Eat, Paddington

Eat
1st Floor
Paddington Station
W2
www.eat.co.uk

by Molly Coddle-Degg

Twenty-three minutes before my train, quite ravenously hungry, with no time to search for a proper greasy spoon and consume a fried breakfast, which would have to be cooked, placed on a plate and consumed with cutlery… I placed my trust in wise Mr Eggs’ breakfasting expertise, opting for Eat’s perfectly adequate - and speedily eatable - Full English Ciabatta.

Nonetheless, I nervously enquired about the contents, and once reassured that it was bean and mushroom-free, I paid my shiny £2.50 and watched from the counter as a mysterious beige oblong was placed in the sandwich toaster. Sadly, I got a better view as it came out, thirty seconds later, and an ambiguous grey filling plopped out. It was hastily stuffed back in, wrapped in foil and presented to me with a smile.

I sat down, refusing to accept inevitable disappointment before I’d actually had a mouthful; Molly Coddle-Degg is not a girl who shies away from processed meatstuffs. But this…! Well this was something else. A nauseating mass of cold, mushy gross-ness. In a bun.

Now, I don’t give up easily on breakfast – I generally keep going until my stomach hits capacity, but a few bites in, I abandoned the idea that this breakfast was going to feed me and decided to opt for the surgeon’s approach; take a scalpel to your subject and explore the constituent parts.

I gingerly opened the bread and discovered grey sausage chunks (which I believe contained splinters disguised as herbs), grey scrambled eggs (or pebbledash wall peelings), a grey fruit I presume was once a tomato, and some stringy excuse for bacon (grey). I was reduced to just nibbling at the soggy ciabatta.

The napkins proudly proclaim, “Time Out: EAT knocks spots of the competition”. In Paddington, it brings one out in spots.

Beware.