by Egon Toast
I have a breakfast-based quandary that simply must be aired. It is this: is there ever any place in the home-made breakfast for the black pudding?
A gory, sinful discus of fried pig juice balancing on the side of the plate - butting up against the sausages - is surely one of the great sights of the breakfast table. So why is it never transposed into the domestic setting? One might say that the 'Full English' as taken in a greasy spoon or pub is undertaking gross abuse of the word 'full' if it eschews the blood sausage; not so when the home-made version is served, it would seem. Is the reputation of black pudding in need of upwards revision? Can it be included in a social situation, or should more conservative breakfast instincts prevail?
Perhaps we should look at the likely inhibitive factors: culture, familial mores, and logistics.
Firstly, culture: blood sausages - puddings both black and white, boudin, Blütwurst - are the province of northerners, Celts and continentals. Although occasionally attached to one's London-caff-bought Full English, I wouldn't say that their presence is as compulsory to the southern morning feed as, say, baked beans. A slice of black pud, its sanguigenous heft, is perfect for Prussian snowstorms and wind-whipped dales - yet a little de trop for apple-pickers and financiers.
Stepping in a few yards from society's boundary, we should consider those formative childhood experiences of cooked breakfast, taken with family and at school. What morning treats did you share with siblings and parents on a Saturday morning? I remember scrambled eggs on toast, and possibly bacon. Sausages were Evening Food. But no-one has a bad word to say about (good) bacon. Black pudding, though? Well - its standing in the eyes of genteel, nutritionally-aware mums is null; they would sooner place their darling little creatures in a pool teeming with barracudas than place such a fatty disc of filth on their breakfast plate. Despite the worldly view on life one acquires with age, perhaps our subconscious still follows Mum's Rules; perhaps that's the reason you pass by the refrigerated offal section in the supermarket without hesitation. It wouldn't occur to you to stop there - as you never did so when learning the ropes of supermarket shopping by mama's side. Ditto the canned meats section, but that's for another time.
Mostly, though, it comes down to numbers. The cafe black pudding, if it appears at all, is a rather grand little treat, isn't it? You feel quite mischievous, teeth marching their way through that crunchy puck of deliciousness. But therein lies the problem: it's just one slice. To buy black pudding, to submit to your shopping trolley an entire tube of the stuff, well, that's laying down a marker, isn't it? You are telling consequence to go hang. How many meals are going to have to feature black pudding if you're to make it through the damned thing? If your dining partner tends to be just one other then you're looking at blood for breakfast, lunch and tea for quite a few days, each slice eaten in the face of disapproval and guilt. And probably not a little nausea, after a while. Maybe a friend or two will be present for a weekend breakfast - but there's no guarantee they will be fans of the stuff either.
I think circumstances and society will keep this little circular treasure in its place for a while yet. To attempt to adapt it, to minimise its arterial threat for today's more health-conscious food consumer would be to doom it to obsolescence - why not just eat a normal sausage? It will remain a fixture in many traditional spoons and caffs, as it should; but think twice before inviting it into your house. It may turn you Scottish.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Special Dispatch: The Kitchen, Polperro
The Kitchen
The Coombes
Polperro
Cornwall
PL13 2RQ
01503 272 780
by Des Ayuno
A week in a quaint, isolated Cornish fishing village with eight dear old friends had sounded so wholesome and jolly a month ago but, pace Deliverance, there remained on the last morning only three of us, exhausted and liverish, vowing never to speak again of our time in Polruan. After an emotional farewell evening featuring twelve pints, four bottles of wine and six hours’ sleep between us, it was imperative that D, the driver, at least attempt to bring his blood-alcohol levels in line with legal limits. We’d heard about nearby Polperro’s picturesque charms and pootled over at about 12mph. Disdaining the first café we passed, whose violent pink interior and curtains reminded D of Pepto-Bismol and, therefore, the sorry state of his lower intestine, we soldiered on down to the punishingly blustery front. Everything, of course, was shut. We marched back along the winding streets, bellowing apposite Fall lyrics into the wind (“I hate the countryside, so much-ah!”) and sheepishly settled into The Kitchen’s Ikea-pine chairs. Our bullheaded explorations meant we’d missed the breakfast menu by five minutes; eyelash-batting at Harry, the proprietor, failed to persuade him to break the rules for us. I hate the country people, so much-ah.
But soft! what egg on yonder all-day menu breaks? It is scrambled eggs on muffins with smoked salmon. And what creamy, silken scrambled eggs! What gorgeous, locally smoked, substantially heaped-up salmon! What carefully toasted, generously buttered, light-as-air pillows of muffins! What heady espresso! It was as delightful a breakfast as one could hope to find at the best of times and twice the price in London. Suddenly desperate to return to civilisation, we threw down our money and left. Thank god for rural gentrification.
The Coombes
Polperro
Cornwall
PL13 2RQ
01503 272 780
by Des Ayuno
A week in a quaint, isolated Cornish fishing village with eight dear old friends had sounded so wholesome and jolly a month ago but, pace Deliverance, there remained on the last morning only three of us, exhausted and liverish, vowing never to speak again of our time in Polruan. After an emotional farewell evening featuring twelve pints, four bottles of wine and six hours’ sleep between us, it was imperative that D, the driver, at least attempt to bring his blood-alcohol levels in line with legal limits. We’d heard about nearby Polperro’s picturesque charms and pootled over at about 12mph. Disdaining the first café we passed, whose violent pink interior and curtains reminded D of Pepto-Bismol and, therefore, the sorry state of his lower intestine, we soldiered on down to the punishingly blustery front. Everything, of course, was shut. We marched back along the winding streets, bellowing apposite Fall lyrics into the wind (“I hate the countryside, so much-ah!”) and sheepishly settled into The Kitchen’s Ikea-pine chairs. Our bullheaded explorations meant we’d missed the breakfast menu by five minutes; eyelash-batting at Harry, the proprietor, failed to persuade him to break the rules for us. I hate the country people, so much-ah.
But soft! what egg on yonder all-day menu breaks? It is scrambled eggs on muffins with smoked salmon. And what creamy, silken scrambled eggs! What gorgeous, locally smoked, substantially heaped-up salmon! What carefully toasted, generously buttered, light-as-air pillows of muffins! What heady espresso! It was as delightful a breakfast as one could hope to find at the best of times and twice the price in London. Suddenly desperate to return to civilisation, we threw down our money and left. Thank god for rural gentrification.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Café Rive Gauche, Fitzrovia
Café Rive Gauche
20 Warren Street
Fitzrovia
W1T 5LS
020 7387 8232
www.caferivegauche.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
I am beginning to suspect that people don’t like me. Some people sail through life on a cushion of benevolence, whilst I seem to be forever caught on the rocks of misunderstandings and imagined slights.
Take café Rive Gauche, where I met Eleni Fostiropoulos to celebrate her birthday. We both ordered Eggs Parisienne, which turned out to be a poached egg with ham and toast. It was lovely and cheap but there wasn’t enough of it so we ordered a plain croissant to share (Eleni and I are both people of large appetites). This is when things started to go wrong.
The waitress brought me an unaccompanied croissant so I asked for some butter and jam. She looked at me incredulously and said “you want butter and jam?”. I replied that this was a correct assumption seeing as that was just what I had asked for. She brought it over and then said angrily “but you asked for a plain croissant”. I replied that plain in this circumstance means ordinary as opposed to chocolate or almond. She disagreed. A charming person here would have pretended that they were at fault, smiled and smoothed things over and everything would have been fine. Instead I said, “so the customer is always wrong?” Not a very witty response. She stomped off angrily and Eleni looked at me with one of those only-you-could-have-escalated-a-mere-muddle-into-a-full-blown-argument-
no-wonder-Mrs-Pudding-spends-so-much-time-at-her-mother’s looks.
The croissant was buttery and the jam sweet with the ripest strawberries but I could detect a lingering bitterness long after breakfast.
20 Warren Street
Fitzrovia
W1T 5LS
020 7387 8232
www.caferivegauche.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
I am beginning to suspect that people don’t like me. Some people sail through life on a cushion of benevolence, whilst I seem to be forever caught on the rocks of misunderstandings and imagined slights.
Take café Rive Gauche, where I met Eleni Fostiropoulos to celebrate her birthday. We both ordered Eggs Parisienne, which turned out to be a poached egg with ham and toast. It was lovely and cheap but there wasn’t enough of it so we ordered a plain croissant to share (Eleni and I are both people of large appetites). This is when things started to go wrong.
The waitress brought me an unaccompanied croissant so I asked for some butter and jam. She looked at me incredulously and said “you want butter and jam?”. I replied that this was a correct assumption seeing as that was just what I had asked for. She brought it over and then said angrily “but you asked for a plain croissant”. I replied that plain in this circumstance means ordinary as opposed to chocolate or almond. She disagreed. A charming person here would have pretended that they were at fault, smiled and smoothed things over and everything would have been fine. Instead I said, “so the customer is always wrong?” Not a very witty response. She stomped off angrily and Eleni looked at me with one of those only-you-could-have-escalated-a-mere-muddle-into-a-full-blown-argument-
no-wonder-Mrs-Pudding-spends-so-much-time-at-her-mother’s looks.
The croissant was buttery and the jam sweet with the ripest strawberries but I could detect a lingering bitterness long after breakfast.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Special Dispatch: Chez Bernard Café, Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Chez Bernard Café
Peace Avenue
Ulan Bator
Mongolia
www.chez-bernard.com
by Egon Toast
The Lockheed Tristar was the marvel of its day; its tail-mounted engine the last word in aerodynamic future-world travel. Its day, though, was the 1970s. But here I was, in the brave new noughties, skidding over Siberian steppes in one of these superannuated aluminium tubes surrounded by jaded aid workers, with half the seats missing and an urgent, straining whirr emanating from above the rear doors. But out of the undulating mists, a conurbation: and what's more, an airport. Heavens be praised. We touched down, screeching past the rusting hulks of former Soviet military helicopters that line the runways of Ulan Bator International.
The intestinal knot unwound, the stomach awoke. What in god's name was the time? Have I missed breakfast? Urgent strides through the arrivals lounge took me out into the searing light and a Land Rover eager for company, if heedless of the need for suspension. And so we slammed into the centre of the city, epically crumbling concrete structures lining our route.
There simply aren't enough Peace Avenues in London. Great name for a road. Great name. And on that avenue, in the land of yurts, dried fermented yak's milk and mutton, a Belgian escapee named Bernard had set up a sprightly little café in the centre of town, and was ready and waiting to sell me croissants, and what's more, serve them to me on the outside decking space overlooking the city hustle and bustle while I tried to come to terms with the fact that I was in Outer Mongolia and ordering a caffe latte. It was all coming together.
The man himself, it has to be said, was a little off-beam. Bernard's attitude to the impeccable staff was rather, how you say, feisty. Perhaps that's to be expected of a man who's been up since dawn baking baguettes for a crowd of smug ex-pats. Perhaps he's on one of those relentless drives for perfection I read about in the Sunday food sections. Though one must ensure full disclosure: his buttery pastries were just the thing for a crisp sunny morning. The accompanying marmalade was a bitter joy, and the additional slices of toast crisp and tangy. I had a great cup of coffee. The waitress had made a pleasant shape in the creamy topping.
After breakfast, we went to a shopping mall. Mongolia is not quite as imagined.
Peace Avenue
Ulan Bator
Mongolia
www.chez-bernard.com
by Egon Toast
The Lockheed Tristar was the marvel of its day; its tail-mounted engine the last word in aerodynamic future-world travel. Its day, though, was the 1970s. But here I was, in the brave new noughties, skidding over Siberian steppes in one of these superannuated aluminium tubes surrounded by jaded aid workers, with half the seats missing and an urgent, straining whirr emanating from above the rear doors. But out of the undulating mists, a conurbation: and what's more, an airport. Heavens be praised. We touched down, screeching past the rusting hulks of former Soviet military helicopters that line the runways of Ulan Bator International.
The intestinal knot unwound, the stomach awoke. What in god's name was the time? Have I missed breakfast? Urgent strides through the arrivals lounge took me out into the searing light and a Land Rover eager for company, if heedless of the need for suspension. And so we slammed into the centre of the city, epically crumbling concrete structures lining our route.
There simply aren't enough Peace Avenues in London. Great name for a road. Great name. And on that avenue, in the land of yurts, dried fermented yak's milk and mutton, a Belgian escapee named Bernard had set up a sprightly little café in the centre of town, and was ready and waiting to sell me croissants, and what's more, serve them to me on the outside decking space overlooking the city hustle and bustle while I tried to come to terms with the fact that I was in Outer Mongolia and ordering a caffe latte. It was all coming together.
The man himself, it has to be said, was a little off-beam. Bernard's attitude to the impeccable staff was rather, how you say, feisty. Perhaps that's to be expected of a man who's been up since dawn baking baguettes for a crowd of smug ex-pats. Perhaps he's on one of those relentless drives for perfection I read about in the Sunday food sections. Though one must ensure full disclosure: his buttery pastries were just the thing for a crisp sunny morning. The accompanying marmalade was a bitter joy, and the additional slices of toast crisp and tangy. I had a great cup of coffee. The waitress had made a pleasant shape in the creamy topping.
After breakfast, we went to a shopping mall. Mongolia is not quite as imagined.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Rosemary Branch, De Beauvoir Town
The Rosemary Branch
2 Shepperton Road
De Beauvoir Town
N1 3DT
020 7704 2730
www.rosemarybranch.co.uk
by Dr Sigmund Fried
If asked what things I’d most like to see when approaching a pub, it wouldn’t be two very pissed men, almost certainly on wang, wrestling purposefully outside. Two men going at it mano e mano à la the fireplace scene in Women in Love, was, however, the sight that greeted Hashley Brown and me as we neared the Rosemary Branch.
Ordinarily we might have decided to go somewhere else, musing that such potentially life threatening horseplay was to be avoided, but following a brisk cycle along the canal, esurience now had us both in its own half-nelson.
The only breakfast option on the menu was the 'Rosemary Brunch', but what an option. Presented on possibly the biggest plate I’ve ever seen, for £7.95, we got 2 very meaty, herby sausages; very tasty black pudding; crusty, buttered bread (of which Hashley was worried there wasn’t enough, but happily admitted to being wrong post-brek); spicy “homemade” beans that gave just the right amount of kick; half a sanguine grilled tomato; and two rashers of bacon. Now, the latter Hashley wished had been crispier, and I’d probably agree, but this really is a small quibble.
Unashamedly a theatre pub the Rosemary Bush is a lovely, vaguely ramshackle affair, with the type of furniture and furnishings that this implies, and the sort of place you could imagine, back in the day, Peter O’Toole or Ollie Reed falling out of into the night. That Hawaii-period Elvis was playing on the jukebox for the duration was also a sign of impeccable taste.
The King, we know, was a serious gourmand – he would’ve liked it here.
2 Shepperton Road
De Beauvoir Town
N1 3DT
020 7704 2730
www.rosemarybranch.co.uk
by Dr Sigmund Fried
If asked what things I’d most like to see when approaching a pub, it wouldn’t be two very pissed men, almost certainly on wang, wrestling purposefully outside. Two men going at it mano e mano à la the fireplace scene in Women in Love, was, however, the sight that greeted Hashley Brown and me as we neared the Rosemary Branch.
Ordinarily we might have decided to go somewhere else, musing that such potentially life threatening horseplay was to be avoided, but following a brisk cycle along the canal, esurience now had us both in its own half-nelson.
The only breakfast option on the menu was the 'Rosemary Brunch', but what an option. Presented on possibly the biggest plate I’ve ever seen, for £7.95, we got 2 very meaty, herby sausages; very tasty black pudding; crusty, buttered bread (of which Hashley was worried there wasn’t enough, but happily admitted to being wrong post-brek); spicy “homemade” beans that gave just the right amount of kick; half a sanguine grilled tomato; and two rashers of bacon. Now, the latter Hashley wished had been crispier, and I’d probably agree, but this really is a small quibble.
Unashamedly a theatre pub the Rosemary Bush is a lovely, vaguely ramshackle affair, with the type of furniture and furnishings that this implies, and the sort of place you could imagine, back in the day, Peter O’Toole or Ollie Reed falling out of into the night. That Hawaii-period Elvis was playing on the jukebox for the duration was also a sign of impeccable taste.
The King, we know, was a serious gourmand – he would’ve liked it here.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Special Dispatch: Dumouchel Bakery, Leeds
Dumouchel Bakery
1 Ninelands Lane
Garforth
Leeds
LS25 1NX
0113 287 0055
www.dumouchel.co.uk
by OJ Simpson
3.30am. A curious hinterland of time. Going to bed at this hour suggests youthful exuberance. Waking suggests madness, poor bladder control or, worse still, a career in TV and radio breakfast presenting, which often involves both.
So powerful is the peculiar ennui brought on by rising pre-dawn that even breakfast, the stoutest of institutions, loses its way. You may wake at 3.30am. You may eat shortly after. This will be the first thing you’ve eaten since waking. But no sound mind would label this a breakfast – such traditional definitions have no authority here.
Transposed to a nondescript industrial estate on the outskirts of a nondescript small town (itself somewhere on the outskirts of the rather more descript city of Leeds) and this effect is magnified a thousand times over. It is dark. I don’t quite know why I agreed to come, at this hour at least, and I am not sure what awaits me behind the door I have just knocked on. Whatever is about to happen, I do not feel very breakfasty.
That my mind should change so suddenly is testament to the power of the smell of baking. I have come to meet a renegade French baker, Thierry Dumouchel, and for reasons I do not fully understand, I have arrived at 4am – a time I suggested. Perhaps it is partly due to his annoyingly stereotypical but nevertheless highly effective Gallic charm, but as I walk into Dumouchel’s bakery I feel very breakfasty indeed. I have discovered the source of the region’s best continental breakfast fare.
Thierry’s two French assistants continue to busy themselves while I am given a short tour. The bulk of the bread has just been baked, and attention has turned to pastries. As I watch a piece of pastry the size of a ping pong table being cut into croissant segments, I am handed a piece of heaven. Pain au chocolat. Out of the oven just long enough for the chocolate within to have regained its snap, it is the freshest thing I have ever tasted – it has a lustrous glow about it and is filled with warm, scented air. It moves me. Five minutes earlier, I was pallid, weary, and held together by sheer force will. Now I am in heaven. I am a god and I have eaten the sun.
During my reverie, Thierry has been explaining many things about baking to me. Sadly, I have missed everything he said. (Except the following trivium: only croissants made with butter are allowed to be baked straight, any deviation from this and they must be baked curled into a crescent shape.)
My visit was not in vain, however. For one, with the morning comes the chance to ask for all important details to be reiterated to me via email. More importantly, I have seen with my own eyes the dedication, talent and outlandish French zeal required to produce the pastries I once took for granted. When you next bite into one, be it at a workaday 8.30am on the way to the office, or a leisurely 11 o’clock in the lavish surroundings of your favourite hotel, take pause and consider your pastry’s provenance.
1 Ninelands Lane
Garforth
Leeds
LS25 1NX
0113 287 0055
www.dumouchel.co.uk
by OJ Simpson
3.30am. A curious hinterland of time. Going to bed at this hour suggests youthful exuberance. Waking suggests madness, poor bladder control or, worse still, a career in TV and radio breakfast presenting, which often involves both.
So powerful is the peculiar ennui brought on by rising pre-dawn that even breakfast, the stoutest of institutions, loses its way. You may wake at 3.30am. You may eat shortly after. This will be the first thing you’ve eaten since waking. But no sound mind would label this a breakfast – such traditional definitions have no authority here.
Transposed to a nondescript industrial estate on the outskirts of a nondescript small town (itself somewhere on the outskirts of the rather more descript city of Leeds) and this effect is magnified a thousand times over. It is dark. I don’t quite know why I agreed to come, at this hour at least, and I am not sure what awaits me behind the door I have just knocked on. Whatever is about to happen, I do not feel very breakfasty.
That my mind should change so suddenly is testament to the power of the smell of baking. I have come to meet a renegade French baker, Thierry Dumouchel, and for reasons I do not fully understand, I have arrived at 4am – a time I suggested. Perhaps it is partly due to his annoyingly stereotypical but nevertheless highly effective Gallic charm, but as I walk into Dumouchel’s bakery I feel very breakfasty indeed. I have discovered the source of the region’s best continental breakfast fare.
Thierry’s two French assistants continue to busy themselves while I am given a short tour. The bulk of the bread has just been baked, and attention has turned to pastries. As I watch a piece of pastry the size of a ping pong table being cut into croissant segments, I am handed a piece of heaven. Pain au chocolat. Out of the oven just long enough for the chocolate within to have regained its snap, it is the freshest thing I have ever tasted – it has a lustrous glow about it and is filled with warm, scented air. It moves me. Five minutes earlier, I was pallid, weary, and held together by sheer force will. Now I am in heaven. I am a god and I have eaten the sun.
During my reverie, Thierry has been explaining many things about baking to me. Sadly, I have missed everything he said. (Except the following trivium: only croissants made with butter are allowed to be baked straight, any deviation from this and they must be baked curled into a crescent shape.)
My visit was not in vain, however. For one, with the morning comes the chance to ask for all important details to be reiterated to me via email. More importantly, I have seen with my own eyes the dedication, talent and outlandish French zeal required to produce the pastries I once took for granted. When you next bite into one, be it at a workaday 8.30am on the way to the office, or a leisurely 11 o’clock in the lavish surroundings of your favourite hotel, take pause and consider your pastry’s provenance.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Café Boheme, Soho
Café Boheme
13 - 17 Old Compton St
Soho
W1D 5GQ
020 7734 0623
www.cafeboheme.co.uk
by Emma Ricano
I'd had it up to here with my early thirties life choices so I called a like minded companion and suggested we play truant from the office. Let's have a fabulous breakfast in the guise of two glamorous French television producers, I suggested. We'll consume fat chocolate pastries and gallons of espresso in Soho, the city's district of creative and visionary thought, and brainstorm ideas for an entertaining yet poignant television comedy-drama series. It's a date, replied my friend, I'm done with filing my life under D for Dull. See you at Café Boheme in a jiff.
As I turned the corner into Old Compton Street I was beginning to feel more than a little self conscious in my beret. These uncomfortable feelings fell away when I almost mistook my pal for Yvette from 'Allo 'Allo. She was sitting at a pavement table in a thick smog of Gitanes smoke, leaning at an acute angle on a tower of menus. She lifted her enormous bug-eyed shades and peered at me conspiratorially. Would you mind not laughing so loudly, she said. I actually know people in this area. After two strong and delicious cappuccinos we dived into the menu, which was a curious mix of British and American via a short trip to France. Declaring that this combination of Full English, Eggs Benedict and waffles was confusing her identity, Yvette opted for a granola and yoghurt (the French do curd very well she said) and I for an Eggs Florentine. Light enough for us to both focus on the finer points of story and casting.
Thank god I left room for waffles, I said. These portions are so light I might fall into a reverie. Of course they are, my friend replied. Everyone knows that people in the entertainment industry don't eat. She then finished off my coffee, threw back four complimentary sugar cubes and tucked into her yoghurt and granola pot which was lovingly sprinkled with a baby's fistful of blueberries and raspberries. What my Eggs Florentine lacked in size, they made up for in taste. The muffin was soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, crisped with an onion glaze. There was a generous portion of fresh spinach and the poached egg was the colour of a Californian sun. The hollandaise was tart and salty in equal measure. In combination, it was one excellent mouthful.
By the end of breakfast we deduced that it is a massive, starving, cancer inducing hassle being a French television producer. I think that what we ate was American, not French, said my friend. She paused. How much do you think I'd have to borrow to take acting lessons in LA? I dragged her over to Ed's Diner for a shake and fries so we could start doing the math.
13 - 17 Old Compton St
Soho
W1D 5GQ
020 7734 0623
www.cafeboheme.co.uk
by Emma Ricano
I'd had it up to here with my early thirties life choices so I called a like minded companion and suggested we play truant from the office. Let's have a fabulous breakfast in the guise of two glamorous French television producers, I suggested. We'll consume fat chocolate pastries and gallons of espresso in Soho, the city's district of creative and visionary thought, and brainstorm ideas for an entertaining yet poignant television comedy-drama series. It's a date, replied my friend, I'm done with filing my life under D for Dull. See you at Café Boheme in a jiff.
As I turned the corner into Old Compton Street I was beginning to feel more than a little self conscious in my beret. These uncomfortable feelings fell away when I almost mistook my pal for Yvette from 'Allo 'Allo. She was sitting at a pavement table in a thick smog of Gitanes smoke, leaning at an acute angle on a tower of menus. She lifted her enormous bug-eyed shades and peered at me conspiratorially. Would you mind not laughing so loudly, she said. I actually know people in this area. After two strong and delicious cappuccinos we dived into the menu, which was a curious mix of British and American via a short trip to France. Declaring that this combination of Full English, Eggs Benedict and waffles was confusing her identity, Yvette opted for a granola and yoghurt (the French do curd very well she said) and I for an Eggs Florentine. Light enough for us to both focus on the finer points of story and casting.
Thank god I left room for waffles, I said. These portions are so light I might fall into a reverie. Of course they are, my friend replied. Everyone knows that people in the entertainment industry don't eat. She then finished off my coffee, threw back four complimentary sugar cubes and tucked into her yoghurt and granola pot which was lovingly sprinkled with a baby's fistful of blueberries and raspberries. What my Eggs Florentine lacked in size, they made up for in taste. The muffin was soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, crisped with an onion glaze. There was a generous portion of fresh spinach and the poached egg was the colour of a Californian sun. The hollandaise was tart and salty in equal measure. In combination, it was one excellent mouthful.
By the end of breakfast we deduced that it is a massive, starving, cancer inducing hassle being a French television producer. I think that what we ate was American, not French, said my friend. She paused. How much do you think I'd have to borrow to take acting lessons in LA? I dragged her over to Ed's Diner for a shake and fries so we could start doing the math.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Spark Cafe, Clapton
Spark Cafe
Springfield Park Cafe
Springfield Park
Clapton
E5 9EF
www.sparkcafe.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
With thanks to the estate of Eggar Alpen Poe
During half of a bright, sunny and soundless hour in the spring of the year, I had been passing with three others, on foot, through a singularly inky tract of Clapton, and we found ourselves within view of the legendary Springfield Park Cafe. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of being very peckish indeed pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the welcoming café, and the wild features of the park - upon the friendly pigeons - upon the daft little yapping dog - and upon the big marshy whatnot in the distance; I looked upon it all with a great hopefulness of belly that I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than the yearning of a pious alcoholic barbiturates addict, at the very last minute of Lent.
The breakfast was superb. It was not its diameter nor its radius - but its height - ah, that was appealing! A generousness of bacon; an egg large, tasty and summery beyond comparison; two sausages of an addictive herby model, with a breadth of flavour unusual in similar constructions; a hash brown, speaking in its sturdy reliability of an abundance of moral energy; beans alternately vivacious and sullen.
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of parkland whose vegetation, so varied in hue, impressed on my mind at once the urgency with which I should communicate this glorious place to all who would listen, so they could verify my account while the summer still persisted. And I know not how it was but as I left I took a moment to blink and it was autumn, and then it was winter, then it was spring, before I was blinking into the summer once more.
They still do a nice breakfast though, I’m told.
Springfield Park Cafe
Springfield Park
Clapton
E5 9EF
www.sparkcafe.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
With thanks to the estate of Eggar Alpen Poe
During half of a bright, sunny and soundless hour in the spring of the year, I had been passing with three others, on foot, through a singularly inky tract of Clapton, and we found ourselves within view of the legendary Springfield Park Cafe. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of being very peckish indeed pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the welcoming café, and the wild features of the park - upon the friendly pigeons - upon the daft little yapping dog - and upon the big marshy whatnot in the distance; I looked upon it all with a great hopefulness of belly that I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than the yearning of a pious alcoholic barbiturates addict, at the very last minute of Lent.
The breakfast was superb. It was not its diameter nor its radius - but its height - ah, that was appealing! A generousness of bacon; an egg large, tasty and summery beyond comparison; two sausages of an addictive herby model, with a breadth of flavour unusual in similar constructions; a hash brown, speaking in its sturdy reliability of an abundance of moral energy; beans alternately vivacious and sullen.
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of parkland whose vegetation, so varied in hue, impressed on my mind at once the urgency with which I should communicate this glorious place to all who would listen, so they could verify my account while the summer still persisted. And I know not how it was but as I left I took a moment to blink and it was autumn, and then it was winter, then it was spring, before I was blinking into the summer once more.
They still do a nice breakfast though, I’m told.
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