Phileas Fogg
Rue Van Bemmel 6
1210 Sint-Joost-ten-Node
Sint-Joost-ten-Node
Brussels
Belgium
+32 495 22 09 85
www.phileasfogg.be
by Sunni Sidup
On the one hand, Phileas Fogg is a strange name for a Belgian Bed and Breakfast. The English explorer didn’t so much as set foot in the country, nor, I see, do the eponymous crisps come in a ‘Belgium Frite’ flavour. On the other hand, alongside Tintin and European Unions, food is high on the list of things the country is best known for. Chocolate, waffles, and, of course, beer: all Belgian specialities that are as delicious as they are bad for you. I was intrigued to see exactly what a Belgian breakfast held in store.
It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that I’m not, in fact, British. I come from a country where a ‘Full English’ is (perhaps more aptly) called a ‘Big Breakfast’, reserved only for weightlifters and those nursing the severest of hangovers, and I still, despite having lived here for over two years, find the idea of chips with my breakfast morally wrong. Yet on my first morning of waking up for breakfast at Phileas Fogg, I felt decidedly on the nationalistic side of the establishment’s namesake. Having regrettably fallen into the category of those nursing severe hangovers, all I really wanted was a good cup of tea. An Earl Grey would have been lovely, an English Breakfast even better, but when I was handed a cup of hot water with a lemon-infused green tea-bag on the side, I knew that it was going to be a very long morning indeed.
A night at the Phileas Fogg feels rather like you are staying with an eccentric French aunt, then for breakfast you gather around her kitchen table with the various other guests, all of whom cannot speak a word of English. You have two options: embarrassingly try out your limited school-level French, or explore the art of the awkward silence. The table is set with two baskets in the middle; one containing cold croissants and a lonely pain au chocolat, the other filled with pieces of miserly sliced multigrain bread. It will take you a while to realise that this is not just a starter. The bread will not be taken to be toasted. There will be no eggs, no bacon, no fruit, no cereal, no other options. It is a coeliac’s nightmare: bread or bread. The highlight of my morning was a Laughing Cow cheese sandwich; the rest I fed to the two Rottweilers circling my ankles.
The place itself is lovely, the eccentric aunt hospitable, the dogs’ barks worse than their bites, but the breakfast is appalling. Stay there by all means, but do so in the knowledge that you will need an early lunch.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Casa Madeira, Vauxhall
Casa Madeira
48 Albert Embankment
Vauxhall
SE1 7TL
020 7735 0592
by Shreddie Kruger
Tucked away under the arches in Vauxhall, just a short mince from Chariots Roman Spa and well within eavesdropping range of MI6 is Casa Madeira. On arrival we were greeted with a pall of smoke from charring baps and a shudder inducing rattle from the trains chugging overhead that made it seem as though we were entering the Battle of Britain experience. The corrugated roof seemed to quake and we all held our breath as the roof to our would-be-air-raid-shelter held true.
With the chaos around us we feared not only a return to wartime rationing but also for our lives and so ordered fast from the Portuguese staff. During our short wait, for what we thought might be our last ever breakfast, we were relieved to see from Sky News that London was not actually under attack - or if it was, that the state of the lap dancing industry was more important to report on.
My full English breakfast was a joy, although I felt like an annoyed dwarf whilst trying to lift my comically oversized fork. The beans weren’t just warmed up, they had been allowed to break down to a slightly sludgy consistency that some hate, but I love. Yes, the sausage was made by robotic machine and not from a family recipe handed down from generation to generation like haemophilia, but that was just what was needed. The poached eggs were perfect with yolks that were so bright they could have been used as the amber in a set of traffic lights and not a trace of detestable vinegar. Bacon was salty and crisp. But the star of the show was a platter of buns that had been lovingly charred on the grill. They were still billowing little feathers of smoke that filled the air of our bomb shelter café like burnt out cars after a riot.
A trip to Casa Madeira is not complete without a shot of their espresso at the end. It was the caffeine equivalent of being woken up on a sleepy Monday morning with Dennis Hopper playing The Flight of the Valkyries out of the side of his helicopter.
This is by far and away the best breakfast meets Blitz experience that you’re likely to get in London. I’m just surprised that it’s not in the guidebooks. Or maybe I got the wrong end of the stick.
48 Albert Embankment
Vauxhall
SE1 7TL
020 7735 0592
by Shreddie Kruger
Tucked away under the arches in Vauxhall, just a short mince from Chariots Roman Spa and well within eavesdropping range of MI6 is Casa Madeira. On arrival we were greeted with a pall of smoke from charring baps and a shudder inducing rattle from the trains chugging overhead that made it seem as though we were entering the Battle of Britain experience. The corrugated roof seemed to quake and we all held our breath as the roof to our would-be-air-raid-shelter held true.
With the chaos around us we feared not only a return to wartime rationing but also for our lives and so ordered fast from the Portuguese staff. During our short wait, for what we thought might be our last ever breakfast, we were relieved to see from Sky News that London was not actually under attack - or if it was, that the state of the lap dancing industry was more important to report on.
My full English breakfast was a joy, although I felt like an annoyed dwarf whilst trying to lift my comically oversized fork. The beans weren’t just warmed up, they had been allowed to break down to a slightly sludgy consistency that some hate, but I love. Yes, the sausage was made by robotic machine and not from a family recipe handed down from generation to generation like haemophilia, but that was just what was needed. The poached eggs were perfect with yolks that were so bright they could have been used as the amber in a set of traffic lights and not a trace of detestable vinegar. Bacon was salty and crisp. But the star of the show was a platter of buns that had been lovingly charred on the grill. They were still billowing little feathers of smoke that filled the air of our bomb shelter café like burnt out cars after a riot.
A trip to Casa Madeira is not complete without a shot of their espresso at the end. It was the caffeine equivalent of being woken up on a sleepy Monday morning with Dennis Hopper playing The Flight of the Valkyries out of the side of his helicopter.
This is by far and away the best breakfast meets Blitz experience that you’re likely to get in London. I’m just surprised that it’s not in the guidebooks. Or maybe I got the wrong end of the stick.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sveti Vrach Spa Hotel, Sandanski, Bulgaria
Sveti Vrach Spa Hotel
Sandanski 2800
Bulgaria
+359 746 000 000
Breakfast from 8am to 10am daily.
by Nelson Griddle
Breakfast on the Continent can be a fraught affair.
The French, supposedly, revel in café au lait and croissants, although in my experience the latter tend quite often to be usurped by strange, dry, stick-like biscuits. The Germans have two breakfasts, but even with two goes they never seem to get it right. And one of the worst breakfasts I have eaten came courtesy of a youth hostel in Amsterdam (the exact details have faded mercifully from memory but sour coffee and indigestible cheese figured prominently).
So expectations of breakfasting in God’s Own Country of Bulgaria were not exactly sky high.
Especially when staying for a week or two at Sveti Vrach, a sprawling, neglected hotel in the hills above the southern spa town of Sandanski. Once a retreat for the Bulgarian Politburo, the place features a Henry Moore sculpture, a petting zoo, endless gloomy marble corridors, modernist chandeliers in which 90% of the bulbs don’t work, and a strange aura of repressed menace.
A cavernous, near empty dining room filled with wood panelling, pounding Europop and pistachio-coloured linen is the mise-en-scene for a breakfast as resolutely unchanging as the communist regime Todor Zhivkov imposed between 1954 and 1989. Each morning brings a fried egg, a couple of pieces of feta cheese, half a tomato, half a cold frankfurter, a slice of indifferent ham, a slice of tasteless cheese, two slices of toast with butter and honey and a choice of tea or coffee.
It’s a strange business being presented with exactly the same heavy-going assemblage, morning after morning after morning, and two months after leaving, the experience is etched uncannily on my memory.
Although I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In the guidebook it says Bulgarians usually begin the day with an espresso and a cigarette, and if that doesn’t kill the hunger pangs, they simply repeat the process.
If the alternative is a Sveti Vrach breakfast, one begins to understand why.
Sandanski 2800
Bulgaria
+359 746 000 000
Breakfast from 8am to 10am daily.
by Nelson Griddle
Breakfast on the Continent can be a fraught affair.
The French, supposedly, revel in café au lait and croissants, although in my experience the latter tend quite often to be usurped by strange, dry, stick-like biscuits. The Germans have two breakfasts, but even with two goes they never seem to get it right. And one of the worst breakfasts I have eaten came courtesy of a youth hostel in Amsterdam (the exact details have faded mercifully from memory but sour coffee and indigestible cheese figured prominently).
So expectations of breakfasting in God’s Own Country of Bulgaria were not exactly sky high.
Especially when staying for a week or two at Sveti Vrach, a sprawling, neglected hotel in the hills above the southern spa town of Sandanski. Once a retreat for the Bulgarian Politburo, the place features a Henry Moore sculpture, a petting zoo, endless gloomy marble corridors, modernist chandeliers in which 90% of the bulbs don’t work, and a strange aura of repressed menace.
A cavernous, near empty dining room filled with wood panelling, pounding Europop and pistachio-coloured linen is the mise-en-scene for a breakfast as resolutely unchanging as the communist regime Todor Zhivkov imposed between 1954 and 1989. Each morning brings a fried egg, a couple of pieces of feta cheese, half a tomato, half a cold frankfurter, a slice of indifferent ham, a slice of tasteless cheese, two slices of toast with butter and honey and a choice of tea or coffee.
It’s a strange business being presented with exactly the same heavy-going assemblage, morning after morning after morning, and two months after leaving, the experience is etched uncannily on my memory.
Although I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In the guidebook it says Bulgarians usually begin the day with an espresso and a cigarette, and if that doesn’t kill the hunger pangs, they simply repeat the process.
If the alternative is a Sveti Vrach breakfast, one begins to understand why.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Automat, Mayfair
Automat
33 Dover Street
Mayfair
W1S 4NF
www.automat-london.com
020 7499 3033
by Rhys Chris Peese
If you really want to hear about it, you’ll probably want to know what an American brasserie is doing in Mayfair, and the décor and the service and all that kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it. OK, so there’s chairs and tables and white tiles. You happy now? This ain’t some kind of interior design website, this is about breakfast.
I like the British, they do a good breakfast. But you ever seen a British breakfast with a steak in it? 'Cos I ain’t. I’ve seen all kinds of crap in their breakfasts, like blood sausage and all, but not that. You go to Automat, though, you get a goddam steak. You got to pay fifteen British pounds for the privilege, but you get it. I guess you’re thinking that twenty-five dollars is a hell of a price for a breakfast, but that steak is USDA premium non-hormone treated Nebraskan corn-fed beef. That stuff don’t come cheap. And it don’t come large, neither: go to this joint expecting some kinda twenty-four ounce T-bone and you leave disappointed. Two small pieces of fillet, that’s what you get. But that’s OK, 'cos this is breakfast. And it’s the best goddam breakfast you gonna find in London: steak, bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, and a grilled tomato as big as a man’s fist. That might be extra: this was such a goddam amazing breakfast that I was distracted from taking notes.
Anyway, I been going on about steak so much, you’re probably thinking, you crazy bastard, what else is on the menu? Well, there’s all kinds of crap, but if you order the fifteen dollar muesli or the sixteen dollar pancakes, all you gonna end up doing is looking enviously at other folks’ plates while they tuck into their steaks and all. No, you pick the Automat Big Breakfast. Best goddam breakfast in London.
33 Dover Street
Mayfair
W1S 4NF
www.automat-london.com
020 7499 3033
by Rhys Chris Peese
If you really want to hear about it, you’ll probably want to know what an American brasserie is doing in Mayfair, and the décor and the service and all that kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it. OK, so there’s chairs and tables and white tiles. You happy now? This ain’t some kind of interior design website, this is about breakfast.
I like the British, they do a good breakfast. But you ever seen a British breakfast with a steak in it? 'Cos I ain’t. I’ve seen all kinds of crap in their breakfasts, like blood sausage and all, but not that. You go to Automat, though, you get a goddam steak. You got to pay fifteen British pounds for the privilege, but you get it. I guess you’re thinking that twenty-five dollars is a hell of a price for a breakfast, but that steak is USDA premium non-hormone treated Nebraskan corn-fed beef. That stuff don’t come cheap. And it don’t come large, neither: go to this joint expecting some kinda twenty-four ounce T-bone and you leave disappointed. Two small pieces of fillet, that’s what you get. But that’s OK, 'cos this is breakfast. And it’s the best goddam breakfast you gonna find in London: steak, bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, and a grilled tomato as big as a man’s fist. That might be extra: this was such a goddam amazing breakfast that I was distracted from taking notes.
Anyway, I been going on about steak so much, you’re probably thinking, you crazy bastard, what else is on the menu? Well, there’s all kinds of crap, but if you order the fifteen dollar muesli or the sixteen dollar pancakes, all you gonna end up doing is looking enviously at other folks’ plates while they tuck into their steaks and all. No, you pick the Automat Big Breakfast. Best goddam breakfast in London.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Jack N Jill's, Beverly Hills, USA
Jack N Jill's
342 North Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills CA 90210
USA
+1 310 247 4500
www.eatatjacknjills.com
by Des Ayuno
I hadn't seen C in 12 or 13 years, and we were never really friends. But when my mum ran into his mum at the shops and reported back that he was now a wildly successful soundtrack composer in Los Angeles, I was curious. While I had sneered at the tall, tanned bullies in our class, C was their nerdy, eternally good-natured tagalong. “Wow, you're coming to LA! It would be great to see you!!” he emailed, friendly as ever, and suggested Jack N Jill's, a Beverly Hills joint considerately close to my lodgings.
Jack N Jill's is a long, clattering, airy room full of identikit ageless blondes in bikini tops, denim short shorts, golf ball-sized diamonds and pneumatic busoms. Whilst the rest of our classmates are busy hitting 30, bearing unattractive children and going soft round the edges, C was skinnier than ever, the wire-framed glasses that must have looked so punchable on his 13-year-old face now lending a thoughtful air. His girlfriend was not just LA-standard gorgeous but also funny, sharp-tongued and immediately likeable. All boded well.
I ordered a Mexican-ish scramble, perky with tomato and coriander. The tortillas were a bit soggy, but the fruit in the accompanying salad - strawberries, pineapple, kiwi - was lusciously ripe. The girlfriend had a similarly sprightly-looking scramble with tomato, feta and parsley, which she sweetly pronounced “delish”. C's plate, though, was breathtaking: a Matterhorn of Reese's Pieces pancakes, with melting chunks both embedded into fluffy half-inch-thick cakes and carpeting the top of the stack like gravel on a drive. Butter and maple syrup were also piled on generously, for a textbook heart attack on a plate. C made a noble effort and got halfway through before collapsing in distended delight. He also insisted on treating me, mentioning a recent, slightly cheesy box-office number one I hadn't seen. “Yeah, that paid for my new studio,” he said a bit sheepishly. “It can pay for breakfast too.” We all sat back and admired one another for a moment, me at least reflecting, blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth.
342 North Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills CA 90210
USA
+1 310 247 4500
www.eatatjacknjills.com
by Des Ayuno
I hadn't seen C in 12 or 13 years, and we were never really friends. But when my mum ran into his mum at the shops and reported back that he was now a wildly successful soundtrack composer in Los Angeles, I was curious. While I had sneered at the tall, tanned bullies in our class, C was their nerdy, eternally good-natured tagalong. “Wow, you're coming to LA! It would be great to see you!!” he emailed, friendly as ever, and suggested Jack N Jill's, a Beverly Hills joint considerately close to my lodgings.
Jack N Jill's is a long, clattering, airy room full of identikit ageless blondes in bikini tops, denim short shorts, golf ball-sized diamonds and pneumatic busoms. Whilst the rest of our classmates are busy hitting 30, bearing unattractive children and going soft round the edges, C was skinnier than ever, the wire-framed glasses that must have looked so punchable on his 13-year-old face now lending a thoughtful air. His girlfriend was not just LA-standard gorgeous but also funny, sharp-tongued and immediately likeable. All boded well.
I ordered a Mexican-ish scramble, perky with tomato and coriander. The tortillas were a bit soggy, but the fruit in the accompanying salad - strawberries, pineapple, kiwi - was lusciously ripe. The girlfriend had a similarly sprightly-looking scramble with tomato, feta and parsley, which she sweetly pronounced “delish”. C's plate, though, was breathtaking: a Matterhorn of Reese's Pieces pancakes, with melting chunks both embedded into fluffy half-inch-thick cakes and carpeting the top of the stack like gravel on a drive. Butter and maple syrup were also piled on generously, for a textbook heart attack on a plate. C made a noble effort and got halfway through before collapsing in distended delight. He also insisted on treating me, mentioning a recent, slightly cheesy box-office number one I hadn't seen. “Yeah, that paid for my new studio,” he said a bit sheepishly. “It can pay for breakfast too.” We all sat back and admired one another for a moment, me at least reflecting, blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Luxe, Spitalfields
The Luxe
109 Commercial Street,
Spitalfields
E1 6BG
020 7101 1751
www.theluxe.co.uk
by Sunni Sidup
One of the things that I like best about Saturday morning breakfasts is the routine of dividing and reading the paper. Sarah gets the self-torture out of the way early by reading the Work section first. I start with the magazine and then swap with Kate for the Review, and Raoul goes straight for the news, dictating the world’s events to me as I salivate over Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest recipe. Sport is ignored entirely, and it takes a particularly long and lingering breakfast for the Family section to make an appearance. We can be quiet like this for hours, with only the crunching of toast and the trickle of tea to disturb us.
Not so at The Luxe, recently opened in Spitalfields market. Sat beneath a speaker blaring electronic remixes of generic British boy bands, the music is so loud that I’m having trouble discerning if I ever actually left last night’s party. Time is also against us. It seems that half of East London has come to sample the new local, and so the waiters fuss around us, clearing our plates before we can even put our forks down. It’s evident that we’re wanted out, and I’m not even halfway through the Review yet.
For £5.50 the vegetarian breakfast is generous and well-priced: eggs, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, tomatoes, veggie sausage and toast all vie for attention on the same plate. The toast is soggy on the bottom but overall no one complains too much. I opt for poached eggs on toast with bacon and am similarly disappointed with my limp and unappealing slice of white bread. The poached eggs make up for it somewhat with solid white exteriors and gushing yolky goodness, and the bacon is cooked to a crispy perfection.
I am in need of caffeine and order a tea and an espresso coffee, and I am disappointed with both. The tea comes in a mug with the bag still in. As someone who usually drinks her tea black, I am dismayed that the brew (or should I say stew?) is totally undrinkable without milk. The lukewarm and bitter espresso is also a let-down. Despite my fatigue and its diminutive size, I cannot get it all down.
Having only been open a mere few weeks, I’m willing to put my gripes down to teething issues and return to The Luxe at a later date. Open until 11pm and serving as a bar as well as a restaurant, perhaps it's best to enjoy this place from lunchtime onwards, and leave the breakfast papers at home.
109 Commercial Street,
Spitalfields
E1 6BG
020 7101 1751
www.theluxe.co.uk
by Sunni Sidup
One of the things that I like best about Saturday morning breakfasts is the routine of dividing and reading the paper. Sarah gets the self-torture out of the way early by reading the Work section first. I start with the magazine and then swap with Kate for the Review, and Raoul goes straight for the news, dictating the world’s events to me as I salivate over Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest recipe. Sport is ignored entirely, and it takes a particularly long and lingering breakfast for the Family section to make an appearance. We can be quiet like this for hours, with only the crunching of toast and the trickle of tea to disturb us.
Not so at The Luxe, recently opened in Spitalfields market. Sat beneath a speaker blaring electronic remixes of generic British boy bands, the music is so loud that I’m having trouble discerning if I ever actually left last night’s party. Time is also against us. It seems that half of East London has come to sample the new local, and so the waiters fuss around us, clearing our plates before we can even put our forks down. It’s evident that we’re wanted out, and I’m not even halfway through the Review yet.
For £5.50 the vegetarian breakfast is generous and well-priced: eggs, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, tomatoes, veggie sausage and toast all vie for attention on the same plate. The toast is soggy on the bottom but overall no one complains too much. I opt for poached eggs on toast with bacon and am similarly disappointed with my limp and unappealing slice of white bread. The poached eggs make up for it somewhat with solid white exteriors and gushing yolky goodness, and the bacon is cooked to a crispy perfection.
I am in need of caffeine and order a tea and an espresso coffee, and I am disappointed with both. The tea comes in a mug with the bag still in. As someone who usually drinks her tea black, I am dismayed that the brew (or should I say stew?) is totally undrinkable without milk. The lukewarm and bitter espresso is also a let-down. Despite my fatigue and its diminutive size, I cannot get it all down.
Having only been open a mere few weeks, I’m willing to put my gripes down to teething issues and return to The Luxe at a later date. Open until 11pm and serving as a bar as well as a restaurant, perhaps it's best to enjoy this place from lunchtime onwards, and leave the breakfast papers at home.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Olympia Restaurant, Mount Airy, USA
Olympia Restaurant
602 Linville Rd
Mount Airy
North Carolina
USA 27030
+1 (336) 786-7556
by Hashley Brown
...
OUTSIDE RESTAURANT
Hashley Brown rushes from his Cadillac Escalade with New York licence plates through the torrential summer rain. Peering through the steamed up windows of the restaurant, he can just make out the outline of bearded men in dungarees. Most of them are wearing caps.
…
INSIDE RESTAURANT
Taking a seat Hashley is joined by the City Commissioner and his wife. This is the first time they have met.
Waitress: “Hey, how y’all doin?, Whadda y’all gonna have to drink”
HB: “Splendid, thank you. Coffee please”
Waitress: “I just love you're ah-ccent. Hello ‘Lundun’, ‘Splendid’, huh-huh!”
…
IN KITCHEN
Hashley is talking noisily to the owner of the restaurant.
Proprietor: “To have a true Southern breakfast you’ve gotta have grits, you’ve gotta have home-made sausage gravy, gotta make your biscuits from scratch; sell every part of the pig, tenderloin, ham, sausage, bacon..
HB: “What about eggs?”
Proprietor: “Eggs are very important, you can get ‘em scrambled, scrambled soft, scrambled medium, scrambled well, over light, over easy, over medium, over medium well, over well, over hard, now which ones did I leave out? poached, boiled, basted, so I guess that’s what about twenty different ways, at least.”
…
AT TABLE
The order arrives. Pale cornmeal grits like anaemic porridge are doused with butter and salt. The fluffy biscuits, like savoury scones, come with their own paddling pool of sausage gravy. Like a meaty white sauce it slowly thickens as the languorous Southern morning drifts by. Country Ham is the saltiest thing on the table, if not in the whole state. The City Commissioner smiles.
…
OUTSIDE RESTAURANT
Hashley struggles from the table, the last biscuit starting to weigh heavily on his constitution. As he crosses the car park, now sparkling with the clarity that only a rainstorm can bring to a summer morning, the waitress accosts him.
Waitress: “Will you say ‘Splendid’ again?”
HB: “Um, splendid?”
Waitress: “Huh-huh! Now y’all come back and see us again y’hear”
Hashley embraces the waitress.
…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)