Lucile's
2124 14th Street
Boulder, CO 80302-4804
United States
001 (303) 442-4743
www.luciles.com
by Shreddie Kruger
Gaunt and be-shorted men, women and children loitered around the wooden creole house like addicts gagging for a shot of methadone to sooth them through the sticky morning. Names were called out and faces blossomed as their turn was announced. Being British, the sight of a queue got us hooked and within a skipped heartbeat we were jostling for position wondering what all the fuss was about.
Once invited inside it became clear that the emaciated people around us weren’t druggies. They were just far leaner than their normal American compatriots, which isn’t surprising seeing as most of Boulder lives off lentils, hemp and a healthy intake of medicinal marijuana.
Lucile’s is a creole restaurant housed inside a New Orleans style weatherboard building with a brunch menu that is enough to give you jaw ache just from looking at it. Whilst sipping grapefruit juice we gawped at the food being devoured around us and ordered the most unusual things we could see.
My “Eggs Pontchartrain” arrived with a thud: Colorado mountain trout and two poached eggs slathered in béarnaise sauce and flanked by both grits and sautéed potatoes. The eggs were so perfectly soft that they ran all over the trout like a flash flood, while the béarnaise sauce was so naughty that it had probably just put drawing pins on its teacher’s chair whilst giving its brother a Chinese burn. The white trout flesh flaked sensuously under the weight of the eggs to create a flavour combination not a million miles away from that British summer lunchtime treat of poached salmon with hollandaise sauce garnished with dill.
Washed down with some bitter chicory coffee, it was as delicious as it was filling and unusual. Next door a creole breakfast with stewed beans, spicy sausage, poached eggs and sautéed potatoes was every bit as gut busting – so much so that we were unforgivably unable to order their famous beignets, watching sadly as the sugar dusted square doughnuts wafted past on trays.
Lucile’s is rightly revered as one of Colorado’s leading breakfast institutions and deserves a visit if you are near Mile High City. After just one hit I am gagging for more.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
British Airways breakfast, somewhere over northern Portugal
British Airways breakfast
(somewhere over northern Portugal)
by hAshley Brown
Altitude: 32000 feet, Speed: 532 mph, Outside temp: -55 C.
It's 5.32am (time at destination) and somewhere between an ashcloud and an impending strike, flight BA246 hopes to land at Heathrow sooner rather than later. Rumour has it that whilst we've been in the air (en route from Buenos Aires via Sao Paolo) Heathrow has closed and may well reopen again. But right now, in the cycle of false dusks and dawns regulated by the steely yet good-humoured will of the air stewardesses, the fitful mid night slumbers of my cabin compadres has been forcefully truncated by cabin lights and an offer of breakfast.
It's full English breakfasts, or cheese croissants, that are hidden alluringly below the foil lids and have been tucked up warm since we left Brazil. My stewardess assures me that all the cheese croissants will go, as Brazilians don't really 'get' the bacon and eggs. It's a heavy responsibility for our national carrier: for many, their first taste of our national dish may come on a little tray and be eaten with branded plastic cutlery. (The irony being of course that this pivotal meal is never assembled on home shores. I imagine they have good reason for not calling this one the full Brazilian.)
Considering the challenges faced by anyone trying to keep a breakfast warm and decent-tasting for 12 hours, this meal certainly tries. A fattier cut of streaky bacon, once grilled, now taking on a braised demeanour, is full of flavour if somewhat oversalted. A little sausage lurks behind a pile of baked tomato slices, the tomato prone to blandness, the sausage coarse cut and lightly spiced. But there is a blot on the horizon, like the belching Eyjafjallajökull - a pile of scrambled eggs, ruining everything for everyone. With a granularity not dissimilar to that of looming ashcloud, these eggs are not of this world and certainly not from any chicken i've ever met.
Elsewhere on the tray - a fruit medley of papaya, pineapple and over-eager melon join some brazillian orange juice, the ubiquitous plain muffin (prizes to whoever can get it out of the plastic wrapper with glazed muffin top intact), and some perfunctory coffee.
It's not the greatest breakfast, yet the novelty of its arrival, and the lucky-break in airspace restrictions that followed, makes it taste all the better.
(somewhere over northern Portugal)
by hAshley Brown
Altitude: 32000 feet, Speed: 532 mph, Outside temp: -55 C.
It's 5.32am (time at destination) and somewhere between an ashcloud and an impending strike, flight BA246 hopes to land at Heathrow sooner rather than later. Rumour has it that whilst we've been in the air (en route from Buenos Aires via Sao Paolo) Heathrow has closed and may well reopen again. But right now, in the cycle of false dusks and dawns regulated by the steely yet good-humoured will of the air stewardesses, the fitful mid night slumbers of my cabin compadres has been forcefully truncated by cabin lights and an offer of breakfast.
It's full English breakfasts, or cheese croissants, that are hidden alluringly below the foil lids and have been tucked up warm since we left Brazil. My stewardess assures me that all the cheese croissants will go, as Brazilians don't really 'get' the bacon and eggs. It's a heavy responsibility for our national carrier: for many, their first taste of our national dish may come on a little tray and be eaten with branded plastic cutlery. (The irony being of course that this pivotal meal is never assembled on home shores. I imagine they have good reason for not calling this one the full Brazilian.)
Considering the challenges faced by anyone trying to keep a breakfast warm and decent-tasting for 12 hours, this meal certainly tries. A fattier cut of streaky bacon, once grilled, now taking on a braised demeanour, is full of flavour if somewhat oversalted. A little sausage lurks behind a pile of baked tomato slices, the tomato prone to blandness, the sausage coarse cut and lightly spiced. But there is a blot on the horizon, like the belching Eyjafjallajökull - a pile of scrambled eggs, ruining everything for everyone. With a granularity not dissimilar to that of looming ashcloud, these eggs are not of this world and certainly not from any chicken i've ever met.
Elsewhere on the tray - a fruit medley of papaya, pineapple and over-eager melon join some brazillian orange juice, the ubiquitous plain muffin (prizes to whoever can get it out of the plastic wrapper with glazed muffin top intact), and some perfunctory coffee.
It's not the greatest breakfast, yet the novelty of its arrival, and the lucky-break in airspace restrictions that followed, makes it taste all the better.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Towpath, De Beauvoir Town
Towpath
Regent's Canal Towpath by DeBeauvoir Bridge
42 De Beauvoir Crescent
De Beauvoir Town
N1 5SB
Open from 8am, Mon - Fri; 10am Sat; 11am Sun
by Joyce Carol Oats
Porridge: at once the most hated of breakfast foods and one of the most beloved. Porridge done well is amazing, while porridge done badly (the default of too many chefs) can result in a culinary ennui that might put one off eating breakfast for ever. With a name like Oats (of the Dumfries Oatses), you’ll not be surprised to learn that I take my porridge with salt, with honey or maple syrup, and very seriously. Such is the passion of my love affair with porridge that I'll rarely relinquish control over my morning grains to anyone.
But there was just something promising about the porridge at the Towpath, a little cafe tucked into a former canalboat house on the Regent’s Canal towpath (surprise!), now serving breakfast and lunch and cake and coffee to hipsters of a certain age under a modicum of shelter. The seats face outwards, in the manner of the best French cafes, perfect for watching people and dogs and birds go by. The service at the Towpath is shambolic, but this is suited to the shabby-chic (burlap sacks, mismatched cutlery) aesthetic: the staff are friendly and cute and seem capable, but ill-equipped to handle volume. They get testy behind their small counter and you begin to feel a bit nervous that one of them might chuck another one into the canal. This would also be suited to the shabby-chic aesthetic.
The breakfast menu is brief, perhaps because of the limitations of a tiny kitchen, but the porridge stands out: not unreasonably priced (£3), topped with poached pears, something that even this self-described porridge professional had never encountered. And it was pure poetry. Served in twee, chintzy porcelain, the oats themselves were substantial, with just a touch of chewiness, cooked in milk but not too creamy, and with the essential touch of salt that my people (the Scottish ones, anyway) insist upon. The poaching of the pears was perfect: like the oats, they were soft but firm, not mushy, and they had been steeped in – wait for it – rosemary. I know! With a touch of brown sugar, which was supplied separately, this was only slightly short of orgasm-by-porridge. Did you not previously associate porridge with sex, dear reader? You will.
Regent's Canal Towpath by DeBeauvoir Bridge
42 De Beauvoir Crescent
De Beauvoir Town
N1 5SB
Open from 8am, Mon - Fri; 10am Sat; 11am Sun
by Joyce Carol Oats
Porridge: at once the most hated of breakfast foods and one of the most beloved. Porridge done well is amazing, while porridge done badly (the default of too many chefs) can result in a culinary ennui that might put one off eating breakfast for ever. With a name like Oats (of the Dumfries Oatses), you’ll not be surprised to learn that I take my porridge with salt, with honey or maple syrup, and very seriously. Such is the passion of my love affair with porridge that I'll rarely relinquish control over my morning grains to anyone.
But there was just something promising about the porridge at the Towpath, a little cafe tucked into a former canalboat house on the Regent’s Canal towpath (surprise!), now serving breakfast and lunch and cake and coffee to hipsters of a certain age under a modicum of shelter. The seats face outwards, in the manner of the best French cafes, perfect for watching people and dogs and birds go by. The service at the Towpath is shambolic, but this is suited to the shabby-chic (burlap sacks, mismatched cutlery) aesthetic: the staff are friendly and cute and seem capable, but ill-equipped to handle volume. They get testy behind their small counter and you begin to feel a bit nervous that one of them might chuck another one into the canal. This would also be suited to the shabby-chic aesthetic.
The breakfast menu is brief, perhaps because of the limitations of a tiny kitchen, but the porridge stands out: not unreasonably priced (£3), topped with poached pears, something that even this self-described porridge professional had never encountered. And it was pure poetry. Served in twee, chintzy porcelain, the oats themselves were substantial, with just a touch of chewiness, cooked in milk but not too creamy, and with the essential touch of salt that my people (the Scottish ones, anyway) insist upon. The poaching of the pears was perfect: like the oats, they were soft but firm, not mushy, and they had been steeped in – wait for it – rosemary. I know! With a touch of brown sugar, which was supplied separately, this was only slightly short of orgasm-by-porridge. Did you not previously associate porridge with sex, dear reader? You will.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Garufa Argentine Grill, Highbury
Garufa Argentine Grill
104 Highbury Park
Highbury
N5 2XE
020 7226 0070
www.garufa.co.uk
by Sigmund Fried
The idea of steak for breakfast is ostensibly ridiculous; bloody and parlous it’s synonymous with late nights, shouty conversations and red wine. In the context of a Saturday morning meal, which is all softly delineated regrets and coffee, it seems kind of wrong. But what the hell, I’d made a date with Hashley Brown and compared to his increasingly esoteric culinary forays into the world of the Leopold Bloom-esque breakfast (“Inner organs of beasts and fowls…”), steak was child’s play: a black livered, pastis-slurping French child perhaps, but child’s play nonetheless.
We’d decided on the Garufa Grill by virtue of it being about 30 seconds from Hashley’s house and because we’d had a pretty satisfying late dinner at this charming Argentinian restaurant two weeks previously with Mrs Brown and her visiting sister. So with Ed Benedict and a couple of others in tow we made it to Garufa bleary-eyed and ordered the “Full Argentine Breakfast” (£9.80). Except for Ed, that is, who as a veggie opted, much to his chagrin — and our amusement – for organic muesli with 'milk or yogurt' (£2.50). Still, despite the tears and cursing he seemed to like it, as we all did the numerous, delicious café lattes we mainlined.
Back to the main event, we were more than satisfied. The scrambled eggs were creamy, the Portobello mushroom juicy and garlicky, and the 150g Argentine rump steak an artery-clogging treat, but it was the “Argentine-style” sausage’s pleasing spiciness that garnered the biggest plaudits. And the grilled tomato and toast were as good a supporting cast as could be hoped for. Happily sated and surrounded by good friends, I made up my mind about the steak issue there and then. Would I have it again? Yes I said yes I will Yes.
104 Highbury Park
Highbury
N5 2XE
020 7226 0070
www.garufa.co.uk
by Sigmund Fried
The idea of steak for breakfast is ostensibly ridiculous; bloody and parlous it’s synonymous with late nights, shouty conversations and red wine. In the context of a Saturday morning meal, which is all softly delineated regrets and coffee, it seems kind of wrong. But what the hell, I’d made a date with Hashley Brown and compared to his increasingly esoteric culinary forays into the world of the Leopold Bloom-esque breakfast (“Inner organs of beasts and fowls…”), steak was child’s play: a black livered, pastis-slurping French child perhaps, but child’s play nonetheless.
We’d decided on the Garufa Grill by virtue of it being about 30 seconds from Hashley’s house and because we’d had a pretty satisfying late dinner at this charming Argentinian restaurant two weeks previously with Mrs Brown and her visiting sister. So with Ed Benedict and a couple of others in tow we made it to Garufa bleary-eyed and ordered the “Full Argentine Breakfast” (£9.80). Except for Ed, that is, who as a veggie opted, much to his chagrin — and our amusement – for organic muesli with 'milk or yogurt' (£2.50). Still, despite the tears and cursing he seemed to like it, as we all did the numerous, delicious café lattes we mainlined.
Back to the main event, we were more than satisfied. The scrambled eggs were creamy, the Portobello mushroom juicy and garlicky, and the 150g Argentine rump steak an artery-clogging treat, but it was the “Argentine-style” sausage’s pleasing spiciness that garnered the biggest plaudits. And the grilled tomato and toast were as good a supporting cast as could be hoped for. Happily sated and surrounded by good friends, I made up my mind about the steak issue there and then. Would I have it again? Yes I said yes I will Yes.
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