Little Chef, Popham, Hampshire

Little Chef
A303 Popham Services
Micheldever
Winchester
Hampshire
SO21 3LP
01256 398490
www.littlechef.co.uk
Open from 7am

by Shreddie Kruger

What better way to start Valentine’s Day than to wake up at 5.30am and drive for two hours before dawn to a service station, where two other couples are meeting you for breakfast?

We arrived giddy with childish enthusiasm. Insanely charming Little Chef artwork in each of the parking bays had us smitten before we even got out of the car park.

When we got inside, things went from good to great. In an homage to Michelangelo on the one hand, and as a piss take of the prat in charge of Little Chef on the other, the ceiling tiles are painted to look like the sky. Other strokes of ingenuity include singing toilets, with tiles that offer up nuggets of cooking advice such as “use salt to take away bitterness, not sugar”. Who needs cookbooks when you’ve got... tiles?

With our team of 6 we divided and conquered. Girls gave thumbs up to omelettes, porridge, yoghurt, bacon sandwiches and scrambled eggs, even if they were a bit rubbery.

Boys manfully tackled the Olympic breakfast. We’d all opted for beans over tomatoes so when our heaving plates arrived with tomatoes balanced on the side we felt miffed. We politely murmured a complaint but were told we were wrong. Oddly this matronly service was brilliantly comforting.

Bacon was the perfect thickness and crispiness. We nodded approval at the thyme-infused mushrooms and sherry vinegar-anointed fried eggs, which poured out their yolky hearts like a kiss and tell whore having dinner with Max Clifford. Crisp toast, sliced from a fresh bloomer, mopped up their filthy stories with aplomb. Black pudding was a triumph. All was going so well.

Until sausagegate. Anaemic and grey, they tasted of the manufacturing rather than the pork. And we soon discovered the ketchup wasn’t from Heinz. Some raving psychopath had switched it for something with the acidic burn of battery acid and sweet kick of treacle. Predictably, our unwanted tomato was a let down too.

Putting sausage, tomato and ketchup mishaps to one side, however, this was a fine start to a great day. Because this was always more than just about breakfast. This was about hope. This is a new dawn for both Little Chef and - hopefully - the country as a whole. If somewhere as bad as Little Chef can turn itself around… then surely we can get Mighty Blighty back on track. All we need is a bad brief, some “blue sky thinking” and Heston Blumenthal’s genius. Who’s in?

Morrisons Café, Scunthorpe

Morrisons Café
Lakeside Parkway
Scunthorpe
DN16 3UA
01724 289212
www.morrisons.co.uk

by Hamish Pastry

A breakfast review, after Hardy and then Welsh.

The Knaptons are a noble pea farming family from the fertile fields of North Lincolnshire. The Munnerys made their name as the finest greengrocers in West Wittering. And so the fortuitous match of the only Knapton daughter and Munnery son was destined to bear wonderful fruit. And veg.

The wedding breakfast was an uproarious affair. Wine and ale flowed freely. And the guests dined on the very best local beef.

Two guests in particular – one Hamish Pastry and his flaxen-haired companion – made especially merry. As the next morning’s fierce winter sun awoke the two revellers in their modest lodgings, thoughts of breakfast and painkillers crept into their sodden brains.

We drive around deserted streets, looking for a greasy spoon. A pub. Anything. But there’s nothing. Until Scunthorpe.

“We can’t have breakfast in Morrisons. Scunthorpe f*cking Morrisons,” she says.

“There’s nowhere else,” I say. “Get out of the f*cking car.”

Inside, dismal pensioners eat sludgy Sunday roasts. At 11.30 in the morning. There are shell suits everywhere. Shell suits in 2009. WTF? We order full English. It’s cheap. We soon see why.

Slimy mushrooms rub flabby shoulders with sallow bacon. Fried bread oozes deathly yellow oil. I eat. She eats. She retches. Like a cat with a hairball. I fetch a paper cup. She spews bile and grease into it.

“Sh*t,” I say.

Albion, Shoreditch

Albion
2-4 Boundary St
Shoreditch
E1 7JE
020 7729 1051
www.albioncaff.co.uk

by Moose Lee

The front half of Albion is a deli and bakery – the walls are stacked with iconic brands – Heinz, Colman’s, Yorkshire Tea – and there’s bread boards covered with Chelsea buns, pork pies and sausage rolls. This area – which you walk through to get seated – acts as a kind of portal of nostalgia into an idealised version of the British cafe.

It’s a place where tea comes in big brown pots, each with a knitted tea-cosy. There’s bread and butter on every table. There’s white-tiled walls, an open kitchen and canteen-style seating.

I ordered the Albion Breakfast which, at just under a tenner, is not a bad deal. I got to choose how I’d like my egg. I thought I’d challenge them and ask for scrambled – not an easy thing to get right, on the quick – but they did a fantastic job, walking the runny/firm tightrope with aplomb. The sausages – although not brilliant – were a world away from the terrifying Frankensnags that come with the average fry up. The black pudding was perfectly oaty and crumbly, though it could have been twice as big. The only thing that really burst my bubble was the bubble and squeak. It tasted like baby food, little squidgy bits of carrot in the potato.

The atmosphere is lovely and the staff are relaxed and chatty; our friendly Aussie waiter sat at the table to take our order. It does get very busy on weekends, so best to try and get in there midweek. Albion (and Boundary – the restaurant downstairs) are owned by Terence Conran, which explains why the café has a Maitre D’. He seemed a little out of place, snooping around among the hungover trendies. That’s one thing that separates this place from your traditional greasy spoon: the clientele. One customer’s black glasses were so thick-rimmed and his moustache so prominent, that I thought at first he was wearing a rudimentary disguise.