing as much oil as possible in the fryer, meant that the good quality juice spent most of its time emulsifying fat residues on the way down.
A thoroughly unpleasant affair.
Generic High St
Standard Town
MC1
www.mcdonalds.co.uk
by Hashley Brown
I’d like to say that this was a review driven by a quest to mine the depths of breakfast iniquity, but I can’t. For the record I was driven by a deep carnal desire for a Sausage and Egg McMuffin. It’s not clever and I’m not proud. And I will never do it again.
You know the faux healthy advertising: the smiling people eating salads, the children playing with fruit, the pictures of grinning cows. But when it comes to a McDonald's breakfast, none of this washes. The inspid pork ‘patty’ that dripped grease came coupled with an egg that bore more relation to a greying slap of polystyrene than anything that’s popped out of the noble chicken. Topped with processed cheese and encased in a generic McMuffin, this breakfast was a tasteless, immoral affair.
From a purely fiscal point of view, the £2.29 handed over bought the aforementioned culinary aberration, which was joined by a hash brown and a bottle of Tropicana orange juice. The hash brown, which had clearly spent the morning imbibing as much oil as possible in the fryer, meant that the good quality juice spent most of its time emulsifying fat residues on the way down.
A thoroughly unpleasant affair.
Lucius & Richards, Peckham
Lucius & Richards
194 Bellenden Rd
Peckham
SE15 4BW
by Hashley Brown
Peckham’s the kind of place you’d expect a good greasy spoon to live; in fact it’s the kind of place you’d think the greasy spoon was born in. But as you venture in to the Peckham/Dulwich hinterland, reality blurs and you find yourself skipping through a leafy cosmopolitan fantasy. Sat on a pavement of almost boulevardian proportions being stared down by Anthony Gormley designed phallic road bollards, while to the left mothers discussed babies and to the right dogs were groomed and manicured by a man smoking exquisitely long cigarettes, I had reached the nadir of louche urban society. What better setting then for the triumph of a breakfast that was Lucius & Richards?
As befits the kind of café where a full English nestles between a halloumi salad and a homemade soup, the humble breakfast had graduated to the epicurean equivalent of high school. With no hint of shame I ordered the all-day breakfast, and what came reaffirmed my belief in mankind. For starters it didn’t arrive in a sub 5-minute swirl of efficiency. It was cooked. By somebody. Who cared.
Brown toast, thick well-cured bacon – the fat beautifully rendered to a golden crisp - a plump herby sausage, near perfect egg – just sloppy enough for dipping but with a firm moist white, and a grilled tomato that tasted like I think tomatoes probably did once. This was the kind of breakfast others should aspire to - even though its £6.50 price tag wasn’t the cheapest - it exuded a level of thought and attention to quality that put it well beyond the league of ‘euro-med’ pretenders.
194 Bellenden Rd
Peckham
SE15 4BW
by Hashley Brown
Peckham’s the kind of place you’d expect a good greasy spoon to live; in fact it’s the kind of place you’d think the greasy spoon was born in. But as you venture in to the Peckham/Dulwich hinterland, reality blurs and you find yourself skipping through a leafy cosmopolitan fantasy. Sat on a pavement of almost boulevardian proportions being stared down by Anthony Gormley designed phallic road bollards, while to the left mothers discussed babies and to the right dogs were groomed and manicured by a man smoking exquisitely long cigarettes, I had reached the nadir of louche urban society. What better setting then for the triumph of a breakfast that was Lucius & Richards?
As befits the kind of café where a full English nestles between a halloumi salad and a homemade soup, the humble breakfast had graduated to the epicurean equivalent of high school. With no hint of shame I ordered the all-day breakfast, and what came reaffirmed my belief in mankind. For starters it didn’t arrive in a sub 5-minute swirl of efficiency. It was cooked. By somebody. Who cared.
Brown toast, thick well-cured bacon – the fat beautifully rendered to a golden crisp - a plump herby sausage, near perfect egg – just sloppy enough for dipping but with a firm moist white, and a grilled tomato that tasted like I think tomatoes probably did once. This was the kind of breakfast others should aspire to - even though its £6.50 price tag wasn’t the cheapest - it exuded a level of thought and attention to quality that put it well beyond the league of ‘euro-med’ pretenders.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Eat, Soho Square
Eat
16a Soho Square
London
W1D 3QH
by Malcolm Eggs
If you find yourself on Oxford St after four hours sleep and you can't face the journey to work without some kind of sustenance where exactly do you turn? Pret a Manger was considered but rejected, due to the lack of their (usually rather decent) breakfast baguettes. Didn't fancy Caffé Nero for some reason (unscientific you say? So what? That's what the hungover mind is like). How's about Eat in Soho Square? The all-day breakfast ciabatta looked pretty good at £2.50. Nice deep scarlet bacon, slices of sausage and scrambled egg in a pretty handsome looking piece of continental breadstuff with a choice of sauce: I couldn’t have left without it.
They placed it in the heavy duty sandwich toaster for a good amount of time (none of this "hurry! They're waiting! Forget about cooking the thing, let's give it to them now!" philosophy) and the result was decent, honest even. It wasn't gourmet. It wasn't a home-cooked bacon and egg English muffin. It wasn't something for Saturday mornings. But it was a good on-the-way-to-work piece of breakfast inspired food and, unlike many things in this city, it didn't pretend to be anything else.
16a Soho Square
London
W1D 3QH
by Malcolm Eggs
If you find yourself on Oxford St after four hours sleep and you can't face the journey to work without some kind of sustenance where exactly do you turn? Pret a Manger was considered but rejected, due to the lack of their (usually rather decent) breakfast baguettes. Didn't fancy Caffé Nero for some reason (unscientific you say? So what? That's what the hungover mind is like). How's about Eat in Soho Square? The all-day breakfast ciabatta looked pretty good at £2.50. Nice deep scarlet bacon, slices of sausage and scrambled egg in a pretty handsome looking piece of continental breadstuff with a choice of sauce: I couldn’t have left without it.
They placed it in the heavy duty sandwich toaster for a good amount of time (none of this "hurry! They're waiting! Forget about cooking the thing, let's give it to them now!" philosophy) and the result was decent, honest even. It wasn't gourmet. It wasn't a home-cooked bacon and egg English muffin. It wasn't something for Saturday mornings. But it was a good on-the-way-to-work piece of breakfast inspired food and, unlike many things in this city, it didn't pretend to be anything else.
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