Cafe Diana
653 Archway Road
Archway
N19 5SE
020 7281 8629
by Paddy Hashbrown
Seeking asylum from the Archway wind screeching through our bones on a Sunday morning, we stumble on a café whose window bears the legend, "Breakfast for £1.99". After exchanging knowing looks – for words are not needed - our group of eight sweeps through the door.
Inside and seated (alas, the size of our party means we are cleaved onto two tables) the room is aswarm with open mouths and furtive eyes glancing towards the poor matron who is single-handedly manning the fort for 20 empty stomachs. We tap our fingers noisily on the Formica as we wait for what seems like aeons, the menu at least offering some solace.
I order “Breakfast Number 2” and cast my gaze to the door, scowling at anyone tempted to come in who might affect the expedience with which our orders are dealt with.
With my facial muscles suitably exercised, breakfast arrives: a sausage that passes for a taut, red, iron ingot; a sloppy fried egg that seems to be attempting to blend into the plate to avoid being eaten; two slips of bacon, curled skywards to resemble flipped pink tortoise shells.
My appetite was revived, however, by tinned tomatoes entering stage left and proceeding to glue the unconvincing meal together with the finesse and strength of Alexander the Great. Aided by a mug of tea with enough vigour and tannin to revive the most cold-hearted of cadavers, my stomach was eventually standing on all fours, ready to face the day.
Breakfast for £1.99? Not quite – with added (needed) extras the price crept in at just under the £5 mark. But really, who is to complain? As a relaxing way to eschew the biting, barking, swelling chill of Holloway Road, Cafe Diana is a princess among men.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Special Dispatch: Lifebuoy Café, Fowey, Cornwall
Important note: The Lifebuoy Cafe has since changed ownership. Please use this review for entertainment and general social reflection purposes only.
The website for the new cafe is www.thelifebuoycafe.co.uk. While we haven't tried the breakfast yet, from the correspondence we've had with them they seem like people who really care about what they do.
8 Lostwithiel Street
Fowey, PL23 1BD (Map)
Cornwall
by T. N. Toost
For my third breakfast out in as many days on holiday, I was not surprised to find the Lifebuoy Café – like at least two others we went to - full of familiar Ikea furniture. I liked it, and I liked the beach-themed blue and white interior, and the large open kitchen which took up half of the room. Two women, seemingly mother and daughter, ran the establishment, the mother cooking and the daughter taking orders and shouting abruptly but inoffensively at patrons. The windows were completely steamed up, which gave the place a slightly oppressive feeling.
I had my full English with fried bread, which Annie instantly coveted. It was the most interesting part of the whole meal, the rest of which was nevertheless good and tasted fresh. The eggs and tomato were particularly well done, with the sausage and tea coming in at merely above average. With the fried bread, the whole meal turned into a minor luxury.
Save for the beans: they were the same as everywhere else in Britain. People crave variety and uniqueness in food, yet beans are always tinned. Who has had above-average beans? Below-average? Why is it that this staple of breakfast prides itself on conformity? Do the beans in Fowey remind us of home, and is familiarity, even on holiday, what we seek?
When we paid up, about £5 each, both mother and daughter thanked us, then turned back to their work. Even with the obvious locals at tables and the gossip being shouted across the small space, the obvious dependency on tourist money made it seem like we were giving pennies to beggars. We were disposable, interchangeable money machines, accents and appearance annually altered but one as good as another, year after year. Maybe that’s why all the cafés around Fowey have the same furniture, the same beans – they treat us as they see us, and that’s what we secretly want.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Franco's, Shoreditch
Franco’s
67 Rivington Street
Shoreditch
EC2A 3AY (Map)
020 7739 0231
by Moose Lee
I have a moral tale to tell. It was the morning after a night of reverie and sin.
I awoke, fully-clothed, next to my girlfriend. Counterwise, my good friend Y awoke in the spare bedroom, disrobed, with the opposite of his girlfriend. By which I mean, a girl who was not his girlfriend.
Before we could even try and think what any of this meant we had to go for breakfast.
First off, we tried this smart place in Bethnal Green, the Rochelle Canteen, for a cleansing, arty breakfast. But they were closed – “preparing for an event”. We should have turned back then.
We went to The Diner on Curtain Road and stared blankly at the menus. All the options were so fun and hopeful: eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes. But our bodies knew what our minds did not. You shall have what you deserve. And there was no fry-up on the menu.
So, with the sad acceptance of repeat offenders, we went round the corner to Franco’s and – without needing to open the menu – both ordered the ‘Special Breakfast’, £3.80.
Somehow, we were still in a chirpy mood: ironically enjoying the red tops and bantering with the waitress. “Keep your hands off her, Y,” I said. But the laughs died out as our breakfast arrived.
It was – we realised - everything he deserved.
I watched my friend grimly begin his punishment: chewing through the sausage skin that, although I didn’t mention it at the time, reminded me of a ripped condom. He poked at the yolk and watched it leak into his bean juice. He nodded at this. Then, solemnly, communion-like, he swallowed the lump of egg white that had grown cold at the edge of his plate. Washed down with bitter, too-strong, tea, I saw in my friend's face the heavy weight of regret. The burden began to prickle his skin like carbohydrate sweats.
67 Rivington Street
Shoreditch
EC2A 3AY (Map)
020 7739 0231
by Moose Lee
I have a moral tale to tell. It was the morning after a night of reverie and sin.
I awoke, fully-clothed, next to my girlfriend. Counterwise, my good friend Y awoke in the spare bedroom, disrobed, with the opposite of his girlfriend. By which I mean, a girl who was not his girlfriend.
Before we could even try and think what any of this meant we had to go for breakfast.
First off, we tried this smart place in Bethnal Green, the Rochelle Canteen, for a cleansing, arty breakfast. But they were closed – “preparing for an event”. We should have turned back then.
We went to The Diner on Curtain Road and stared blankly at the menus. All the options were so fun and hopeful: eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes. But our bodies knew what our minds did not. You shall have what you deserve. And there was no fry-up on the menu.
So, with the sad acceptance of repeat offenders, we went round the corner to Franco’s and – without needing to open the menu – both ordered the ‘Special Breakfast’, £3.80.
Somehow, we were still in a chirpy mood: ironically enjoying the red tops and bantering with the waitress. “Keep your hands off her, Y,” I said. But the laughs died out as our breakfast arrived.
It was – we realised - everything he deserved.
I watched my friend grimly begin his punishment: chewing through the sausage skin that, although I didn’t mention it at the time, reminded me of a ripped condom. He poked at the yolk and watched it leak into his bean juice. He nodded at this. Then, solemnly, communion-like, he swallowed the lump of egg white that had grown cold at the edge of his plate. Washed down with bitter, too-strong, tea, I saw in my friend's face the heavy weight of regret. The burden began to prickle his skin like carbohydrate sweats.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Op-Egg: Why Italians are always searching for breakfast
By Nelson Griddle
The Italians, it seems, Google the word “breakfast” more than anybody else.
Odd, when breakfast tends to be the merest side-step on the long gastronomic ramble that is the average Italian’s day.
My own experiences of breakfasting in Italy are forgettable. The first time I went to Venice, I had breakfast in a converted nunnery. We had coffee and rolls in a large, bare refectory. Any further impression this repast might have made was subsequently overshadowed by a long, and only partially understood argument with the proprietor, which meant my next breakfast consisted of a beer and a hotdog at Ljubljana’s central train station. But that is another story.
Two mysteries remain. First, given that most Italians simply couldn’t be bothered with breakfast, why do they run so many of our greasy spoons? Placing responsibility for the most important meal of the day in the hands of a people who generally don’t make it much past a cup of milky coffee strikes me as a bit like putting the Germans in charge of our national sense of humour.
The second mystery - of why Italians google “breakfast” so much - might not be such a three-pipe problem. There is an Italian psychedic rock group called Breakfast.
Their next album is called 'Flowers and Spiderwebs'. And there was me hoping for eggs, bacon, sausage and tomato.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Cambridge Cafe, Bethnal Green
Cambridge Cafe
385 Cambridge Heath Road
Bethnal Green
E2 9RA (Map)
020 77396482
by Stephen Fry-Up
Sunday morning, Bethnal Green.
A confession.
A digression: upon her return to Australia, my now ex-flatmate Katie bequeathed to me an ancient tome, 'The Decadent Handbook', in which our founding father and esteemed leader Malcolm Eggs outlines the true beliefs of the brave breakfaster. He exhorts the breakfaster not simply to awake and seek breakfast like some primitive mammal, but rather to plan in advance the breakfast venue, and to await the ritual meal with due reverence and anticipation.
The confession: I awoke on Bethnal Green Road (in a house I hasten to add – I haven't stooped that low). We needed breakfast. We needed it bad, and we just went out there, into the street, in search of it, in search of… breakfast. Already aware of our impending sin, Malcolm had seen to it that we should not drag innocents with us: Pellicci's was shut. That much Malcolm had seen to. But so too was Nico's. Oh God, Malcolm! Could we but have read your signs? We then contemplated 'First Choice Café' but the irony would have been too much for our empty stomachs.
The Breakfast: the moment we entered, it was all over. Seats were bolted to the ground. We couldn't move: there would be no escape from this. Tables too small to sit in comfort, tea too weak to provide succour. Bland food in small portions. This was it, this was the end. And yet, of course, I descended further: downstairs to the toilet. Oh! Now! In the very depths of hell! Malcolm! Please Malcolm, I've suffered enough!
The black pudding was actually pretty good though.
385 Cambridge Heath Road
Bethnal Green
E2 9RA (Map)
020 77396482
by Stephen Fry-Up
Sunday morning, Bethnal Green.
A confession.
A digression: upon her return to Australia, my now ex-flatmate Katie bequeathed to me an ancient tome, 'The Decadent Handbook', in which our founding father and esteemed leader Malcolm Eggs outlines the true beliefs of the brave breakfaster. He exhorts the breakfaster not simply to awake and seek breakfast like some primitive mammal, but rather to plan in advance the breakfast venue, and to await the ritual meal with due reverence and anticipation.
The confession: I awoke on Bethnal Green Road (in a house I hasten to add – I haven't stooped that low). We needed breakfast. We needed it bad, and we just went out there, into the street, in search of it, in search of… breakfast. Already aware of our impending sin, Malcolm had seen to it that we should not drag innocents with us: Pellicci's was shut. That much Malcolm had seen to. But so too was Nico's. Oh God, Malcolm! Could we but have read your signs? We then contemplated 'First Choice Café' but the irony would have been too much for our empty stomachs.
The Breakfast: the moment we entered, it was all over. Seats were bolted to the ground. We couldn't move: there would be no escape from this. Tables too small to sit in comfort, tea too weak to provide succour. Bland food in small portions. This was it, this was the end. And yet, of course, I descended further: downstairs to the toilet. Oh! Now! In the very depths of hell! Malcolm! Please Malcolm, I've suffered enough!
The black pudding was actually pretty good though.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Parliament Hill Café, Hampstead Heath
Parliament Hill Café (The Italian)
Parliament Hill
Hampstead Heath
NW3 (Map)
by Des Ayuno
Sunday brought breakfast with the delectable S, over from NY for a few days. Her fabulous, funny fashion blog may exhaust the average thesaurus of superlatives, but the lass has impeccable taste in dining establishments of all shapes, sizes and sleb quotients. “Come to the Italian,” she suggested airily. Further investigation revealed its name, though apparently no one actually calls it that, and thus its location (handily, as it seems to possess nothing so pedestrian as an address, perhaps to preserve its word-of-mouth cool. I remembered that S, when in Manhattan, practically lives at the Waverly).
From the bottom of the hill it looked unprepossessing enough, a grey ’70s low-rise block. Inside it had all the cheerful, clattering trappings of a posh school cafeteria, except with clusters of panettone hanging from the ceiling. We waited for our veggie breakfasts in an ambience that, against all the odds pertaining to London park cafés, was more Corbusier cool than concrete eyesore. An authentically Italian waitress finally delivered enormous white plates, piled high. Fried eggs were big, plump and not at all greasy. Rich red tomatoes (in midwinter! How? It was like the prison dinner in Goodfellas) were grilled with precision. Mushrooms were massive pale chunks sautéed ever so lightly. I prefer them more caramelised, but S protested that these retained a wondrous freshness, quoting, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” There were more beans and slices of toast than either of us could finish. And the veggie sausage, replete with crispy – crunchy! – crust and velvety yet hearty interior, has set a new and impossibly high standard for all veggie sausages of the future. At a mere £3.60 (the meaty option costs the same), it is an economic mystery and a culinary joy.
Parliament Hill
Hampstead Heath
NW3 (Map)
by Des Ayuno
Sunday brought breakfast with the delectable S, over from NY for a few days. Her fabulous, funny fashion blog may exhaust the average thesaurus of superlatives, but the lass has impeccable taste in dining establishments of all shapes, sizes and sleb quotients. “Come to the Italian,” she suggested airily. Further investigation revealed its name, though apparently no one actually calls it that, and thus its location (handily, as it seems to possess nothing so pedestrian as an address, perhaps to preserve its word-of-mouth cool. I remembered that S, when in Manhattan, practically lives at the Waverly).
From the bottom of the hill it looked unprepossessing enough, a grey ’70s low-rise block. Inside it had all the cheerful, clattering trappings of a posh school cafeteria, except with clusters of panettone hanging from the ceiling. We waited for our veggie breakfasts in an ambience that, against all the odds pertaining to London park cafés, was more Corbusier cool than concrete eyesore. An authentically Italian waitress finally delivered enormous white plates, piled high. Fried eggs were big, plump and not at all greasy. Rich red tomatoes (in midwinter! How? It was like the prison dinner in Goodfellas) were grilled with precision. Mushrooms were massive pale chunks sautéed ever so lightly. I prefer them more caramelised, but S protested that these retained a wondrous freshness, quoting, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” There were more beans and slices of toast than either of us could finish. And the veggie sausage, replete with crispy – crunchy! – crust and velvety yet hearty interior, has set a new and impossibly high standard for all veggie sausages of the future. At a mere £3.60 (the meaty option costs the same), it is an economic mystery and a culinary joy.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Waterloo Brasserie, Waterloo
Waterloo Brasserie
119 Waterloo Road
Waterloo
SE1 8UL (Map)
020 7960 0202
www.waterloobrasserie.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
I had heard that there was a buzz about this place amongst the beautiful people of South London (don’t titter at the back – there are beautiful people in South London) so I thought where better to impress television moguls Charlotte Johnstone and Gareth Jones. The inside is decorated in aspirational late 90s northern hotel style. This involves apples in enormous vases and gloom punctuated by blinding spotlights plus a glass-walled cellar in which first growth clarets are ostentatiously displayed. The very loud mood music added to the dated feel.
The full English breakfast (£11.50) which Gareth ordered was tiny and came with dry butter beans. I don’t eat baked beans myself but you can see from previous LRB debate what most British breakfasters think of non-Heinz beans. Charlotte went for eggs Benedict (£6.50), which consisted of one egg, one rasher of bacon on toast and some separated hollandaise sauce. I went totally crazy and ordered the duck egg, ox tongue and tomato confit (6.50) with brown toast. The duck eggs were off so I got hen eggs instead. Brown bread was off too. The ox tongue was fibrous and bland and the tomato “confit” turned out to be a soggy, burnt tomato wholly lacking in flavour.
This wasn’t a terrible breakfast but everything about the Waterloo Brasserie - the stingy portions, the silly prices and the ineptness of the cooking - suggests a place designed to make money from people who don’t really care about food. This place should fail but I fear it will be a roaring success.
119 Waterloo Road
Waterloo
SE1 8UL (Map)
020 7960 0202
www.waterloobrasserie.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
I had heard that there was a buzz about this place amongst the beautiful people of South London (don’t titter at the back – there are beautiful people in South London) so I thought where better to impress television moguls Charlotte Johnstone and Gareth Jones. The inside is decorated in aspirational late 90s northern hotel style. This involves apples in enormous vases and gloom punctuated by blinding spotlights plus a glass-walled cellar in which first growth clarets are ostentatiously displayed. The very loud mood music added to the dated feel.
The full English breakfast (£11.50) which Gareth ordered was tiny and came with dry butter beans. I don’t eat baked beans myself but you can see from previous LRB debate what most British breakfasters think of non-Heinz beans. Charlotte went for eggs Benedict (£6.50), which consisted of one egg, one rasher of bacon on toast and some separated hollandaise sauce. I went totally crazy and ordered the duck egg, ox tongue and tomato confit (6.50) with brown toast. The duck eggs were off so I got hen eggs instead. Brown bread was off too. The ox tongue was fibrous and bland and the tomato “confit” turned out to be a soggy, burnt tomato wholly lacking in flavour.
This wasn’t a terrible breakfast but everything about the Waterloo Brasserie - the stingy portions, the silly prices and the ineptness of the cooking - suggests a place designed to make money from people who don’t really care about food. This place should fail but I fear it will be a roaring success.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Special Dispatch: Café Calcio, Cardiff
Café Calcio
145 Crwys Road
Cardiff CF24 4NH
029 2039 7575
by T. N. Toost
The night before, Patrick killed one of his chickens. We waited for all three to go to sleep. Then Patrick picked up the cockerel – Stacy – by his feet, held him upside down so his head was on the ground, placed a broom handle across his neck, secured it with one foot and pulled up. Stacy made a slight gagging sound and a distasteful face, eyes bulging and then closing. Then his neck broke and he was dead. At breakfast the next day, I went veggie.
There were a lot of couples not talking on Sunday morning at Café Calcio. Maybe they’d just run out of things to say: it was a very long time before our simple breakfasts arrived. Mine came with two eggs, three fake sausages, four pieces of toast, beans and a centrally placed half-tomato, which seemed to mock me. Why didn’t it come with more? Why just a half, and the top-half with the stem-hole at that? It turned out to be perfectly done, but there was still the air of something amiss. In the end, I left some beans, toast, a fake sausage and a whole egg. Everything turned me off: the egg reminded me of Stacy, the toast was dry and I just couldn’t finish the beans.
The veggie sausages were the abominable highlight. While well-spiced, they were rubbery and boxy. I entirely understand vegetarianism, but it’s absurd to be vegetarian but feel the lack of meat so keenly you continually replace it with an imitation. Deal with the realities of the meat industry; if you don’t have a Patrick, watch Jamie. Then eat. There’s enough fakery in the world without fake food.
145 Crwys Road
Cardiff CF24 4NH
029 2039 7575
by T. N. Toost
The night before, Patrick killed one of his chickens. We waited for all three to go to sleep. Then Patrick picked up the cockerel – Stacy – by his feet, held him upside down so his head was on the ground, placed a broom handle across his neck, secured it with one foot and pulled up. Stacy made a slight gagging sound and a distasteful face, eyes bulging and then closing. Then his neck broke and he was dead. At breakfast the next day, I went veggie.
There were a lot of couples not talking on Sunday morning at Café Calcio. Maybe they’d just run out of things to say: it was a very long time before our simple breakfasts arrived. Mine came with two eggs, three fake sausages, four pieces of toast, beans and a centrally placed half-tomato, which seemed to mock me. Why didn’t it come with more? Why just a half, and the top-half with the stem-hole at that? It turned out to be perfectly done, but there was still the air of something amiss. In the end, I left some beans, toast, a fake sausage and a whole egg. Everything turned me off: the egg reminded me of Stacy, the toast was dry and I just couldn’t finish the beans.
The veggie sausages were the abominable highlight. While well-spiced, they were rubbery and boxy. I entirely understand vegetarianism, but it’s absurd to be vegetarian but feel the lack of meat so keenly you continually replace it with an imitation. Deal with the realities of the meat industry; if you don’t have a Patrick, watch Jamie. Then eat. There’s enough fakery in the world without fake food.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Burger King, Anywhere
Burger King
Anywhere
www.burgerking.co.uk
Breakfast served daily until 11am
by Nelson Griddle
Burger King is a temple of unholy stimulation. As soon as you cross the threshold, everything becomes brighter, louder and shinier than it has any right to be.
If the neon lighting and primary-colour décor scheme weren’t enough, there are big signs everywhere telling you that their hamburgers are 100% beef (what else would they be? Horse?) and urgent exhortations to “Have It Your Way”.
The Big Breakfast Butty Value Meal comprises a hamburger bun filled with cumberland sausage, scrambled egg, a rasher of bacon and a slice of processed cheese, accompanied by a variety of glossy sauces. It comes wrapped, like a guilty secret, in a sheet of anonymous greaseproof paper.
The butty (why do I feel hesitation in using that word?) is less intimidatingly tall in real life than in the huge poster advertising it. The flavours are not exactly subtle (barbeque, ketchup and extreme saltiness feature highly) and the taste of the egg and cheese are undetectable in comparison. Overall, I have to say, I rather enjoy it.
My value meal includes hash browns and coffee. The coffee is good, and as for the hash browns – well, they are literally like no other food on earth. Shaped like plump pound-coins, they are golden brown and praeternaturally crispy on the outside yet oddly wan and slimy on the inside. Oh, and they are very, very salty.
All in all, though, it’s not bad. So why do I feel guilty about eating this stuff? Why, having disposed of the remains of my meal through the chute marked “Thank You” do I feel soiled, as though having engaged in some elaborate yet ultimately unfulfilling sexual act?
Is it the lighting, the slogans, or the fact that I’ve probably consumed my RDA of salt from now until Pentecost? Or perhaps some itch of contrariness the gods of global consumerism have not quite managed to expunge?
Answers on a postcard please.
Anywhere
www.burgerking.co.uk
Breakfast served daily until 11am
by Nelson Griddle
Burger King is a temple of unholy stimulation. As soon as you cross the threshold, everything becomes brighter, louder and shinier than it has any right to be.
If the neon lighting and primary-colour décor scheme weren’t enough, there are big signs everywhere telling you that their hamburgers are 100% beef (what else would they be? Horse?) and urgent exhortations to “Have It Your Way”.
The Big Breakfast Butty Value Meal comprises a hamburger bun filled with cumberland sausage, scrambled egg, a rasher of bacon and a slice of processed cheese, accompanied by a variety of glossy sauces. It comes wrapped, like a guilty secret, in a sheet of anonymous greaseproof paper.
The butty (why do I feel hesitation in using that word?) is less intimidatingly tall in real life than in the huge poster advertising it. The flavours are not exactly subtle (barbeque, ketchup and extreme saltiness feature highly) and the taste of the egg and cheese are undetectable in comparison. Overall, I have to say, I rather enjoy it.
My value meal includes hash browns and coffee. The coffee is good, and as for the hash browns – well, they are literally like no other food on earth. Shaped like plump pound-coins, they are golden brown and praeternaturally crispy on the outside yet oddly wan and slimy on the inside. Oh, and they are very, very salty.
All in all, though, it’s not bad. So why do I feel guilty about eating this stuff? Why, having disposed of the remains of my meal through the chute marked “Thank You” do I feel soiled, as though having engaged in some elaborate yet ultimately unfulfilling sexual act?
Is it the lighting, the slogans, or the fact that I’ve probably consumed my RDA of salt from now until Pentecost? Or perhaps some itch of contrariness the gods of global consumerism have not quite managed to expunge?
Answers on a postcard please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)