Regency Café
17 - 19 Regency St
Pimlico
SW1P 4BY
020 7821 6596
by Gracie Spoon
The Regency Café provoked a series of gleeful squeals from the corner in which my breakfast companion and I sat. We were beside ourselves with delight, and here, I think, is why: in a town where cafes and bars rapidly open, shut, refurb and change management, contriving new vintage/ retro/ kitsch/ 80s/ 50s/ Victoriana styles accordingly, the idea that the beautiful Regency Café and its different-place- different-time world is for real was almost a shock. Established in 1946, this café’s deco exterior, tiled walls, gingham curtains, and formica tables indicate history, as opposed to the carefully-planned, good-looking irony we’d absorbed elsewhere. And upon hearing that the current owner bought the place from a family friend twenty years ago - inspiringly uncorporate music for our over-advertised to ears – well, squeak! And wow.
Tucked away on a quiet museum of a street in which the Regency is not the only pristinely-maintained anachronism, this place is a proud veteran of breakfasting. You order at the counter, and wait for your breakfast in a time-warp atmosphere so potent it almost moves in black and white. It’s not just the menu and the décor either. Another tenet of the old-fashioned English cafe is also borne out, (one often more clearly modelled by its counterpart: the old fashioned English pub): with the exception of me and my co-squealer, the other people in here are noticeably all men – massive, blokey, lorry-driver sized men.
Summoned back to the counter by the shout, "ONE EGG ON TOAST, MUSHROOMS, TOMATOS AND BUBBLE", my breakfast begins. It’s gorgeous. For around £4: explosively flavourful tomatoes gently frosted with char, a perfectly-fried egg slithering on brown toast of the exact right thickness… and the best bit? A crispy bubble and squeal.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Trojka, Primrose Hill
Trojka
101 Regents Park Road
Primrose Hill
NW1
020 7483 3765
www.trojka.co.uk
by Corin Flakes
The World Cup: how it divides the planetary mood. While the atavistic fan - carrying his gut like some terrible trophy - fizzes with tribal agitation, Ed Benedict and I entered the spirit of global unity by visiting the Russian tea rooms of Trojka.
Plonked on a pavement table amongst the gilded beau monde of Primrose Hill, I ordered the 'Trojka Breakfast'. Though Russian in name it is resolutely English: its synergy is with the builder, not the oligarch. The sausages were blandly comforting, and the bacon sustained a crispy bite, curling like a well-grilled treble clef. Glumly stranded in a pallid sauce, the beans had lost whatever warmth they may once have had, but the toast and tomatoes, often clumsy addendums, were perfectly fine. It was all just... average. Ed favoured mushrooms and scrambled eggs on toast, and the substitution of dull white with crunchy rye provoked uncontained pleasure.
Trojka should be commended for service. On a roasting day with the sun at its full, penetrating apex, they brought us a cauldron of cold water; a small act that showed perceptive understanding of customer need. Finally - the coffee. It is immeasurably powerful: nuclear brewed, plutonium strength. A single cup is electrifying. Your heart beat quickens exponentially with each dense sip. But two could propel you to acts of sociopathic disregard. Beer is often blamed for manifestations of British thuggery but I suspect plenty of maniacs, brawlers and fist-swingers have in fact had a thermos flask of this stuff.
101 Regents Park Road
Primrose Hill
NW1
020 7483 3765
www.trojka.co.uk
by Corin Flakes
The World Cup: how it divides the planetary mood. While the atavistic fan - carrying his gut like some terrible trophy - fizzes with tribal agitation, Ed Benedict and I entered the spirit of global unity by visiting the Russian tea rooms of Trojka.
Plonked on a pavement table amongst the gilded beau monde of Primrose Hill, I ordered the 'Trojka Breakfast'. Though Russian in name it is resolutely English: its synergy is with the builder, not the oligarch. The sausages were blandly comforting, and the bacon sustained a crispy bite, curling like a well-grilled treble clef. Glumly stranded in a pallid sauce, the beans had lost whatever warmth they may once have had, but the toast and tomatoes, often clumsy addendums, were perfectly fine. It was all just... average. Ed favoured mushrooms and scrambled eggs on toast, and the substitution of dull white with crunchy rye provoked uncontained pleasure.
Trojka should be commended for service. On a roasting day with the sun at its full, penetrating apex, they brought us a cauldron of cold water; a small act that showed perceptive understanding of customer need. Finally - the coffee. It is immeasurably powerful: nuclear brewed, plutonium strength. A single cup is electrifying. Your heart beat quickens exponentially with each dense sip. But two could propel you to acts of sociopathic disregard. Beer is often blamed for manifestations of British thuggery but I suspect plenty of maniacs, brawlers and fist-swingers have in fact had a thermos flask of this stuff.
Monday, June 26, 2006
El Vergel, Borough
El Vergel
8 Lant St
Borough
SE1
0207 357 0057
www.elvergel.co.uk
Breakfast served: Mon to Fri 8am - 11am, Saturday 10.30am - 3pm
by Gracie Spoon
As with any complex relationship, living in London is a continual karmic balancing act. Do London a bad deed (ie: snarl at a TfL employee, or perhaps question the value of the 2012 Olympics) and it’ll most likely deal you a frustrating cross-town journey. But do London a good deed (ie: use a bin, chat to a stranger), and maybe it’ll reveal one of its secrets. El Vergel is just one such secret - and it was whispered to me in return, I think, for a suspenseful attempt to rescue a duck from a Peckham street.
Easy to miss, the unassuming entrance on a Southwark back street does little in terms of flagging up the imaginative and cheerful South American breakfasting within. Being a teeny place, eating becomes communal. One long, bench-flanked table is punctuated with clay jars of water, cutlery and pinchingly fresh homemade salsa: all very help-yourself. The Latin breakfast (£4.70) is a compilation of chorizo, kidney beans, ‘piquant’ scrambled eggs, village bread and tea or coffee, while £3.90 got me the veggie alternative: corn tortillas, beans, eggs and avocado. The scrambled eggs were pink, which, yes, certainly is weird, but also good, as this is the tasty ‘piquant’ part. Although fairly milky in texture, they grew and grew in warmth and depth. Elsewhere, kidney beans replace the usual sugared puddle of orange artifice, and give a wholesome, nutty oomph. Smoothing over it all is the avocado: a little treat.
El Vergel is a secret that’s now yours too. So go out and do something deserving of it.
8 Lant St
Borough
SE1
0207 357 0057
www.elvergel.co.uk
Breakfast served: Mon to Fri 8am - 11am, Saturday 10.30am - 3pm
by Gracie Spoon
As with any complex relationship, living in London is a continual karmic balancing act. Do London a bad deed (ie: snarl at a TfL employee, or perhaps question the value of the 2012 Olympics) and it’ll most likely deal you a frustrating cross-town journey. But do London a good deed (ie: use a bin, chat to a stranger), and maybe it’ll reveal one of its secrets. El Vergel is just one such secret - and it was whispered to me in return, I think, for a suspenseful attempt to rescue a duck from a Peckham street.
Easy to miss, the unassuming entrance on a Southwark back street does little in terms of flagging up the imaginative and cheerful South American breakfasting within. Being a teeny place, eating becomes communal. One long, bench-flanked table is punctuated with clay jars of water, cutlery and pinchingly fresh homemade salsa: all very help-yourself. The Latin breakfast (£4.70) is a compilation of chorizo, kidney beans, ‘piquant’ scrambled eggs, village bread and tea or coffee, while £3.90 got me the veggie alternative: corn tortillas, beans, eggs and avocado. The scrambled eggs were pink, which, yes, certainly is weird, but also good, as this is the tasty ‘piquant’ part. Although fairly milky in texture, they grew and grew in warmth and depth. Elsewhere, kidney beans replace the usual sugared puddle of orange artifice, and give a wholesome, nutty oomph. Smoothing over it all is the avocado: a little treat.
El Vergel is a secret that’s now yours too. So go out and do something deserving of it.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Villandry, Fitzrovia
Villandry
170 Great Portland Street
Fitzrovia
W1W
020 7631 3131
www.villandry.com
by Hashley Brown
Gracie Spoon and I had much to catch up on: I'd ungraciously missed her birthday party, and she'd just walked the Camino de Santiago. It had been too long, and these things needed a good airing. Seeing as she'd just returned from walking the holy path of St James, what better place then to breakfast than that mecca for Fitzrovian acolytes, Villandry?
Villandry is one of those emporium type places where due to the total absence of price labels and the overabundance of tins of cassoulet, everything seems inordinately expensive. It's also always full of genteel ladies taking tea. In reality, it is inordinately expensive (a tenner for the full english), but then they have nice thick napkins, so everything balances out in the end.
Sadly the food didn't quite match up to the napkins - yet again a case of good ingredients sloppily chargrilled (see The Oxford). Correct me if I'm wrong but there seems to be an alarming trend in the high end deli business lately of sticking everything on the chargrill until it is a) dry and lifeless (bacon/toast) or b) unappetisingly blackened (tomatoes/sausage). And today the mushrooms tasted unnervingly cheesy. And, the staff seemed to have been employed for surliness over attentiveness.
I fear that had we splashed out a little further and visited the real Chateau Villandry (the last of the Renaissance Loire Valley chateau, built 1532) they would not have been so cavalier in their chargrilling. But then again, dear Gracie and I may never have discovered our shared fear of cassoulet.
170 Great Portland Street
Fitzrovia
W1W
020 7631 3131
www.villandry.com
by Hashley Brown
Gracie Spoon and I had much to catch up on: I'd ungraciously missed her birthday party, and she'd just walked the Camino de Santiago. It had been too long, and these things needed a good airing. Seeing as she'd just returned from walking the holy path of St James, what better place then to breakfast than that mecca for Fitzrovian acolytes, Villandry?
Villandry is one of those emporium type places where due to the total absence of price labels and the overabundance of tins of cassoulet, everything seems inordinately expensive. It's also always full of genteel ladies taking tea. In reality, it is inordinately expensive (a tenner for the full english), but then they have nice thick napkins, so everything balances out in the end.
Sadly the food didn't quite match up to the napkins - yet again a case of good ingredients sloppily chargrilled (see The Oxford). Correct me if I'm wrong but there seems to be an alarming trend in the high end deli business lately of sticking everything on the chargrill until it is a) dry and lifeless (bacon/toast) or b) unappetisingly blackened (tomatoes/sausage). And today the mushrooms tasted unnervingly cheesy. And, the staff seemed to have been employed for surliness over attentiveness.
I fear that had we splashed out a little further and visited the real Chateau Villandry (the last of the Renaissance Loire Valley chateau, built 1532) they would not have been so cavalier in their chargrilling. But then again, dear Gracie and I may never have discovered our shared fear of cassoulet.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Honest Sausage, Regent's Park
The Honest Sausage
The Broadwalk
Regent's Park
NW1
www.honestsausage.com
by Hashley Brown
I love sausages. It may be hard to believe quite how much I love them, but believe me I do. I make them, by hand. I eat them, in all their varieties. I even take photos of them - my sausage photo gallery is quite something and probably qualifies me for an ASBO, or some sort of restraining order at least. But, I am still allowed access to public eateries, and so it was that on the first truly sunny day of the year I found myself perched with a venerable host of LRB glitterati at the Honest Sausage in Regents Park.
True to the name, there were sausages, and by golly they were honest. There was nowhere to turn for admissions of honesty, organic-ness and all round worthiness. It was like being preached to by a pig who had lived a good life for the sole reason of providing culinary pleasure to some middle-class twonk in a park. He exhorted me to enjoy his additive free goodness, pleaded that I bear in mind his lineage, and all in all shrieked, “eat me, and feel no guilt!”.
Now, I am not a man to ignore the final wishes of a happy pig. In fact I honoured this pig's memory twice (in two separate organic buns with onion relish), but I just wished the Honest Sausage could have tried a bit harder to do the same. It wasn't bad per se, just that the buns could have been a bit less dry, the service could have been a bit snappier, and they could have relished a bit more in the joyous celebration of piggy life that each of their lovely sausages represented.
The Broadwalk
Regent's Park
NW1
www.honestsausage.com
by Hashley Brown
I love sausages. It may be hard to believe quite how much I love them, but believe me I do. I make them, by hand. I eat them, in all their varieties. I even take photos of them - my sausage photo gallery is quite something and probably qualifies me for an ASBO, or some sort of restraining order at least. But, I am still allowed access to public eateries, and so it was that on the first truly sunny day of the year I found myself perched with a venerable host of LRB glitterati at the Honest Sausage in Regents Park.
True to the name, there were sausages, and by golly they were honest. There was nowhere to turn for admissions of honesty, organic-ness and all round worthiness. It was like being preached to by a pig who had lived a good life for the sole reason of providing culinary pleasure to some middle-class twonk in a park. He exhorted me to enjoy his additive free goodness, pleaded that I bear in mind his lineage, and all in all shrieked, “eat me, and feel no guilt!”.
Now, I am not a man to ignore the final wishes of a happy pig. In fact I honoured this pig's memory twice (in two separate organic buns with onion relish), but I just wished the Honest Sausage could have tried a bit harder to do the same. It wasn't bad per se, just that the buns could have been a bit less dry, the service could have been a bit snappier, and they could have relished a bit more in the joyous celebration of piggy life that each of their lovely sausages represented.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Special Dispatch: Norman Carr Cottage, Monkey Bay, Malawi
Norman Carr Cottage
Monkey Bay
Malawi
00 265 1 587 316
www.normancarrcottage.com
by Blake Pudding on location
I was slowly awoken from a beautiful dream by what sounded like a monkey running across the roof. A little face peered at me through the mosquito net. It was a monkey! What the fuck was going on? I looked to my left and saw a girl, her hair spread over the pillow. Was I still asleep? No, I was on holiday with the fabulous Alice Wingate. My heart skipped with joy and my stomach rumbled loudly. We may have been in a romantic paradise but it was breakfast time and I was bloody starving. We walked outside into the balmy heat. Lake Malawi stretched out to the horizon before us. After a moment sitting admiring the view, our hostess Jenny appeared and inquired whether we would like bacon and eggs for breakfast. “Hell yes,” we replied in unison.
The bacon was of the streaky variety and cooked crisply. Proust himself could not have cooked more evocative bacon. It took me straight back to family holidays and my father cooking the only meal he knew how. It came with perfect fried eggs and rich, gooey grilled tomatoes. You may think it wilfully perverse to have such an English meal in a location such as this, but at the Norman Carr cottage it all seemed to make sense. Perhaps it was the company, perhaps it was the location, or perhaps the food really was that good - but I don't think I will ever eat a finer breakfast.
Monkey Bay
Malawi
00 265 1 587 316
www.normancarrcottage.com
by Blake Pudding on location
I was slowly awoken from a beautiful dream by what sounded like a monkey running across the roof. A little face peered at me through the mosquito net. It was a monkey! What the fuck was going on? I looked to my left and saw a girl, her hair spread over the pillow. Was I still asleep? No, I was on holiday with the fabulous Alice Wingate. My heart skipped with joy and my stomach rumbled loudly. We may have been in a romantic paradise but it was breakfast time and I was bloody starving. We walked outside into the balmy heat. Lake Malawi stretched out to the horizon before us. After a moment sitting admiring the view, our hostess Jenny appeared and inquired whether we would like bacon and eggs for breakfast. “Hell yes,” we replied in unison.
The bacon was of the streaky variety and cooked crisply. Proust himself could not have cooked more evocative bacon. It took me straight back to family holidays and my father cooking the only meal he knew how. It came with perfect fried eggs and rich, gooey grilled tomatoes. You may think it wilfully perverse to have such an English meal in a location such as this, but at the Norman Carr cottage it all seemed to make sense. Perhaps it was the company, perhaps it was the location, or perhaps the food really was that good - but I don't think I will ever eat a finer breakfast.
Friday, June 16, 2006
The Engineer, Primrose Hill
The Engineer
65 Gloucester Avenue
Primrose Hill
NW1
by Corin Flakes
Breakfast in celebrated gastro-pub The Engineer - with its Brooklyn garden, its complicit air of middle-class serenity - should be fantastically smug. The brazen expense (the menu reads like the window of a Mayfair estate agent) gives faith that the ingredients, and their dexterous preparation, will be worthwhile. Reclining in sun-kissed splendour – ivy snaking down the period brickwork - Ed Benedict and I readied ourselves for something special.
Our initial assessment was uniform positivity. The sausage looked prodigious, amply stuffed with zesty herbs, and it collided with succulent, salted tomatoes. The bacon was skilfully charred; under inspection from a probing knife, it crunched with inviting, fleshy smokiness. As Ed tucked into mushrooms on toast (the presentation charmingly wild, advanced by parmesan and peppery rocket), he commented on their quality, though mourned the mysterious absence of strong flavours. Sadly, the toast was thick as hay bales, and impatiently underdone.
Forward-thinking gastronomes emphasise the importance of perception in the dining experience and here, everything seemed set. What I hadn’t anticipated were the throaty intrusions of another diner. The adjacent American grimly declared her eggs were “like, way rotten”, then thrust an accusatory fork at my poached pair, which, I thought, were wonderfully done, flowing with tantalising lava. I suspect the subtle dash of vinegar confused her parochial palette, yet my breakfast was plagued by hellish visions of a day spent praying weakly over the sink. It’s impossible to enjoy a meal when death looms, waiting to collect your plate and steal your soul.
I’d recommend the Engineer – just blockade yourself in unilateral isolation. The Special Relationship means nothing at breakfast.
65 Gloucester Avenue
Primrose Hill
NW1
by Corin Flakes
Breakfast in celebrated gastro-pub The Engineer - with its Brooklyn garden, its complicit air of middle-class serenity - should be fantastically smug. The brazen expense (the menu reads like the window of a Mayfair estate agent) gives faith that the ingredients, and their dexterous preparation, will be worthwhile. Reclining in sun-kissed splendour – ivy snaking down the period brickwork - Ed Benedict and I readied ourselves for something special.
Our initial assessment was uniform positivity. The sausage looked prodigious, amply stuffed with zesty herbs, and it collided with succulent, salted tomatoes. The bacon was skilfully charred; under inspection from a probing knife, it crunched with inviting, fleshy smokiness. As Ed tucked into mushrooms on toast (the presentation charmingly wild, advanced by parmesan and peppery rocket), he commented on their quality, though mourned the mysterious absence of strong flavours. Sadly, the toast was thick as hay bales, and impatiently underdone.
Forward-thinking gastronomes emphasise the importance of perception in the dining experience and here, everything seemed set. What I hadn’t anticipated were the throaty intrusions of another diner. The adjacent American grimly declared her eggs were “like, way rotten”, then thrust an accusatory fork at my poached pair, which, I thought, were wonderfully done, flowing with tantalising lava. I suspect the subtle dash of vinegar confused her parochial palette, yet my breakfast was plagued by hellish visions of a day spent praying weakly over the sink. It’s impossible to enjoy a meal when death looms, waiting to collect your plate and steal your soul.
I’d recommend the Engineer – just blockade yourself in unilateral isolation. The Special Relationship means nothing at breakfast.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Art to Zen, Islington
Art to Zen
27 Upper Street
Islington
N1
020 7226 5300
www.art2zen.co.uk
by Hamish Pastry
What’s in a name, readers? Is it more enjoyable to breakfast at a venue that sounds exotic, cosy, or just full of breakfasty promise, than one called something like 'Turds on Toast', or worse (shudders), 'Art to Zen'?
While I’m firmly against judging a place until you’ve had the full English, the name of this café-cum-gallery-cum-Buddhist hangout has always bugged me. It sounds like the worst kind of Upper Street pretentiousness.
Breakfast options include said full English for £4.25, and a few other bits and bobs (parmesan on toast is one). I ordered the former. It was alright. The toasted ciabatta was light and buttery, but it doesn’t soak yolk in the same pleasing way as your bog-standard white sliced. The sausage was fat and herby and the eggs nice and runny, but the bacon was a crashing disappointment, not at all crispy and with a taste reminiscent of something long ago (school dinners?). The mushrooms were chunky but strangely wizened, like an old lady’s thumbs.
So what is arty about Art to Zen? Inside, canvases dot the wall. The menu cover is some kind of painted effort. It doesn’t feel very arty though. It doesn’t feel very anything. There was, we realised, a distinct lack of atmosphere (is this the Zen?). We decided to ask our waitress (the staff, by the way, are pleasant and efficient). It turned out our waitress was the owner, and she happily explained that she is an artist and a Zen Buddhist. The ‘to’ part was added to form a cunning A-Z London connection.
There you have it. I left feeling fairly satisfied with my breakfast and very pleased to know that Art to Zen’s name is not some affectation, but a reflection of its owner’s life. I am bugged no more.
27 Upper Street
Islington
N1
020 7226 5300
www.art2zen.co.uk
by Hamish Pastry
What’s in a name, readers? Is it more enjoyable to breakfast at a venue that sounds exotic, cosy, or just full of breakfasty promise, than one called something like 'Turds on Toast', or worse (shudders), 'Art to Zen'?
While I’m firmly against judging a place until you’ve had the full English, the name of this café-cum-gallery-cum-Buddhist hangout has always bugged me. It sounds like the worst kind of Upper Street pretentiousness.
Breakfast options include said full English for £4.25, and a few other bits and bobs (parmesan on toast is one). I ordered the former. It was alright. The toasted ciabatta was light and buttery, but it doesn’t soak yolk in the same pleasing way as your bog-standard white sliced. The sausage was fat and herby and the eggs nice and runny, but the bacon was a crashing disappointment, not at all crispy and with a taste reminiscent of something long ago (school dinners?). The mushrooms were chunky but strangely wizened, like an old lady’s thumbs.
So what is arty about Art to Zen? Inside, canvases dot the wall. The menu cover is some kind of painted effort. It doesn’t feel very arty though. It doesn’t feel very anything. There was, we realised, a distinct lack of atmosphere (is this the Zen?). We decided to ask our waitress (the staff, by the way, are pleasant and efficient). It turned out our waitress was the owner, and she happily explained that she is an artist and a Zen Buddhist. The ‘to’ part was added to form a cunning A-Z London connection.
There you have it. I left feeling fairly satisfied with my breakfast and very pleased to know that Art to Zen’s name is not some affectation, but a reflection of its owner’s life. I am bugged no more.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Bodrum Cafe, Stoke Newington
Bodrum Cafe
61 Stoke Newington High Street
Stoke Newington
N16
020 8809 1165
By H.P. Seuss
The aged Professor dropped the empty husk of his vitamin pod and shot Züü-27 a weary smile.
He was tired. He had never adapted to the brave new world that his calamitous discovery of 2017 had helped to create. His inner world remained a past of plastic and wood, where fleshy beings fornicated, read newspapers and subsisted on unfertilised chicken eggs and the sliced haunches of pigs. Züü-27 downed her silicone, and tried to cheer her grandfather.
"Did you breakfast like this in the past?" she asked.
A look of terror crossed the Professor's wrinkled face. "The past is full of ghosts", he said cryptically. Then, just as Züü-27 was preparing to change the subject, his expression changed: "Breakfast, my girl, was not always protein pods and zinc injections. You want to hear of our breakfasts?"
Züü-27 nodded. The Professor took a deep breath.
"Then I shall tell you of the first time we entered Bodrum, on what is now U5987 Street," he began. "Our group was ramshackle and unruly after a night of debauchery. But the kindly staff — Turks, I think — found space for all nine of us, and distributed a menu so comprehensive and inexpensive that even the fussiest was contented. When our ripaste arrived, contentment turned to unbridled joy. You have to understand, child, that such cafés abounded with undercooked bacon and limpid albumen. Not Bodrum. Their breakfast soothed the soul, turned a menacing hangover into sleepy satisfaction and spectacularly transcended the N16 ratio that so blighted the vegetable joints of the more upmarket U5988 Street round the corner." His voice shook: "And it made of bubble and squeak a work of art!"
The Professor hung his head.
"Wow," said Züü-27. "That's got to beat a vitamin pod".
"It most certainly did", said Professor Seuss, wiping away a salty tear.
61 Stoke Newington High Street
Stoke Newington
N16
020 8809 1165
By H.P. Seuss
The aged Professor dropped the empty husk of his vitamin pod and shot Züü-27 a weary smile.
He was tired. He had never adapted to the brave new world that his calamitous discovery of 2017 had helped to create. His inner world remained a past of plastic and wood, where fleshy beings fornicated, read newspapers and subsisted on unfertilised chicken eggs and the sliced haunches of pigs. Züü-27 downed her silicone, and tried to cheer her grandfather.
"Did you breakfast like this in the past?" she asked.
A look of terror crossed the Professor's wrinkled face. "The past is full of ghosts", he said cryptically. Then, just as Züü-27 was preparing to change the subject, his expression changed: "Breakfast, my girl, was not always protein pods and zinc injections. You want to hear of our breakfasts?"
Züü-27 nodded. The Professor took a deep breath.
"Then I shall tell you of the first time we entered Bodrum, on what is now U5987 Street," he began. "Our group was ramshackle and unruly after a night of debauchery. But the kindly staff — Turks, I think — found space for all nine of us, and distributed a menu so comprehensive and inexpensive that even the fussiest was contented. When our ripaste arrived, contentment turned to unbridled joy. You have to understand, child, that such cafés abounded with undercooked bacon and limpid albumen. Not Bodrum. Their breakfast soothed the soul, turned a menacing hangover into sleepy satisfaction and spectacularly transcended the N16 ratio that so blighted the vegetable joints of the more upmarket U5988 Street round the corner." His voice shook: "And it made of bubble and squeak a work of art!"
The Professor hung his head.
"Wow," said Züü-27. "That's got to beat a vitamin pod".
"It most certainly did", said Professor Seuss, wiping away a salty tear.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Manolis Cafe, Lower Holloway
Manolis Cafe
1 Hercules St
Lower Holloway
N7
020 7263 6703
www.manoliscafe.com
by Blake Pudding
This breakfast took place about two months ago after my flatmate Michael and I had been taking part in the tall bikes challenge. This involves three terribly brave, strong and rather stupid men cycling around Britain on bicycles made by welding two bike frames together so that they stand over 5ft off the ground. The silly men then don pink helmets and cycle round the coast of Britain no doubt dodging missiles thrown by scallywags. We went to see them off at Hyde Park and followed in a procession down to London Bridge. Obviously Michael and I were on more conventional machines. It was like being a in a ridiculous chain-driven carnival; there were penny-farthings, recumbents and rickshaws. All good clean fun, even if a small cloud of self-righteousness did hang over the whole day - but that’s cycling for you.
Anyway I was soon bloody starving so Michael suggested a trip to Manolis on Hercules Road. We met a couple of Jewish friends and all tucked cheerfully into pork-based products. I went with bacon, egg, tomatoes and chips. The chips being of the chunkier variety which I don’t normally favour in a caff but here they were superb, the bacon was not remarkable but it was properly cooked as were the tomatoes and the egg was fresh. What more can I say about such simple food? Manolis is a haven just off London’s horrible Holloway Road; I would recommend it to Jews and Gentiles alike.
1 Hercules St
Lower Holloway
N7
020 7263 6703
www.manoliscafe.com
by Blake Pudding
This breakfast took place about two months ago after my flatmate Michael and I had been taking part in the tall bikes challenge. This involves three terribly brave, strong and rather stupid men cycling around Britain on bicycles made by welding two bike frames together so that they stand over 5ft off the ground. The silly men then don pink helmets and cycle round the coast of Britain no doubt dodging missiles thrown by scallywags. We went to see them off at Hyde Park and followed in a procession down to London Bridge. Obviously Michael and I were on more conventional machines. It was like being a in a ridiculous chain-driven carnival; there were penny-farthings, recumbents and rickshaws. All good clean fun, even if a small cloud of self-righteousness did hang over the whole day - but that’s cycling for you.
Anyway I was soon bloody starving so Michael suggested a trip to Manolis on Hercules Road. We met a couple of Jewish friends and all tucked cheerfully into pork-based products. I went with bacon, egg, tomatoes and chips. The chips being of the chunkier variety which I don’t normally favour in a caff but here they were superb, the bacon was not remarkable but it was properly cooked as were the tomatoes and the egg was fresh. What more can I say about such simple food? Manolis is a haven just off London’s horrible Holloway Road; I would recommend it to Jews and Gentiles alike.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Café Z Bar, Stoke Newington
Café Z Bar
58 Stoke Newington High Street
Stoke Newington
N16 7PB
020 7275 7523
by Orva Easy
It was alone and shamefaced that I slunk into the Z-bar, armed only with an oversized newspaper to protect me from my monstrous hen-party hangover. It was already packed, even on the wrong side of Sunday lunchtime. I had barely brought my gin-crossed eyes to focus before I was hustled by the waitress. Set 15 please: halloumi, mushrooms, spicy sausage, fried egg, salad, Turkish bread. Tea. And a mixed juice. God. Please.
The tea appeared first, in a stupid trendy mug. Its spectacularly badly-designed handle was perfectly round, highly glazed and tubular, which meant that the middle finger crooked underneath slid inexorably towards the scalding hot cup every time I picked it up. It was infuriating. And you couldn’t stop it. I hate those mugs! Apoplexy threatened as I struggled in vain with burning fingers. Bread arrived, a vast basket of the stuff as big as the table. The mixed juice looked like it came out of a bilge pump. I left it to settle. The breakfast itself was carefully arranged on the stark white plate like a Bloomsbury still-life, the sausage a saucy salami-pink, balanced on the other side by three golden-tinged slices of halloumi, a cluster of button mushrooms gleaming between them.
Ah, halloumi! It was everything it ought to be – mouth-fillingly buttery and pleasingly squeaky on the teeth. Juicy, gamey sausages with a hint of spice cut through the rich, cloudy egg, though it tasted a bit disgusting in a forkful with the mushrooms. Which explains why you don’t get mushrooms much in Turkey.
I perked up, enjoying my tingling billiousness. I drank my scum-topped but actually rather nice mixed juice and felt healed by a decent, if now slightly cool cup of builders’. I will be back next week. But I’m taking my own damned mug.
58 Stoke Newington High Street
Stoke Newington
N16 7PB
020 7275 7523
by Orva Easy
It was alone and shamefaced that I slunk into the Z-bar, armed only with an oversized newspaper to protect me from my monstrous hen-party hangover. It was already packed, even on the wrong side of Sunday lunchtime. I had barely brought my gin-crossed eyes to focus before I was hustled by the waitress. Set 15 please: halloumi, mushrooms, spicy sausage, fried egg, salad, Turkish bread. Tea. And a mixed juice. God. Please.
The tea appeared first, in a stupid trendy mug. Its spectacularly badly-designed handle was perfectly round, highly glazed and tubular, which meant that the middle finger crooked underneath slid inexorably towards the scalding hot cup every time I picked it up. It was infuriating. And you couldn’t stop it. I hate those mugs! Apoplexy threatened as I struggled in vain with burning fingers. Bread arrived, a vast basket of the stuff as big as the table. The mixed juice looked like it came out of a bilge pump. I left it to settle. The breakfast itself was carefully arranged on the stark white plate like a Bloomsbury still-life, the sausage a saucy salami-pink, balanced on the other side by three golden-tinged slices of halloumi, a cluster of button mushrooms gleaming between them.
Ah, halloumi! It was everything it ought to be – mouth-fillingly buttery and pleasingly squeaky on the teeth. Juicy, gamey sausages with a hint of spice cut through the rich, cloudy egg, though it tasted a bit disgusting in a forkful with the mushrooms. Which explains why you don’t get mushrooms much in Turkey.
I perked up, enjoying my tingling billiousness. I drank my scum-topped but actually rather nice mixed juice and felt healed by a decent, if now slightly cool cup of builders’. I will be back next week. But I’m taking my own damned mug.
Monday, June 05, 2006
S & M Café, Islington
S & M Café
4-6 Essex Road
Islington
N1
020 7359 5361
by Poppy Tartt
Francis Bacon is said to have enjoyed a good whipping every morning before breakfast. I reminded Slave X of this, when he demurred a little at his preprandial caning. “The finest philosophers in all the land were masochists,” I said sternly, “and they were not even lucky enough to be treated to a slap-up meal at S & M Café.” “Slap up?” he mumbled nervously. “For this pathetic show you will wear your nipple-clamps throughout breakfast,” I commanded.
If, like myself, you find the touch of bean on egg as unsavoury as a paedophile’s handshake, you could do no worse than to order the S & M All Day Breakfast. Oh Jesus, Mary, and the Marquis de Sade! I could have run five thousand miles without stopping, screaming all the way: my egg, my sacred egg, was covered, entirely covered with beans!!!! “Slave X!” I cried, ripping the gag from his mouth, “Crawl on your knees to the kitchen and find me the chef who dared to degrade his ingredients so!”
Meanwhile I observed the extreme heat of the venue, the insufferable volume of the music, the inexplicably long queue for a table. Whilst the salvagable remains of the breakfast were perfectly adequate, there were no hash browns, an unforgivable oversight. The tea was so hot it might have been brewed in molten lava and it never cooled – a fire-eater would have been off work the next day after one mouthful. This was certainly a plus. By this time Slave X had re-emerged, bearing the brand of a frying pan upon his cheek. “Let me deal with this!” I said, cuffing him about the ear. I took out my riding crop and strode towards the kitchens.
4-6 Essex Road
Islington
N1
020 7359 5361
by Poppy Tartt
Francis Bacon is said to have enjoyed a good whipping every morning before breakfast. I reminded Slave X of this, when he demurred a little at his preprandial caning. “The finest philosophers in all the land were masochists,” I said sternly, “and they were not even lucky enough to be treated to a slap-up meal at S & M Café.” “Slap up?” he mumbled nervously. “For this pathetic show you will wear your nipple-clamps throughout breakfast,” I commanded.
If, like myself, you find the touch of bean on egg as unsavoury as a paedophile’s handshake, you could do no worse than to order the S & M All Day Breakfast. Oh Jesus, Mary, and the Marquis de Sade! I could have run five thousand miles without stopping, screaming all the way: my egg, my sacred egg, was covered, entirely covered with beans!!!! “Slave X!” I cried, ripping the gag from his mouth, “Crawl on your knees to the kitchen and find me the chef who dared to degrade his ingredients so!”
Meanwhile I observed the extreme heat of the venue, the insufferable volume of the music, the inexplicably long queue for a table. Whilst the salvagable remains of the breakfast were perfectly adequate, there were no hash browns, an unforgivable oversight. The tea was so hot it might have been brewed in molten lava and it never cooled – a fire-eater would have been off work the next day after one mouthful. This was certainly a plus. By this time Slave X had re-emerged, bearing the brand of a frying pan upon his cheek. “Let me deal with this!” I said, cuffing him about the ear. I took out my riding crop and strode towards the kitchens.
Friday, June 02, 2006
"Call of the House of Rasher": In Defence of the Local Shopkeeper, by Hashley Brown
As I quietly surveyed the sunrise over our grand metropolis, steeling myself to rouse the nation with the balletic follies of Gounod, my thoughts strayed from my imminent radio production duties to the plight of the local shopkeeper. For how long have we neglected the small businessman in favour of fancy eateries and corporate smorgasbords? I vowed that today I would raise my fork in defence of the local retailer.
In these hallowed pages you will find many a reference to the flaccid bacon or limp sausage with which less favourable establishments brazenly embellish their breakfasts, as well as breakfasts whose exorbitant price-tag is justified by locally sourced organic ingredients. But how much might one, locally sourced, organic gourmand breakfast set one back if cooked at home?
Within half an hour of purposeful striding around the vicinity of LRB's NW5 headquarters I procured the necessary: Organic smoked back bacon, organic pork, leek and parsley sausages, free range organic eggs, large earthy flat mushrooms and a vine of juicy red tomatoes. Add a crusty cob of bread and I had sourced my breakfast from a rosy cheeked gaggle of independent shopkeepers I one day hope to regard as friends.
Catching the fastidious Dr Fried at the tail end of his ablutions I prepared as fine a breakfast as I could muster, rendering the fat on the bacon to a golden crisp, and slow roasting the tomatoes with butter and garlic. Within an hour we had a sublime meaty treat that touched the edges of the LRB gold standard, and at £8.52 for two this undercut any similarly sourced feast I've so far encountered. Though heavy on preparation time, and inevitably washing up, it is refreshing to know that greatness can still be achieved at home.
Hashley Brown
March 2006
In these hallowed pages you will find many a reference to the flaccid bacon or limp sausage with which less favourable establishments brazenly embellish their breakfasts, as well as breakfasts whose exorbitant price-tag is justified by locally sourced organic ingredients. But how much might one, locally sourced, organic gourmand breakfast set one back if cooked at home?
Within half an hour of purposeful striding around the vicinity of LRB's NW5 headquarters I procured the necessary: Organic smoked back bacon, organic pork, leek and parsley sausages, free range organic eggs, large earthy flat mushrooms and a vine of juicy red tomatoes. Add a crusty cob of bread and I had sourced my breakfast from a rosy cheeked gaggle of independent shopkeepers I one day hope to regard as friends.
Catching the fastidious Dr Fried at the tail end of his ablutions I prepared as fine a breakfast as I could muster, rendering the fat on the bacon to a golden crisp, and slow roasting the tomatoes with butter and garlic. Within an hour we had a sublime meaty treat that touched the edges of the LRB gold standard, and at £8.52 for two this undercut any similarly sourced feast I've so far encountered. Though heavy on preparation time, and inevitably washing up, it is refreshing to know that greatness can still be achieved at home.
Hashley Brown
March 2006
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