Thunderbird Café
154 Featherston Street
Wellington
New Zealand
+64 (0) 4 499 1966
www.thunderbirdcafe.co.nz
by Egg Miliband
Economy class, London to Wellington, New Zealand, via Shanghai. I’d spent two days staring at the back of a chair and eating meals that felt like being walked through by ghosts. Now I was standing in the wind on Wellington’s waterfront, with two old friends at my side: one hungover and heartbroken, the other freshly arrived from a stint in Japan. I realise now that all of us were in various stages of trauma, and perhaps in need of more than breakfast. We thought we might wash up at Astoria on Lambton Quay – one of those spindly-chaired cafés, full of people shouting through mouthfuls of chef’s-special beans – but on our way there, we were drawn towards a sign with a red eagle on it. Thunderbird Café.
Inside was a vast wall-print of an Arizona highway rolling through a desert. An inflatable deer’s head stared fixedly from the wall, while a real hog’s head lolled beside the cakes cabinet. Above the wall menu were the words “YOU LOOK AMAZING!” The tables were covered in butcher’s paper, with bunches of crayons in jars, so we sat down and immediately began to doodle in silence.
After a series of meals eaten in mid-air – bandagey buns, flubbery omelettes, stewed tea – most foods will taste good. But let the review be unbalanced. My scrambled eggs on knobbly buttered toast were perfect because they were so ordinary. Part of it may have been the satisfying heft of real cutlery in my hands. Heartbroken friend had mushrooms glistening on toast. Japan friend had something called Big Brains, a plate consisting mostly of animal things: bacon, sausage, fried eggs, “Thunderbeans” (ham and beans), and potatoes. On toast. It came out as a reddish-brown mountain that he worked his way through slowly, heavily, like someone in a Raymond Carver story. Everyone ate everything.
There’s something about a breakfast like this that darns all the holes in a ragged day. We went back into the wind, full of beans. Our lives were going to change. I felt it.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Bill's Produce Store, Soho
Bills Produce Store
44 Brewer St
Soho
W1F 9TB
020 7287 8712
by Malcolm Eggs
What was that old saying again? "If Mohammed will not go to the mountain..." For years I'd been hearing about a place in Lewes called Bill's. People said it was the capital of breakfast for the entire south coast. In 2006, an LRB agent paid a visit and reported good things. But I have still never been to Lewes.
They opened a branch in Brighton and I didn't go there either. Then they opened five in London, one in Cambridge and another in Cardiff. They were spreading, and eventually the path of least resistance led directly through their door.
There is a pattern to these things. A restaurant becomes popular, so the restaurant owner opens more branches. Muttering commences, and the restaurant becomes less popular. There is a certain tone of voice used when people say of an old favourite "it's a chain these days" and all of the rumours that had reached me about Bill's Soho, Bill's Islington or Bill's Covent Garden had been muted and a little sniffy. There was a sense of betrayal. What was Bill's doing in London? It's a Sussex place.
But my Bill's Breakfast (£7.95) was excellent. The sausage element was two herby miniatures, formed from very finely ground meat (first bite mind-response: 'hmm do I like this? Yes, I do'). The bacon was streaky and had been cooked by one of those people who know about the existence of the zone between fatty wetness and brittle dryness. The fried eggs were perfect. The tomatoes had not been shoved in the grill at the last minute and served barely lukewarm, but slow-roasted by someone who cares about the medium-term future. The mushrooms needed salt, but that was on the table.
As for the flat white, well, that was only OK. But while the coffee round the corner at Fernandez and Wells is better perhaps I'd come here for coffee meetings: the room is huge, so you'll never have to stand around awkwardly nibbling on a pastel de nata and gently glaring at a woman reading Slate on a tablet device. The chairs were comfortable, the wooden tables were homely, the service was efficient and the wifi was free. Tinsel and dried tomatoes hung from the ceiling. There was a pootle of music in the background but my dining companion and I could hear each other speak.
I am glad that Bill's has come to London and I am glad I have never been to the original so I don't have to grumble about how much better it is. I shall also look forward to visiting the London Kremlin, the London State Building and the London Sphinx.
Another saying, this time from Morocco: "better a handful of dried dates and content therewith than to own the Gate of Peacocks and be kicked in the eye by a broody camel." I have never been able to work out what the hell this means, but I am sure it has never been more relevant.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Special US dispatch: Republican Party Pancake Breakfast, Brunswick, Ohio
Republican Party Pancake Breakfast
Medina Mapleside Farms294 Pearl Road
Brunswick
Ohio 44212
USA
www.gop.com
In which The London Review of Breakfasts officially endorses a candidate for the next President of the United States of America
by T.N. Toost
The weather that day was sunny and pleasant and warm. My breakfast companion, Rose, came over and we got on the motorway, and 45 minutes later we were climbing up a hill into blackness.
"Do you see that?" she asked. Around us was bright sun, but straight ahead of us looked like Mordor, and under the storm clouds you could see the atmospheric disturbance that indicated rain.
"This is such an omen," she said.
Sure enough, the center of the very real storm was the Brunswick field in which we were to have breakfast with Mitt Romney in the first and only of the London Review of Breakfasts' 'Breakfast with the Candidates'. We parked and, trying to stay dry, walked arm-in-arm under an umbrella to the entrance, where your correspondent was given a cursory pat-down by the Secret Service and waved in with a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Toost," the greeter said, and, to see what it was to be normal Americans, we then sat down amongst the masses at long, wet folding tables.
The talk around us was, of course, about politics. "Socialist" was tossed around like a baseball, as was "Un-American," "Kenya," "Fascist," and, most commonly, "scary."
Rose couldn't help herself: "What the fuck are they talking about? Do they honestly believe this shit?" It provided me the perfect opportunity to kiss her in the name of our personal safety, a strategy I commend to all men.
****
The announcement came over the loudspeaker: please form lines for pancakes. People moved like automatons into position, snaking around the perimeter. We joined. We waited. Blonde children played in puddles while their parents talked with friends. Smiling youths waited behind stainless steel serving trays, each holding stainless steel tongs, and deposited two pancakes on each of our plates. Then we were directed to other tables, with weak coffee, reconstituted orange juice, butter, sugar syrup and nothing else.
That was the kind of breakfast the Republican party provided for your correspondent. Not even a sad rasher of bacon.
The pancakes themselves were abysmal - so dry, mealy and flavorless that the syrup was sucked in like droplets of water in the Saharan sands and the butter sat cloyingly on top, not even having the decency to melt. The coffee and the orange juice were little more than flavored water, just at different temperatures. Around us, people seemed annoyed, but focused - they weren't there to eat so much as to be angry together.
****
The speakers were not eloquent. They were not engaging. They were bitterly angry, and unashamedly racist, and they gave voice to the masses, who answered their rallying cries with guttural, simian moans. Joshua Mandel, a particularly malodorous career politician now running for the Senate, was representative of their ilk - a stump speech wherein he claimed simultaneously to be an independent political outsider, yet fiercely and consistently loyal to the Republican Party; to be a Washington outsider going for one of the plushest Washington jobs next to Supreme Court justice; to be a political neophyte running on his experience. Unsurprisingly, his blatant hypocrisy was missed by the crowd. Just days earlier, he had adopted a false Southern accent in his speeches in order to sound more country and not like the product of a wealthy suburban family, and it was on full display here.
Apocalyptic gusts of rain and wind washed over the crowd, Romney was late, and even the politicians had run out of things to say. Children cowered under the tables while their parents, deprived of a central figure on stage, ceased their baying and waited anxiously. An emcee urged the crowd to be patient, as the campaign bus was almost with us, and then the microphones fell silent. Grumbling spread, but not against the candidate - against the weather, against the Democrats, and against comrade Obama for causing it to rain as part of his master plan to destroy the country.
Finally, Rose could not take it anymore. We left. On the way out, one of the secret service guards looked at us with what I thought was a touch of envy. He, performing his duty, was stuck to his post whereas we were free to escape for something better. He had to stay and listen to the drivel, the lies and the false promises and trickery of the Grand Old Party, whereas we could escape. The most he could hope for would be cold, dry pancakes, whereas we were free to find better fare elsewhere.
And, my dear friends, if you are able to vote in the American election next week, we urge you to do better than breakfast with, or vote for, the Republican party.
Since at least 2008, Americans have relied on the London Review of Breakfasts to make important political decisions for them based on which party would best preserve and provide breakfast in their great nation. It is for this reason that we have decided to endorse President Barack Obama for a second term. As we have seen firsthand, the Republican idea of breakfast does not comport with the grandness of the American dream and vision. We were promised a hearty breakfast and were instead given nothing but lukewarm batter and watered-down beverages. Their idea of breakfast has no room for meats, for eggs, for fresh juice or decent coffee, much less a nice cup of tea. Their idea of breakfast is hard tack, and they expect that you will enjoy it and appreciate it. They talk a nice talk, but the reality of their breakfast policies stands in stark contrast to their rhetoric.
This is not enough for these United States. Reagan famously said that it was morning in America, and here at the London Review of Breakfasts, when it is morning anywhere in the world we demand breakfast - and not just breakfast but a better breakfast. Obama, while nowhere near perfect, inherited a floundering economy and an unstable geopolitical atmosphere wherein many people were unable to provide even cereal for their families. While his record is inconsistent, he has at least shown that he can get a better breakfast on more tables than his opposition. For that he deserves a second term.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Special dispatch: The Garden Restaurant, Mayford, Surrey
The Garden Restaurant
Woking Garden Centre
Egley Rd
Mayford
Surrey GU22 0NH
01483 714861
www.thegardencentregroup.co.uk
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
“Dear Gardeners World, I have a leylandii hedge along the north boundary of my garden. I dislike leylandii as I find it boring (and I'm allergic to it!). There are too many to dig out, and due to the terraced nature of my garden, I can't grind or pull the stumps out. The hedge is about 5m long with about 18 leylandii (planted about 30cm apart). The hedge is currently about 1.5m high. As it's a northern boundary, I want to have something to protect from wind etc, and a panel fence wouldn't suit the rest of the garden. I was considering trimming all the branches and some of the top of each leylandii to leave bare stumps of about 1m-ish tall. I then wanted to plant or transplant other plants in-between the stumps. I have 2 buddleia and 2 ceanothus that need relocating. Have you any other suggestions?
Thank you!
KittyC”
Well Kitty, the first thing I would advise would be to visit the Woking Garden Centre, where they have a fantastic selection of climbers such as Clematis Montana which could easily spread if you enrich the soil with manure or compost first.
While you’re there, if you’ve got a mo (not a fly-mo though!) you could also consider forking up (!) some breakfast from the fortuitously-named Garden Restaurant. Park up your wheelbarrow, kick off your Hunters and dig in (!) to the Great British Light Breakfast – it’s guaranteed not to be pot luck! – and dilute with one very small heat-resistant watering can full of Rainforest Alliance or Tregothnan botanical tea…the Camelia sinensis in particular is a real grower!
In the winter months, you’ll be wanting to provide hardier nourishment to keep out the cold, so turn over a new leaf (!) with the Hearty Breakfast, wherein Freedom Food bacon and sausages, organic ciabatta and free-range eggs all mulch together nicely!
Now, Kitty: if your garden is anything like mine, things get unruly pretty quickly and it takes a real effort to keep your borders and bushes tidy, if you catch my drift… so have a look on the noticeboard and see if you can’t rustle up a good solid local professional who can come round and give you a good strimming. Are we still talking about gardening? I don’tmow know!!!
Woking Garden Centre
Egley Rd
Mayford
Surrey GU22 0NH
01483 714861
www.thegardencentregroup.co.uk
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
“Dear Gardeners World, I have a leylandii hedge along the north boundary of my garden. I dislike leylandii as I find it boring (and I'm allergic to it!). There are too many to dig out, and due to the terraced nature of my garden, I can't grind or pull the stumps out. The hedge is about 5m long with about 18 leylandii (planted about 30cm apart). The hedge is currently about 1.5m high. As it's a northern boundary, I want to have something to protect from wind etc, and a panel fence wouldn't suit the rest of the garden. I was considering trimming all the branches and some of the top of each leylandii to leave bare stumps of about 1m-ish tall. I then wanted to plant or transplant other plants in-between the stumps. I have 2 buddleia and 2 ceanothus that need relocating. Have you any other suggestions?
Thank you!
KittyC”
Well Kitty, the first thing I would advise would be to visit the Woking Garden Centre, where they have a fantastic selection of climbers such as Clematis Montana which could easily spread if you enrich the soil with manure or compost first.
While you’re there, if you’ve got a mo (not a fly-mo though!) you could also consider forking up (!) some breakfast from the fortuitously-named Garden Restaurant. Park up your wheelbarrow, kick off your Hunters and dig in (!) to the Great British Light Breakfast – it’s guaranteed not to be pot luck! – and dilute with one very small heat-resistant watering can full of Rainforest Alliance or Tregothnan botanical tea…the Camelia sinensis in particular is a real grower!
In the winter months, you’ll be wanting to provide hardier nourishment to keep out the cold, so turn over a new leaf (!) with the Hearty Breakfast, wherein Freedom Food bacon and sausages, organic ciabatta and free-range eggs all mulch together nicely!
Now, Kitty: if your garden is anything like mine, things get unruly pretty quickly and it takes a real effort to keep your borders and bushes tidy, if you catch my drift… so have a look on the noticeboard and see if you can’t rustle up a good solid local professional who can come round and give you a good strimming. Are we still talking about gardening? I don’t
Friday, September 28, 2012
Made in Camden, Chalk Farm
Made in Camden
The Roundhouse
Chalk Farm Road
Chalk Farm NW1 8EH
020 7424 8495
www.madeincamden.com
by Poppy Tartt
It’s four years since I wrote a breakfast review. But it’s not four years since I ate breakfast, thankfully, and I have continued to form opinions of my breakfasts, albeit privately. Welcome to the site of my first public breakfast opinion in four years. The venue is Made in Camden, the Roundhouse’s mysteriously underperforming eaterie. The location is promising. The food is good. In fact, this is my fifth visit. But perhaps there’s something wrong with me, because nobody else seems convinced. The restaurant is often barely a quarter full, great big airport lounge of a space that it is. This may be because working out how to gain access is unusually challenging, especially the morning after the etc. (Look for the strangely inconspicuous three-metre-wide door to the right of the frontage.) It’s almost as if the architect were briefed to design a room large enough to accommodate everybody who’s ever been to the Roundhouse (and a door that could admit ten of these people abreast). I’m only exaggerating slightly.
But let me tell you about the food. I always order the fritters – previously sweetcorn, now a chickpea/courgette composition – served with bacon, avocado, sour cream, chilli jam and salad leaves. Once a diehard opponent of salad-at-breakfast, I have made a frenemy of my foe. I cannot speak more highly of this dish, hence why I have never ventured to order anything else. In my old age I hanker after the avocado and the chickpea like a vegan Antipodean. My companions’ plates bear testimony to the sparkling menu: pomegranate seeds in the shakshuka, beetroot leaves in the salad. It’s colourful, more so than the venue, despite the hip retro event posters papering the scene. Something is missing, restaurant-makers. It’s atmosphere.
There is another, more troubling element: the tea. The brand is Tea Pigs, faux-artisanal tea de rigueur, which comes in gossamer pouches known by the company as, yes, tea temples. Okay, it’s a flavoursome tea. But tea should be hot and in Made in Camden it is merely tepid, urged quickly towards cold by the heat-conducting cast-iron teapots in which it is served. The lack of hot tea hurts me, especially in this bus depot of a room. But I do enjoy those fritters.
The Roundhouse
Chalk Farm Road
Chalk Farm NW1 8EH
020 7424 8495
www.madeincamden.com
by Poppy Tartt
It’s four years since I wrote a breakfast review. But it’s not four years since I ate breakfast, thankfully, and I have continued to form opinions of my breakfasts, albeit privately. Welcome to the site of my first public breakfast opinion in four years. The venue is Made in Camden, the Roundhouse’s mysteriously underperforming eaterie. The location is promising. The food is good. In fact, this is my fifth visit. But perhaps there’s something wrong with me, because nobody else seems convinced. The restaurant is often barely a quarter full, great big airport lounge of a space that it is. This may be because working out how to gain access is unusually challenging, especially the morning after the etc. (Look for the strangely inconspicuous three-metre-wide door to the right of the frontage.) It’s almost as if the architect were briefed to design a room large enough to accommodate everybody who’s ever been to the Roundhouse (and a door that could admit ten of these people abreast). I’m only exaggerating slightly.
But let me tell you about the food. I always order the fritters – previously sweetcorn, now a chickpea/courgette composition – served with bacon, avocado, sour cream, chilli jam and salad leaves. Once a diehard opponent of salad-at-breakfast, I have made a frenemy of my foe. I cannot speak more highly of this dish, hence why I have never ventured to order anything else. In my old age I hanker after the avocado and the chickpea like a vegan Antipodean. My companions’ plates bear testimony to the sparkling menu: pomegranate seeds in the shakshuka, beetroot leaves in the salad. It’s colourful, more so than the venue, despite the hip retro event posters papering the scene. Something is missing, restaurant-makers. It’s atmosphere.
There is another, more troubling element: the tea. The brand is Tea Pigs, faux-artisanal tea de rigueur, which comes in gossamer pouches known by the company as, yes, tea temples. Okay, it’s a flavoursome tea. But tea should be hot and in Made in Camden it is merely tepid, urged quickly towards cold by the heat-conducting cast-iron teapots in which it is served. The lack of hot tea hurts me, especially in this bus depot of a room. But I do enjoy those fritters.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Carluccio's, Marylebone
Carluccio's
St. Christopher's Place
Marylebone
W1U 1AY
www.carluccios.com
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
KLANG!!!
"Sorry?"
"Oh, I was just saying the breakfast in here is quite..."
KLANG!!!
"...actually. OK, they've dressed up eggs and bacon and toast in 84 different non-inflected Indo- European dialects...but the eggs are buttery and the mushrooms Briatore-rich, the pastries crumple obligingly and the pancetta is as salty as an anchovy's..."
KLANG!!!
"...and just as crispy. And you've got to admit, the Colazione Magnifica sounds a million times more awesome than its maiden name the Full Italian. Add to that regal prosciutto, bitchin' Bicerin and the Rubenesque splendour of the deli counter, and really the only thing crashing the party is the terrible..."
KLANG!!!
"The what now?"
"THE ACOUSTICS, MAN, THE ACOUSTICS! I mean, who's their barista - Michael J..."
KLANG!!!
St. Christopher's Place
Marylebone
W1U 1AY
www.carluccios.com
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
KLANG!!!
"Sorry?"
"Oh, I was just saying the breakfast in here is quite..."
KLANG!!!
"...actually. OK, they've dressed up eggs and bacon and toast in 84 different non-inflected Indo- European dialects...but the eggs are buttery and the mushrooms Briatore-rich, the pastries crumple obligingly and the pancetta is as salty as an anchovy's..."
KLANG!!!
"...and just as crispy. And you've got to admit, the Colazione Magnifica sounds a million times more awesome than its maiden name the Full Italian. Add to that regal prosciutto, bitchin' Bicerin and the Rubenesque splendour of the deli counter, and really the only thing crashing the party is the terrible..."
KLANG!!!
"The what now?"
"THE ACOUSTICS, MAN, THE ACOUSTICS! I mean, who's their barista - Michael J..."
KLANG!!!
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Brazas Restaurant, Brixton
Brazas Restaurant
45 Tulse Hill
Brixton
SW2 2TJ
020 8678 0697
www.brazas.co.uk
by Egg Miliband
Down the back of Brazas, thick louvres block out the sunlight. I am here with my usual breakfast companion Ivan, and my brother Frank and his two-year-old daughter Ngaire. In the dimness, the four of us sit at our table like moths in a wardrobe.
The menu is hearty but rather solemn. There’s the Full, the Mini, the Omelette with French Fries and the Breakfast Bagel. But the ‘vegetarian sausage’ option on the Veggie Breakfast has been blacked out! There’s something jokey and jolly about the vegetarian sausage option – it is the definition of ‘silly sausage’ – and I’m always cheered to see it on offer. So I order my old friend, scrambled eggs on toast. Frank is second-breakfasting, so he orders the ‘dessert breakfast’: pancakes. Ivan orders a bagel. Ngaire has an orange juice, to which she adds the crushed petals of a flower she picked earlier.
At this point, review etiquette demands that I mention the cakes. When you enter Brazas, the first thing you see is a display cabinet festooning with fancy cakes and meringues in full bloom. One reviewer reports that a gateaux made her ‘cry with delight’. My cake-mentioning duty is now fulfilled. What of the breakfast?
A friendly waiter in a neon shirt delivers our meals, two of which look bouquet-fresh – the pancakes piled high with banana and blueberries, the bagel a riot of poached egg, bacon, and mushrooms – but my scrambled eggs seem reluctant to be eaten. The toast is basic multigrain, unbuttered, with one slice forming a central stage for the eggs and two triangles acting as the wings. Sourdough would’ve been more stylish, a hand-cut pat of butter more flirtatious. But as it turns out, the only thing that has let me down is my scrambled-egg snobbery. These are fine, upstanding eggs. This is a meal my grandparents would’ve tucked into while reading the paper together. ‘Nothing wrong with those hens,’ they would’ve said approvingly. Then they would've opened the window to let some sun in, but never mind.
Despite the ‘strange toughness’ of his pancakes, Frank leaves a shining plate and declares it good. Ivan hasn’t said anything about his poached-egg-and-bacon bagel, but he eats it rapidly, with keen focus, and in the future, he will talk with nostalgia of the bacon.
Just down the road from Brazas is a takeaway called The Olympic Kebab. I hope this attracted thousands of tourists during the Olympics, some of whom, nonplussed, wandered down to Brazas.
45 Tulse Hill
Brixton
SW2 2TJ
020 8678 0697
www.brazas.co.uk
by Egg Miliband
Down the back of Brazas, thick louvres block out the sunlight. I am here with my usual breakfast companion Ivan, and my brother Frank and his two-year-old daughter Ngaire. In the dimness, the four of us sit at our table like moths in a wardrobe.
The menu is hearty but rather solemn. There’s the Full, the Mini, the Omelette with French Fries and the Breakfast Bagel. But the ‘vegetarian sausage’ option on the Veggie Breakfast has been blacked out! There’s something jokey and jolly about the vegetarian sausage option – it is the definition of ‘silly sausage’ – and I’m always cheered to see it on offer. So I order my old friend, scrambled eggs on toast. Frank is second-breakfasting, so he orders the ‘dessert breakfast’: pancakes. Ivan orders a bagel. Ngaire has an orange juice, to which she adds the crushed petals of a flower she picked earlier.
At this point, review etiquette demands that I mention the cakes. When you enter Brazas, the first thing you see is a display cabinet festooning with fancy cakes and meringues in full bloom. One reviewer reports that a gateaux made her ‘cry with delight’. My cake-mentioning duty is now fulfilled. What of the breakfast?
A friendly waiter in a neon shirt delivers our meals, two of which look bouquet-fresh – the pancakes piled high with banana and blueberries, the bagel a riot of poached egg, bacon, and mushrooms – but my scrambled eggs seem reluctant to be eaten. The toast is basic multigrain, unbuttered, with one slice forming a central stage for the eggs and two triangles acting as the wings. Sourdough would’ve been more stylish, a hand-cut pat of butter more flirtatious. But as it turns out, the only thing that has let me down is my scrambled-egg snobbery. These are fine, upstanding eggs. This is a meal my grandparents would’ve tucked into while reading the paper together. ‘Nothing wrong with those hens,’ they would’ve said approvingly. Then they would've opened the window to let some sun in, but never mind.
Despite the ‘strange toughness’ of his pancakes, Frank leaves a shining plate and declares it good. Ivan hasn’t said anything about his poached-egg-and-bacon bagel, but he eats it rapidly, with keen focus, and in the future, he will talk with nostalgia of the bacon.
Just down the road from Brazas is a takeaway called The Olympic Kebab. I hope this attracted thousands of tourists during the Olympics, some of whom, nonplussed, wandered down to Brazas.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
The Russet, Hackney Downs
The Russet
Hackney Downs Studios
Amhurst Road
Hackney Downs
E8 2BT
0203 095 9731
therusset.wordpress.com
by Stephen Fry-Up
I met a traveller from an organic land
Who said: Two vast and yolky eggs of duck
Stand on a crumpet. Near them, on the plate,
Half dunked, a buttered liquid lies, whose flow,
And acidic nip – a smear of Sauce Hollande –
Tell that its maker well those passions read
Which yet survive, ladled on these flawless things,
The hand that sourced them and the heart that fed.
And from the crumpet these words I hear:
“My name is new season Asparagus, king of kings.
Look on my stalks, ye Hungry, and devour!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the crumbs
Of that colossal Brek, boundless and fair
The lone and level Downs stretch far away.
Hackney Downs Studios
Amhurst Road
Hackney Downs
E8 2BT
0203 095 9731
therusset.wordpress.com
by Stephen Fry-Up
I met a traveller from an organic land
Who said: Two vast and yolky eggs of duck
Stand on a crumpet. Near them, on the plate,
Half dunked, a buttered liquid lies, whose flow,
And acidic nip – a smear of Sauce Hollande –
Tell that its maker well those passions read
Which yet survive, ladled on these flawless things,
The hand that sourced them and the heart that fed.
And from the crumpet these words I hear:
“My name is new season Asparagus, king of kings.
Look on my stalks, ye Hungry, and devour!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the crumbs
Of that colossal Brek, boundless and fair
The lone and level Downs stretch far away.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Special Dispatch: The Breakfasts of Paris (Part 1: Don't...)
Featuring:
La Salle a Manger
136 Rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris
(+33)1 55 43 91 99
Eggs & Co
11 Rue Bernard Palissy
75006 Paris
(+33)1 45 44 02 52
www.eggsandco.fr
Breakfast in America
17 Rue des Écoles
75005 Paris
(+33)1 43 54 50 28
www.breakfast-in-america.com
by Seggolène Royal
Three-hour lunches. Romantic dinners. These are the meals for which the French are justly celebrated. Breakfast, however, is another story. The English, our kind neighbors to the north, cast aspersions on the quality of our breakfasts, simply because we don’t do a cooked breakfast. As a native New Yorker, I understand what it is to be proud of your local breakfast traditions. But breakfast in France, done right, can often prove to be the best meal of the day.
I first breakfasted in France— really breakfasted— when I was twenty years old and had been sent to Besançon, not far from the Swiss border, to observe a French family in their native habitat. I was assigned to a lovely couple, the Dorniers, whose children had grown up and moved out of the house. Their elder daughter, Aline, had left behind a roomful of white Gallimard Folio paperbacks, inspiring a collector’s fever in me that has yet to abate. I woke up that first morning to discover, laid out on the table, several baguettes, a brick of salted butter, and every jar of jam that had ever entered the house, from extra large pots of Bonne Maman to the smallest sample-sized jar, in flavors ranging from the pedestrian (strawberry) to the exotic (what is a coing?). There was also honey, which I had never before contemplated pairing with bread and butter, and Nutella, which I had. They served me coffee in a bowl and I fell in love. After that semester abroad, I moved back to France as soon as I could.
Lo these many years later, I have realized that the best breakfast in France is still to be had at the Dorniers’ house, and the second-best at my own. But for those mornings when there’s no more milk and I’m out of Nutella— here are the guidelines I use for breakfast dining in Paris.
Part One: Don’t
1. Don’t trust places that look cute: they will either disappoint or overcharge, or, more often, both. La Salle à Manger is an outwardly adorable cozy little café on the rue Mouffetard, approximately five minutes’ walk from my apartment. I pass it all the time but until recently had never gone in, not even in its previous incarnation as a Pain Quotidien, not even in the days before my gluten allergy was activated. The reason for this is: communal pots of jam. I cannot, cannot abide using a jar of jam someone else has used. Not even when that someone else is someone I live with. I am the only person I trust to be meticulous enough not to leave leftover crumbs and glops of butter inside the jar.
But that’s not my primary problem with this place: my real issue is with the service, the quality, and the quantity of the offerings. It turns out the post-corporate occupation of this space is as impersonal as those communal vats of jam. The waitress seemed annoyed to find us seated in her section and proved unwilling to address such questions as “can I get this without toast and with orange juice instead?” Menu exegesis was evidently not in her job description.
Our food arrived in fits; first the included cup of café crème, then what seemed like ages later came a soft-boiled egg, which was cold and congealed by the time the toast was provided; then a sad plastic dish of fruit salad no doubt straight from a can, involving two bits of green melon, half a strawberry, a piece of apple, and two half-shriveled grapes on their way to raisinhood. The orange juice arrived last, slightly too late for the party. There was something grey in my fromage blanc. For this I ate gluten?
This unfortunate experience is alas representative of the recent decline in quality amongst the shopkeepers of the rue Mouffetard. The influx of tourists has increased past saturation point and the original shopkeepers have been priced out of their rents, to be replaced by opportunists with no compunction about raising their prices and lowering the quality of their products. The things I could tell you about my experiences of late buying quiche, avocados, poulets fermiers, and baguettes would make a Francophile weep. Basically, it’s time to move.
2. Don’t mortgage your house for a plate of eggs. Eggs & Co (formerly known as Coco & Co), housed in a shallow duplex space in a side street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, is loaded with personality: exposed beams (16th or 17th century I’d guess), with warped ancient floorboards that tilt the upstairs tables on such an incline that you’ll feel like you’ve gone down the rabbit hole and come out into some rustically lopsided Parisian garret (see rule #1). Egg-inspired posters line the walls (“Des cocottes coquettes qui caquettent” [“Cackling coquettish eggs en cocotte”] surrounded by drawings of diabolical-looking eggs). There was a line outside of people waiting for an uneven table or rickety barstool, but they didn’t hurry us out. (After all, we had a reservation.)
The cheapest brunch menu was 22 euros, which is a fair price for brunch in Paris, and even a bargain when you realize how much food is included: a hot drink, your choice of eggs (prepared four different ways: with chèvre and spinach; with mushrooms, bacon, and coriander; with bacon, parmesan, and chives, or with parma ham, gruyère and chives), one large, thick pancake, and a fruit salad. I opted for the 25 euro menu, which gave me the option of having eggs Florentine (I’m a sucker for a poached egg). Everything was delicious.
But I didn’t want “everything,” I wanted eggs Florentine, à la carte, minus all the other stuff. Alas, only brunch is served on the weekends, thus guaranteeing at least 22 euros per cover. So while this brunch might possibly be worth splashing out on, I don’t like not having the choice of whether to splash out or not. Do go here during the week, I say.
3. Don’t assume because the joint is American, or promising an American breakfast, that said breakfast will be any good. The best thing I can say about Breakfast in America is that they have bottomless cups of American coffee (popularly known as jus de chausettes, but je m’en fous). On my last visit the bacon was fatty and flaccid; the toast disappointingly small (elf-sized, really) not to mention cold and slightly overdone. I’ve never been impressed by the pancakes. The acoustics are terrible, and the nostalgia value of the diner decor isn’t strong enough to make me voluntarily spend time here, though the people who work there are very nice, and all speak English.
4. Whatever you do, don’t order a bagel anywhere in Paris.
In Part Two, we’ll look at some proper breakfasts.
La Salle a Manger
136 Rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris
(+33)1 55 43 91 99
Eggs & Co
11 Rue Bernard Palissy
75006 Paris
(+33)1 45 44 02 52
www.eggsandco.fr
Breakfast in America
17 Rue des Écoles
75005 Paris
(+33)1 43 54 50 28
www.breakfast-in-america.com
by Seggolène Royal
Three-hour lunches. Romantic dinners. These are the meals for which the French are justly celebrated. Breakfast, however, is another story. The English, our kind neighbors to the north, cast aspersions on the quality of our breakfasts, simply because we don’t do a cooked breakfast. As a native New Yorker, I understand what it is to be proud of your local breakfast traditions. But breakfast in France, done right, can often prove to be the best meal of the day.
I first breakfasted in France— really breakfasted— when I was twenty years old and had been sent to Besançon, not far from the Swiss border, to observe a French family in their native habitat. I was assigned to a lovely couple, the Dorniers, whose children had grown up and moved out of the house. Their elder daughter, Aline, had left behind a roomful of white Gallimard Folio paperbacks, inspiring a collector’s fever in me that has yet to abate. I woke up that first morning to discover, laid out on the table, several baguettes, a brick of salted butter, and every jar of jam that had ever entered the house, from extra large pots of Bonne Maman to the smallest sample-sized jar, in flavors ranging from the pedestrian (strawberry) to the exotic (what is a coing?). There was also honey, which I had never before contemplated pairing with bread and butter, and Nutella, which I had. They served me coffee in a bowl and I fell in love. After that semester abroad, I moved back to France as soon as I could.
Lo these many years later, I have realized that the best breakfast in France is still to be had at the Dorniers’ house, and the second-best at my own. But for those mornings when there’s no more milk and I’m out of Nutella— here are the guidelines I use for breakfast dining in Paris.
Part One: Don’t
1. Don’t trust places that look cute: they will either disappoint or overcharge, or, more often, both. La Salle à Manger is an outwardly adorable cozy little café on the rue Mouffetard, approximately five minutes’ walk from my apartment. I pass it all the time but until recently had never gone in, not even in its previous incarnation as a Pain Quotidien, not even in the days before my gluten allergy was activated. The reason for this is: communal pots of jam. I cannot, cannot abide using a jar of jam someone else has used. Not even when that someone else is someone I live with. I am the only person I trust to be meticulous enough not to leave leftover crumbs and glops of butter inside the jar.
But that’s not my primary problem with this place: my real issue is with the service, the quality, and the quantity of the offerings. It turns out the post-corporate occupation of this space is as impersonal as those communal vats of jam. The waitress seemed annoyed to find us seated in her section and proved unwilling to address such questions as “can I get this without toast and with orange juice instead?” Menu exegesis was evidently not in her job description.
Our food arrived in fits; first the included cup of café crème, then what seemed like ages later came a soft-boiled egg, which was cold and congealed by the time the toast was provided; then a sad plastic dish of fruit salad no doubt straight from a can, involving two bits of green melon, half a strawberry, a piece of apple, and two half-shriveled grapes on their way to raisinhood. The orange juice arrived last, slightly too late for the party. There was something grey in my fromage blanc. For this I ate gluten?
This unfortunate experience is alas representative of the recent decline in quality amongst the shopkeepers of the rue Mouffetard. The influx of tourists has increased past saturation point and the original shopkeepers have been priced out of their rents, to be replaced by opportunists with no compunction about raising their prices and lowering the quality of their products. The things I could tell you about my experiences of late buying quiche, avocados, poulets fermiers, and baguettes would make a Francophile weep. Basically, it’s time to move.
2. Don’t mortgage your house for a plate of eggs. Eggs & Co (formerly known as Coco & Co), housed in a shallow duplex space in a side street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, is loaded with personality: exposed beams (16th or 17th century I’d guess), with warped ancient floorboards that tilt the upstairs tables on such an incline that you’ll feel like you’ve gone down the rabbit hole and come out into some rustically lopsided Parisian garret (see rule #1). Egg-inspired posters line the walls (“Des cocottes coquettes qui caquettent” [“Cackling coquettish eggs en cocotte”] surrounded by drawings of diabolical-looking eggs). There was a line outside of people waiting for an uneven table or rickety barstool, but they didn’t hurry us out. (After all, we had a reservation.)
The cheapest brunch menu was 22 euros, which is a fair price for brunch in Paris, and even a bargain when you realize how much food is included: a hot drink, your choice of eggs (prepared four different ways: with chèvre and spinach; with mushrooms, bacon, and coriander; with bacon, parmesan, and chives, or with parma ham, gruyère and chives), one large, thick pancake, and a fruit salad. I opted for the 25 euro menu, which gave me the option of having eggs Florentine (I’m a sucker for a poached egg). Everything was delicious.
But I didn’t want “everything,” I wanted eggs Florentine, à la carte, minus all the other stuff. Alas, only brunch is served on the weekends, thus guaranteeing at least 22 euros per cover. So while this brunch might possibly be worth splashing out on, I don’t like not having the choice of whether to splash out or not. Do go here during the week, I say.
3. Don’t assume because the joint is American, or promising an American breakfast, that said breakfast will be any good. The best thing I can say about Breakfast in America is that they have bottomless cups of American coffee (popularly known as jus de chausettes, but je m’en fous). On my last visit the bacon was fatty and flaccid; the toast disappointingly small (elf-sized, really) not to mention cold and slightly overdone. I’ve never been impressed by the pancakes. The acoustics are terrible, and the nostalgia value of the diner decor isn’t strong enough to make me voluntarily spend time here, though the people who work there are very nice, and all speak English.
4. Whatever you do, don’t order a bagel anywhere in Paris.
In Part Two, we’ll look at some proper breakfasts.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Long White Cloud, Shoreditch
Long White Cloud
151 Hackney Rd
Shoreditch
E2 8JL
020 7033 4642
longwhitecloud-hoxton.tumblr.com
by Homefries Bogart
"Long White Cloud"... we strolled en masse towards Hackney Road, led by Matthias, a friend with a murky culinary history. I hadn't done my research on this but all I could put together was that as 'long black' is a coffee, perhaps 'long white' was a coffee, and cloud is a cloud. He mentioned it was a place run by Australians, but not to worry about that, "they do Monmouth Coffee… it's fine". His tone was in jest, but you never really know.
Five of us entered the long, narrow, white room, which looked as much like a cloud as all other long white rooms do, which is exactly the same but with angles and a floor. We sat at the back of the café, at a sort of ‘in-the-family’ table next to an upright piano. It was a good choice, as inevitably with these things, people caught wind of our jaunt and more came.
Matthias, with irrational ingenuity, had clocked the last bit of banana bread, and had it sent toasted with butter to the table, as a sort of breakfast amuse bouche. It would trump what was to follow.
Accompanying my double espresso with hot water, I had ordered the French toast with bacon, bananas and agave syrup, which, in my head, I had seconds ago read as, 'French toast with crispy bacon and maple syrup'. Its amazing how much the brain assumes when reading. But the French toast was not good. Breakfast goers must surely agree that anything other than crispy bacon, golden, shiny, oily, fluffy, eggy bread and sweet maple syrup is a complete no-no. And it was the EXACT opposite. I’m not even going in to what Agave syrup is because I don’t care.
Apart from myself and Oly, a great, foul mouthed Exeter based baker and food blogger (he ordered beans and cheese on toast ), everyone else ordered the veggie breakfast.
This was an extravagant mass of nicely roasted vegetables, bulbous slabs of grilled haloumi, piled on top of a huge bit of toasted ciabatta, with a fried egg somewhere in between and their version of baked beans on the side. Definitely LWC’s tour de force.
I had obviously missed the memo. Perhaps it has been lost on a white sheet of paper in this long cloud of a café. Overall though, there was madness in the cloud. No wait, method in the cloudness, err white, white...
151 Hackney Rd
Shoreditch
E2 8JL
020 7033 4642
longwhitecloud-hoxton.tumblr.com
by Homefries Bogart
"Long White Cloud"... we strolled en masse towards Hackney Road, led by Matthias, a friend with a murky culinary history. I hadn't done my research on this but all I could put together was that as 'long black' is a coffee, perhaps 'long white' was a coffee, and cloud is a cloud. He mentioned it was a place run by Australians, but not to worry about that, "they do Monmouth Coffee… it's fine". His tone was in jest, but you never really know.
Five of us entered the long, narrow, white room, which looked as much like a cloud as all other long white rooms do, which is exactly the same but with angles and a floor. We sat at the back of the café, at a sort of ‘in-the-family’ table next to an upright piano. It was a good choice, as inevitably with these things, people caught wind of our jaunt and more came.
Matthias, with irrational ingenuity, had clocked the last bit of banana bread, and had it sent toasted with butter to the table, as a sort of breakfast amuse bouche. It would trump what was to follow.
Accompanying my double espresso with hot water, I had ordered the French toast with bacon, bananas and agave syrup, which, in my head, I had seconds ago read as, 'French toast with crispy bacon and maple syrup'. Its amazing how much the brain assumes when reading. But the French toast was not good. Breakfast goers must surely agree that anything other than crispy bacon, golden, shiny, oily, fluffy, eggy bread and sweet maple syrup is a complete no-no. And it was the EXACT opposite. I’m not even going in to what Agave syrup is because I don’t care.
Apart from myself and Oly, a great, foul mouthed Exeter based baker and food blogger (he ordered beans and cheese on toast ), everyone else ordered the veggie breakfast.
This was an extravagant mass of nicely roasted vegetables, bulbous slabs of grilled haloumi, piled on top of a huge bit of toasted ciabatta, with a fried egg somewhere in between and their version of baked beans on the side. Definitely LWC’s tour de force.
I had obviously missed the memo. Perhaps it has been lost on a white sheet of paper in this long cloud of a café. Overall though, there was madness in the cloud. No wait, method in the cloudness, err white, white...
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
The Brick Box, Brixton
The Brick Box
41 Granville Arcade
Brixton
SW9 8PR
020 7274 2211
www.thebrickbox.co.uk
by Egg Miliband
Brixton Village on a Sunday morning smells of stale fish, corrugated iron and puddles. The Brick Box café is a golden door in the desolation. There’s no one around except for a toddler fleeing from his father and a man hammering nails into a broken drawer outside the café.
A hoodie-wearing waitress waves us in with laminated menus. It’s snug inside. There are floral tablecloths and ghoulish, childlike paintings on the walls and wine on the shelves. The Spanish-speaking staff seem amiably hungover.
Why are we here? For the crepes. Or perhaps the galettes, which employ the same freeform ‘envelope’ system as the crepe but with buckwheat rather than white flour. Feeling rustic, I order one named ‘The Goat’. Ivan, a traditionalist, known to eat crumpets soaked in golden syrup while marching around his house, orders a crepe named ‘The Godfather’.
When the waitress brings our breakfast drinks, she sings their names. ‘English Breakfast Tea with soymilk! Americano with normal milk on the side!’
A man of few words, Ivan suddenly has a faraway look in his eyes. ‘This coffee tastes like… the Camino,’ he murmurs. He walked the trail once, El Camino de Santiago. When Ivan does speak, it’s often about those days, when he was a pilgrim.
My galette is a rhombus-shaped cushion, spilling out over the plate’s edge. Slicing it open reveals a fulsomeness of melting goat’s cheese, spinach, olives, and sundried and cherry tomatoes. It’s difficult to eat the thing with poise, and I disgrace myself by shovelling in overly large mouthfuls and then accidentally exploding a cherry tomato on my fork, spattering my trousers.
Ivan’s crepe – with pepperoni sausage, mixed herbs, and ‘cheese blend’, an ingredient that appears in 80% of the menu items – is crowned with a triumphant fried egg. A rare look of delight flickers across Ivan’s face. He is known to eat like a duck – gulping, not chewing – and when I look up on my third mouthful, his plate is eerily clean and he is gazing over the brim of his coffee mug once more.
The main thing, we agree, is that the food is terrific. In fact, I’d never known that breakfast could be this good. All the mediocre breakfasts of my past suddenly weigh on me.
The galette is so beautiful that I eat the lettuce on the side.
When the waitress collects our plates, still singing, a knife slides off my plate and falls to the floor. ‘Sometimes,’ the waitress whispers, ‘it seems like the cutlery is alive.’ I’m disturbed by this notion, but we all laugh as if this wasn’t a very real possibility.
41 Granville Arcade
Brixton
SW9 8PR
020 7274 2211
www.thebrickbox.co.uk
by Egg Miliband
Brixton Village on a Sunday morning smells of stale fish, corrugated iron and puddles. The Brick Box café is a golden door in the desolation. There’s no one around except for a toddler fleeing from his father and a man hammering nails into a broken drawer outside the café.
A hoodie-wearing waitress waves us in with laminated menus. It’s snug inside. There are floral tablecloths and ghoulish, childlike paintings on the walls and wine on the shelves. The Spanish-speaking staff seem amiably hungover.
Why are we here? For the crepes. Or perhaps the galettes, which employ the same freeform ‘envelope’ system as the crepe but with buckwheat rather than white flour. Feeling rustic, I order one named ‘The Goat’. Ivan, a traditionalist, known to eat crumpets soaked in golden syrup while marching around his house, orders a crepe named ‘The Godfather’.
When the waitress brings our breakfast drinks, she sings their names. ‘English Breakfast Tea with soymilk! Americano with normal milk on the side!’
A man of few words, Ivan suddenly has a faraway look in his eyes. ‘This coffee tastes like… the Camino,’ he murmurs. He walked the trail once, El Camino de Santiago. When Ivan does speak, it’s often about those days, when he was a pilgrim.
My galette is a rhombus-shaped cushion, spilling out over the plate’s edge. Slicing it open reveals a fulsomeness of melting goat’s cheese, spinach, olives, and sundried and cherry tomatoes. It’s difficult to eat the thing with poise, and I disgrace myself by shovelling in overly large mouthfuls and then accidentally exploding a cherry tomato on my fork, spattering my trousers.
Ivan’s crepe – with pepperoni sausage, mixed herbs, and ‘cheese blend’, an ingredient that appears in 80% of the menu items – is crowned with a triumphant fried egg. A rare look of delight flickers across Ivan’s face. He is known to eat like a duck – gulping, not chewing – and when I look up on my third mouthful, his plate is eerily clean and he is gazing over the brim of his coffee mug once more.
The main thing, we agree, is that the food is terrific. In fact, I’d never known that breakfast could be this good. All the mediocre breakfasts of my past suddenly weigh on me.
The galette is so beautiful that I eat the lettuce on the side.
When the waitress collects our plates, still singing, a knife slides off my plate and falls to the floor. ‘Sometimes,’ the waitress whispers, ‘it seems like the cutlery is alive.’ I’m disturbed by this notion, but we all laugh as if this wasn’t a very real possibility.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
US Election Dispatch: Tommy's, Cleveland, Ohio
Tommy's Restaurant
1824 Coventry Rd
Cleveland Heights
Ohio OH44118
USA
+1 216 321 7757
www.tommyscoventry.com
by T.N. Toost
Four years ago, when the LRB first went “in field” to cover the American presidential primaries, the response among breakfasters was near universal: “I would prefer to vote for Ron Paul, but he has no chance of winning, so I’m voting for (insert second choice here).” It was actually a bit sad how much people preferred Paul and how little faith they had in his electability; it seemed that people had given up on the political system, and rather than fight for their opinions they threw up their hands.
Four years later, things have changed. It isn’t so much a difference in peoples’ perceptions of Paul’s electability as a rational and conscious evaluation of the candidates against whom he is running. Yes, of course his ideas are batshit insane. Of course he would put us on course for a complete economic and political meltdown. Of course we’d likely end up in actual civil strife and, perhaps, even civil war.
But have you seen the other guys?
That, I think, is why the people who your correspondent spoke to this year are not qualifying their choices. No – the Paul supporters this year are voting for their man, come hell or high water, and believe in him fully, because they have already considered Gingrich, Santorum and Romney. They are voting for Paul and, considering his opponents, I think they are making the right choice.
So it was that I came to breakfast on Super Tuesday with my friend Gina and one of her friends, Joe, who was wearing a Ron Paul shirt. With nary a word of prompting he launched into an exposition on the exceptional rectitude of the Paul positions – on energy, gold, gay rights, constitutional interpretation, social structures, military intervention, welfare, education, international trade. Paul believes in the world as it should be, and there is no room for dissention. As a reporter and a professional in the mold of Malcolm Eggs, I was a mere observer. Gina, on the other hand, clearly disagreed, but stayed silent.
First they came for the communists.
Then breakfast arrived, with a healthy side of chips. I had the Zeke, the first thing on the menu – pita piled with eggs, veg and cheese, placed in the middle of a large plate. It was delicious when it cooled down. The chips, though, are perhaps my favorite ketchup delivery mechanism in America today. Hot, thin-cut, perfectly fried, I ate almost the entire plate – perhaps a kilo – and most of Gina’s plate, too. By the end of the meal, Joe and I had gone from talking about voting for Ron Paul to shaking hands on a gentlemen’s competition: we would take one year and try to sleep with direct descendents of every single founding father, documenting our quest for a PechaKucha presentation and, perhaps, a book deal.
In the end, Romney barely edged Santorum in Ohio, which disappointed me. I’d voted for Santorum. Yes, he is one of the most vile and despicable human beings alive today outside of, perhaps, Myanmar and good swaths of Africa still at war. My reasoning: none of the Republicans should ever live in the White House, of course, but Romney is the most electable and Santorum the least. If Romney is kept from the nomination, and any of his rivals goes before the nation, it will be much easier for Obama to get another four years. It’s the opposite thinking from the 2008 Ron Paul supporters. Luckily, the win barely lifted Romney’s sails, and the race will drag on, and on, and on, and Americans and the world will continue to be horrified by the state of the American political system.
And we’ll see you in a few months.
1824 Coventry Rd
Cleveland Heights
Ohio OH44118
USA
+1 216 321 7757
www.tommyscoventry.com
by T.N. Toost
Four years ago, when the LRB first went “in field” to cover the American presidential primaries, the response among breakfasters was near universal: “I would prefer to vote for Ron Paul, but he has no chance of winning, so I’m voting for (insert second choice here).” It was actually a bit sad how much people preferred Paul and how little faith they had in his electability; it seemed that people had given up on the political system, and rather than fight for their opinions they threw up their hands.
Four years later, things have changed. It isn’t so much a difference in peoples’ perceptions of Paul’s electability as a rational and conscious evaluation of the candidates against whom he is running. Yes, of course his ideas are batshit insane. Of course he would put us on course for a complete economic and political meltdown. Of course we’d likely end up in actual civil strife and, perhaps, even civil war.
But have you seen the other guys?
That, I think, is why the people who your correspondent spoke to this year are not qualifying their choices. No – the Paul supporters this year are voting for their man, come hell or high water, and believe in him fully, because they have already considered Gingrich, Santorum and Romney. They are voting for Paul and, considering his opponents, I think they are making the right choice.
So it was that I came to breakfast on Super Tuesday with my friend Gina and one of her friends, Joe, who was wearing a Ron Paul shirt. With nary a word of prompting he launched into an exposition on the exceptional rectitude of the Paul positions – on energy, gold, gay rights, constitutional interpretation, social structures, military intervention, welfare, education, international trade. Paul believes in the world as it should be, and there is no room for dissention. As a reporter and a professional in the mold of Malcolm Eggs, I was a mere observer. Gina, on the other hand, clearly disagreed, but stayed silent.
First they came for the communists.
Then breakfast arrived, with a healthy side of chips. I had the Zeke, the first thing on the menu – pita piled with eggs, veg and cheese, placed in the middle of a large plate. It was delicious when it cooled down. The chips, though, are perhaps my favorite ketchup delivery mechanism in America today. Hot, thin-cut, perfectly fried, I ate almost the entire plate – perhaps a kilo – and most of Gina’s plate, too. By the end of the meal, Joe and I had gone from talking about voting for Ron Paul to shaking hands on a gentlemen’s competition: we would take one year and try to sleep with direct descendents of every single founding father, documenting our quest for a PechaKucha presentation and, perhaps, a book deal.
In the end, Romney barely edged Santorum in Ohio, which disappointed me. I’d voted for Santorum. Yes, he is one of the most vile and despicable human beings alive today outside of, perhaps, Myanmar and good swaths of Africa still at war. My reasoning: none of the Republicans should ever live in the White House, of course, but Romney is the most electable and Santorum the least. If Romney is kept from the nomination, and any of his rivals goes before the nation, it will be much easier for Obama to get another four years. It’s the opposite thinking from the 2008 Ron Paul supporters. Luckily, the win barely lifted Romney’s sails, and the race will drag on, and on, and on, and Americans and the world will continue to be horrified by the state of the American political system.
And we’ll see you in a few months.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Riding House Café, Fitzrovia
The Riding House Café
43-51 Great Titchfield Street
Fitzrovia
W1W 7PQ
www.ridinghousecafe.co.uk
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
At the risk of indelicacy, it’s the loos that get you.
To clarify, there is little to cavil about at The Riding House Café; it’s all pretty darned perfect. But apart from the bounteous menu, the perfectly-pitched service and the décor that scratches all those Living Etc taxidermy itches you never knew you had, one particular detail of the gents’ cloakroom had me rummaging gingerly in my knife-drawer of superlatives. Get this… they have actually gone to the trouble of buying (or –dream it! – commissioning) an elegantly shot-blasted metal cover for their Dyson Airblade, so it chameleons itself snugly within the overall industrial luxe look. Even if the jet-engine decibel levels shock you, the visuals won’t.
Returning à la carte, it’s hit after palpable hit. The basics – pâtisserie, bacon sandwiches, coffees and more teas than you could shake a liquorice stick at, smoothies, porridge and mueslis “both bar and bat” – are impeccably sourced and punchy in their variety. As for the platform-agnostic eggs, Benedict routinely and silkily impresses, as does Hussard (a confection I had not encountered before, but which I’d urge upon anyone keen to start their day sated and with the phrase sauce bordelaise dancing sluttily across their lips). And venerable Omelette Arnold Bennett is as mouth-wateringly other as you would hope… like Gary Rhodes or ketamine, it shouldn’t work but it does.
But the abiding sense-memory for me is the PB&J. A potentially unholy miasma of peanut butter, banana, strawberry and apple juice, it comes in a milk bottle with a straw and at first smells unnervingly like fresh boak. Until you ask your delightful waiter –played here by the French stunt double of novelty Rastafarian showjumping fail Oliver Skeete – to lose the apple, and you’re left with a pint of ambrosia. Not that.
All you need to know about the ethos of the place was summed up when I first lunched there – charming waitperson #348 sauntered over and asked if we would like the ‘concept’ explained. We nervously said yes. He replied, “There isn’t one really – order some lunch, it’s all great.”
Phew.
43-51 Great Titchfield Street
Fitzrovia
W1W 7PQ
www.ridinghousecafe.co.uk
by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner
At the risk of indelicacy, it’s the loos that get you.
To clarify, there is little to cavil about at The Riding House Café; it’s all pretty darned perfect. But apart from the bounteous menu, the perfectly-pitched service and the décor that scratches all those Living Etc taxidermy itches you never knew you had, one particular detail of the gents’ cloakroom had me rummaging gingerly in my knife-drawer of superlatives. Get this… they have actually gone to the trouble of buying (or –dream it! – commissioning) an elegantly shot-blasted metal cover for their Dyson Airblade, so it chameleons itself snugly within the overall industrial luxe look. Even if the jet-engine decibel levels shock you, the visuals won’t.
Returning à la carte, it’s hit after palpable hit. The basics – pâtisserie, bacon sandwiches, coffees and more teas than you could shake a liquorice stick at, smoothies, porridge and mueslis “both bar and bat” – are impeccably sourced and punchy in their variety. As for the platform-agnostic eggs, Benedict routinely and silkily impresses, as does Hussard (a confection I had not encountered before, but which I’d urge upon anyone keen to start their day sated and with the phrase sauce bordelaise dancing sluttily across their lips). And venerable Omelette Arnold Bennett is as mouth-wateringly other as you would hope… like Gary Rhodes or ketamine, it shouldn’t work but it does.
But the abiding sense-memory for me is the PB&J. A potentially unholy miasma of peanut butter, banana, strawberry and apple juice, it comes in a milk bottle with a straw and at first smells unnervingly like fresh boak. Until you ask your delightful waiter –played here by the French stunt double of novelty Rastafarian showjumping fail Oliver Skeete – to lose the apple, and you’re left with a pint of ambrosia. Not that.
All you need to know about the ethos of the place was summed up when I first lunched there – charming waitperson #348 sauntered over and asked if we would like the ‘concept’ explained. We nervously said yes. He replied, “There isn’t one really – order some lunch, it’s all great.”
Phew.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Modern Pantry, Clerkenwell
The Modern Pantry
48 St John's Square
Clerkenwell
EC1V 4JJ
020 7553 9210
www.themodernpantry.co.uk
by Grease Witherspoon
Post yoga and micro dermatological facial, I usually insist on my regular breakfast of gluten-free muesli and organic soymilk. However, I make an exception to meet my sister, Jadee, for breakfast at the Modern Pantry, conveniently located around the corner from my aromatherapist. Blood is, after all, thicker than soya.
I’m early and the maitre d’ is on the phone but waves me inside with such a friendly, welcoming smile that I almost mistake it for recognition. When he hangs up, he apologises profusely in an incomprehensible accent before showing me upstairs, chatting incessantly. As I lean in to try to understand and react appropriately, the inevitable happens and I trip over my heels and up the stairs. Mr. d’ makes a sound that I assume is concern for my well-being and although I can’t be sure, think he says something along the lines of ‘stupid stairs.’ Safely at our table, I order a calming peppermint tea. Too much caffeine in the morning makes me jittery and there’s been quite enough excitement already. It arrives at the same time as my sister, in a miniature pot that would barely quench the thirst of a teacup shih tzu. And it isn’t loose leaf. If it comes in a pot and costs £2, it really should be.
Perusing the menu, I notice it features some unconventional ingredients- cassava, goat’s curd, plantain and yuzu nestle between the inevitable pastry selection and chorizo-laced eggs. I settle for the outré sounding polenta, spring onion, feta and curry leaf waffles with bacon and maple syrup. The other Witherspoon sister goes for the rather more predictable option of halloumi, spinach and eggs. I’m expecting them to be plump and ostentatious but when thin, crisp and delicate waffles arrive, I am not disappointed. There is no hint of the graininess usually associated with polenta and none of the stodginess of its stateside cousin. The feta and the spring onion comes through with a faint under note of the sweet curry leaf that brings out the syrup, while the saltiness of the bacon is imitated by the feta. It’s certainly clever and it knows it. The plate of halloumi, eggs and spinach is a much more straightforward option but it shines nonetheless just as brightly. Jadee proclaims the eggs to be the best she has ever had in London, with the cheese mixed in with them without squeaky rubberiness, set aside rough sourdough toast of the artisan variety and fat grilled tomatoes.
As we sit bathed in sunlight from the enormous windows I begin, just for a second, to unwind. Until I’m blinded by the rays and start to feel a little faint. I realise my sister is squinting to see her plate and so make the briefest of eye contact with our waiter. He promptly swoops over and pulls down the blinds, to a chorus of appreciation from other diners. It’s the kind of service one could get used to.
48 St John's Square
Clerkenwell
EC1V 4JJ
020 7553 9210
www.themodernpantry.co.uk
by Grease Witherspoon
Post yoga and micro dermatological facial, I usually insist on my regular breakfast of gluten-free muesli and organic soymilk. However, I make an exception to meet my sister, Jadee, for breakfast at the Modern Pantry, conveniently located around the corner from my aromatherapist. Blood is, after all, thicker than soya.
I’m early and the maitre d’ is on the phone but waves me inside with such a friendly, welcoming smile that I almost mistake it for recognition. When he hangs up, he apologises profusely in an incomprehensible accent before showing me upstairs, chatting incessantly. As I lean in to try to understand and react appropriately, the inevitable happens and I trip over my heels and up the stairs. Mr. d’ makes a sound that I assume is concern for my well-being and although I can’t be sure, think he says something along the lines of ‘stupid stairs.’ Safely at our table, I order a calming peppermint tea. Too much caffeine in the morning makes me jittery and there’s been quite enough excitement already. It arrives at the same time as my sister, in a miniature pot that would barely quench the thirst of a teacup shih tzu. And it isn’t loose leaf. If it comes in a pot and costs £2, it really should be.
Perusing the menu, I notice it features some unconventional ingredients- cassava, goat’s curd, plantain and yuzu nestle between the inevitable pastry selection and chorizo-laced eggs. I settle for the outré sounding polenta, spring onion, feta and curry leaf waffles with bacon and maple syrup. The other Witherspoon sister goes for the rather more predictable option of halloumi, spinach and eggs. I’m expecting them to be plump and ostentatious but when thin, crisp and delicate waffles arrive, I am not disappointed. There is no hint of the graininess usually associated with polenta and none of the stodginess of its stateside cousin. The feta and the spring onion comes through with a faint under note of the sweet curry leaf that brings out the syrup, while the saltiness of the bacon is imitated by the feta. It’s certainly clever and it knows it. The plate of halloumi, eggs and spinach is a much more straightforward option but it shines nonetheless just as brightly. Jadee proclaims the eggs to be the best she has ever had in London, with the cheese mixed in with them without squeaky rubberiness, set aside rough sourdough toast of the artisan variety and fat grilled tomatoes.
As we sit bathed in sunlight from the enormous windows I begin, just for a second, to unwind. Until I’m blinded by the rays and start to feel a little faint. I realise my sister is squinting to see her plate and so make the briefest of eye contact with our waiter. He promptly swoops over and pulls down the blinds, to a chorus of appreciation from other diners. It’s the kind of service one could get used to.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Special Dispatch: The Lockside Café, Bristol
The Lockside Café
No.1 Brunel Lock Road
Cumberland Basin
Hotwells
Bristol BS1 6XS
www.lockside.net
0117 9255 800
by Egon Toast
Following on from the recent bombshell that Only Fools and Horses is to be refashioned into some braying horror by our chums on the other side of the pond, I'm afraid I have another bubble-burster for you, oh sensitive Londoners: Sid’s Café from said programme, only the flippin’ icon of cockney breakfastery what’s been beamed into gazillions of houses across the globe for the past 30 years… is actually in Bristol . It can be found a mere cheese roll away from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. And it looks nothing like Sid’s, having had a right old makeover, make no mistake.
And it’s a funny old spot, too: a blimmin’ liminal location, located in the undercarriage of a flyover, seems to free it from your everyday timekeeping norms; akin to those floating hospitality zones in airports and service stations it’s the kind of place to eat steak and chips at three in the morning. As it was, we arrived at an eminently sensible 9am, plonk(er)ing ourselves down amongst brightly-coloured globular furniture – Barbarella meets Tellytubbies, yeah? – and were soon fussed over by our waitress, whose largesse with the foundation brush only gave further credence to that 24/7 retro-future vibe.
The menus, laminated, were duly examinated. I wanted to see how they had modernised the fake Peckham greasy spoon experience for today’s post-ironic arteries, while the distaff, forsaking the Full English that made her the woman she is today, went for some form of drop scone and bacon concoction. Our orders were taken swiftly. Bouncily. Cheerily, even. Rodney would have had a cardiac.
After a brief intermission, my plate of fried bounty arrived, and was all that one could want from a vaguely upscale protein-heavy feast: the bacon streaked, the yolk oozed, and all was steaming and soothing. They also gladdened my greedy soul by providing ample supplies of toast, the hallmark of a dining room that wishes to impart joy to its customers (there are few things more disheartening than an un-mopped slick of breakfast sauce). The pan-cake and bacon abomination was respectable, too, even if it did come with fruit - the sort of Continental affectation that has no place on one’s morning plate, even if you're eating in a spaceship from the 1970s.
So there’s no balding wheezer behind the stove. And it looks like the canteen from the Starship Enterprise. And no apology was forthcoming re: the shattering of capital-city, Lyndhurst-fixated hearts. But it didn't matter, really – the bonhomie exuded by all those involved with Sids 2.0 meant that our ventricles had been glued back together with a hearty dose of what the Bristol Marketing Board has implored me to call ‘West Country cheer’. Gurt lush? Gertcha.
No.1 Brunel Lock Road
Cumberland Basin
Hotwells
Bristol BS1 6XS
www.lockside.net
0117 9255 800
by Egon Toast
Following on from the recent bombshell that Only Fools and Horses is to be refashioned into some braying horror by our chums on the other side of the pond, I'm afraid I have another bubble-burster for you, oh sensitive Londoners: Sid’s Café from said programme, only the flippin’ icon of cockney breakfastery what’s been beamed into gazillions of houses across the globe for the past 30 years… is actually in Bristol . It can be found a mere cheese roll away from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. And it looks nothing like Sid’s, having had a right old makeover, make no mistake.
And it’s a funny old spot, too: a blimmin’ liminal location, located in the undercarriage of a flyover, seems to free it from your everyday timekeeping norms; akin to those floating hospitality zones in airports and service stations it’s the kind of place to eat steak and chips at three in the morning. As it was, we arrived at an eminently sensible 9am, plonk(er)ing ourselves down amongst brightly-coloured globular furniture – Barbarella meets Tellytubbies, yeah? – and were soon fussed over by our waitress, whose largesse with the foundation brush only gave further credence to that 24/7 retro-future vibe.
The menus, laminated, were duly examinated. I wanted to see how they had modernised the fake Peckham greasy spoon experience for today’s post-ironic arteries, while the distaff, forsaking the Full English that made her the woman she is today, went for some form of drop scone and bacon concoction. Our orders were taken swiftly. Bouncily. Cheerily, even. Rodney would have had a cardiac.
After a brief intermission, my plate of fried bounty arrived, and was all that one could want from a vaguely upscale protein-heavy feast: the bacon streaked, the yolk oozed, and all was steaming and soothing. They also gladdened my greedy soul by providing ample supplies of toast, the hallmark of a dining room that wishes to impart joy to its customers (there are few things more disheartening than an un-mopped slick of breakfast sauce). The pan-cake and bacon abomination was respectable, too, even if it did come with fruit - the sort of Continental affectation that has no place on one’s morning plate, even if you're eating in a spaceship from the 1970s.
So there’s no balding wheezer behind the stove. And it looks like the canteen from the Starship Enterprise. And no apology was forthcoming re: the shattering of capital-city, Lyndhurst-fixated hearts. But it didn't matter, really – the bonhomie exuded by all those involved with Sids 2.0 meant that our ventricles had been glued back together with a hearty dose of what the Bristol Marketing Board has implored me to call ‘West Country cheer’. Gurt lush? Gertcha.
Friday, March 02, 2012
Allpress Espresso, Shoreditch
Allpress Espresso
58 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DP
020 7749 1780
www.allpressespresso.com
by Johnny Cep
I first spied Allpress Espresso from Arnold Circus, an area I liked to circle on my bike when I had one, in 2011. It’s halfway down Redchurch Street and, bar the advertising on the after-hours shutter, appears to be a discreet, knowing and un-Antipodean fixture, oddly enough given that it is in fact of Kiwi origin.
Originally an espresso company set up by Michael Allpress (real name!) in New Zealand, Allpress moved to Shoreditch in 2010 and has since proved monumentally popular, providing most of the restaurants within spitting distance with its beans pre-roasted in the massive machine in the back room which, through the glass, reminds you of those working museums you visited in coaches at school.
As to whether it’s a café or a shop, it’s still undecided. People like its wholesale vibes, slightly under-varnished wooden floor and coffee, ergo, they arrive in droves. Foodwise, they do a good line in ambitious, well-filled sandwiches which require two hands, but the breakfast is much less of a gamble: tidy pastries, granola, yoghurt and compote, or toast which comes with eggs and smoked salmon, salted butter and marmalade or avocado, sliced cheese, tomatoes and a boiled egg, all of which are excellent to boot, even by the standards of London’s modish crush on soda bread.
I went with Dan who had the soda bread, toasted, while I had two soft-boiled eggs. This was a dicey move. I once had soft-boiled eggs at The Wolseley which were underboiled by circa 70 seconds. My two cracked (read: checked) soft-boiled eggs with pre-buttered soldiers here, however, were terrific and pillow-soft. Too much toast for the egg, sure, but I stole Dan’s marmalade, served jazzily in a shot glass, and showed the eggs what’s what.
Just as our plates were being cleared, in walked Ralph Fiennes complete with Young Vic beard, iPhone and massive rucksack. He sat down, nebbishly ordered then par-consumed the avocado, cheese and egg plate. I was going to ask him what he had in his massive rucksack until Dan delivered the crushing reality that I didn’t know him. Bothered, I decided to play with the tap-water-dispenser instead, a novel toy with a push-down button and a tray to catch spillages, and managed to spill my glass on the bar.
There are many, many good things about Allpress Espresso. Chief among them is the coffee. I had a white-long-black which sounds like a dress code but is in fact Kiwi vernacular for an Americano-style coffee which allows you to curate your own water and hot milk. The beans are clean-tasting and sweet compared to Monmouth Coffee which, I feel, burns theirs on occasion. I realise saying this aloud is tantamount to racism but there you go. Other plus points: the doors, which bend open and are deeply cool, and the lack of queue. Clientele move apace thanks to the staff - charming, big teeth – although they take their sweet time to clear the dirties.
Sadly, Allpress also attracts a lot of Media Meetings. The day we decided to go, fair-isle reached critical mass, but those undesirables soon finished their drinks and left, presumably to draw some lines or whatever, leaving us – Ralph, Dan and I - to finish our perfect eggs in peace.
58 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DP
020 7749 1780
www.allpressespresso.com
by Johnny Cep
I first spied Allpress Espresso from Arnold Circus, an area I liked to circle on my bike when I had one, in 2011. It’s halfway down Redchurch Street and, bar the advertising on the after-hours shutter, appears to be a discreet, knowing and un-Antipodean fixture, oddly enough given that it is in fact of Kiwi origin.
Originally an espresso company set up by Michael Allpress (real name!) in New Zealand, Allpress moved to Shoreditch in 2010 and has since proved monumentally popular, providing most of the restaurants within spitting distance with its beans pre-roasted in the massive machine in the back room which, through the glass, reminds you of those working museums you visited in coaches at school.
As to whether it’s a café or a shop, it’s still undecided. People like its wholesale vibes, slightly under-varnished wooden floor and coffee, ergo, they arrive in droves. Foodwise, they do a good line in ambitious, well-filled sandwiches which require two hands, but the breakfast is much less of a gamble: tidy pastries, granola, yoghurt and compote, or toast which comes with eggs and smoked salmon, salted butter and marmalade or avocado, sliced cheese, tomatoes and a boiled egg, all of which are excellent to boot, even by the standards of London’s modish crush on soda bread.
I went with Dan who had the soda bread, toasted, while I had two soft-boiled eggs. This was a dicey move. I once had soft-boiled eggs at The Wolseley which were underboiled by circa 70 seconds. My two cracked (read: checked) soft-boiled eggs with pre-buttered soldiers here, however, were terrific and pillow-soft. Too much toast for the egg, sure, but I stole Dan’s marmalade, served jazzily in a shot glass, and showed the eggs what’s what.
Just as our plates were being cleared, in walked Ralph Fiennes complete with Young Vic beard, iPhone and massive rucksack. He sat down, nebbishly ordered then par-consumed the avocado, cheese and egg plate. I was going to ask him what he had in his massive rucksack until Dan delivered the crushing reality that I didn’t know him. Bothered, I decided to play with the tap-water-dispenser instead, a novel toy with a push-down button and a tray to catch spillages, and managed to spill my glass on the bar.
There are many, many good things about Allpress Espresso. Chief among them is the coffee. I had a white-long-black which sounds like a dress code but is in fact Kiwi vernacular for an Americano-style coffee which allows you to curate your own water and hot milk. The beans are clean-tasting and sweet compared to Monmouth Coffee which, I feel, burns theirs on occasion. I realise saying this aloud is tantamount to racism but there you go. Other plus points: the doors, which bend open and are deeply cool, and the lack of queue. Clientele move apace thanks to the staff - charming, big teeth – although they take their sweet time to clear the dirties.
Sadly, Allpress also attracts a lot of Media Meetings. The day we decided to go, fair-isle reached critical mass, but those undesirables soon finished their drinks and left, presumably to draw some lines or whatever, leaving us – Ralph, Dan and I - to finish our perfect eggs in peace.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Special Dispatch: Paper Moon Diner, Baltimore
Paper Moon Diner
227 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
United States
by Joyce Carol Oats
I marked the dawn of 2012 with a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich at Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore. The new year, I’d decided, would be one in which I demonstrated unprecedented self-restraint. And it was for this reason that when the waiter asked me which breakfast meat I wanted in my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich (sausage, ham, or crispy bacon), I said loud and clear, and with maybe a tiny bit of a tone that implied he was suggesting an excessive indulgence: ‘no breakfast meat, thank you’.
This meant that my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich would consist not of two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese, a fried egg and breakfast meat, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup, but only two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese and a fried egg, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup. The dieter’s Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, if you will.
Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner that someone decided to decorate with decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers? Or did someone have a collection of decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers and did that someone think, ‘I need to get a diner to properly showcase this shit’? It’s a perplexing question. But something about Paper Moon Diner -- something about the way happy American families sit at tables in there blithely chewing pancakes under naked toddler dolls suspended from the ceiling with cords like ligatures -- made me feel that asking is not the done thing.
And so I turned my attention, instead, to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, placed before me by the friendly waiter on a thick white diner plate. It was puffy and golden, presented without any garnish but a small steel pot filled with the crucial maple-flavoured syrup, microwave-warmed to aid liquidity. (An important touch: many diner chefs apply the maple-flavoured syrup to breakfast treats in the kitchen, causing an unacceptable sogginess). Cutting in to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich -- for this is a sandwich with the use of knife and fork intrinsic to its design -- I was pleased to note that the texture of the bread was springy and light; surprised to see that the central cheese and egg was not greasy.
The first bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich revealed that it was a pleasant melange of sweet and savoury, with the perfect amount of morning-after champagne-soaking carbohydrate. The second bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich filled my heart with a flood of regret: why had I deluded myself that my lofty refusal of breakfast meat made me any better than any other feckless glutton eating a fried egg-and-cheese sandwich served on deep-fried battered white bread? But third bite of my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich restored my confidence. For although it made me certain that I would never again eat a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich in a diner decorated by someone with a hoarding fetish, there was no question that my life would have been poorer if I had not tried it once.
227 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
United States
by Joyce Carol Oats
I marked the dawn of 2012 with a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich at Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore. The new year, I’d decided, would be one in which I demonstrated unprecedented self-restraint. And it was for this reason that when the waiter asked me which breakfast meat I wanted in my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich (sausage, ham, or crispy bacon), I said loud and clear, and with maybe a tiny bit of a tone that implied he was suggesting an excessive indulgence: ‘no breakfast meat, thank you’.
This meant that my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich would consist not of two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese, a fried egg and breakfast meat, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup, but only two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese and a fried egg, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup. The dieter’s Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, if you will.
Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner that someone decided to decorate with decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers? Or did someone have a collection of decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers and did that someone think, ‘I need to get a diner to properly showcase this shit’? It’s a perplexing question. But something about Paper Moon Diner -- something about the way happy American families sit at tables in there blithely chewing pancakes under naked toddler dolls suspended from the ceiling with cords like ligatures -- made me feel that asking is not the done thing.
And so I turned my attention, instead, to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, placed before me by the friendly waiter on a thick white diner plate. It was puffy and golden, presented without any garnish but a small steel pot filled with the crucial maple-flavoured syrup, microwave-warmed to aid liquidity. (An important touch: many diner chefs apply the maple-flavoured syrup to breakfast treats in the kitchen, causing an unacceptable sogginess). Cutting in to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich -- for this is a sandwich with the use of knife and fork intrinsic to its design -- I was pleased to note that the texture of the bread was springy and light; surprised to see that the central cheese and egg was not greasy.
The first bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich revealed that it was a pleasant melange of sweet and savoury, with the perfect amount of morning-after champagne-soaking carbohydrate. The second bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich filled my heart with a flood of regret: why had I deluded myself that my lofty refusal of breakfast meat made me any better than any other feckless glutton eating a fried egg-and-cheese sandwich served on deep-fried battered white bread? But third bite of my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich restored my confidence. For although it made me certain that I would never again eat a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich in a diner decorated by someone with a hoarding fetish, there was no question that my life would have been poorer if I had not tried it once.
Monday, February 13, 2012
An open letter
From: T.N. Toost, US Bureau Chief, London Review of Breakfasts
To: All candidates for President of the United States of America
Dear Candidate,
As you no doubt know, The London Review of Breakfasts is the preeminent breakfast review organization in London, and as such is in a unique position to offer you the kind of international attention that you have no chance of finding anywhere else. We have a cadre of fans all around the world, many of whom vote in the most important elections in your country.
Our American bureau is conveniently located in Cleveland, Ohio – a small, sleepy yet important village on the North Coast of America. Because of your election system that almost nobody else in the world understands (save us, mind), Ohio is going to be one of the must-win states.
We therefore invite you to a candidate breakfast to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on a date convenient for you. To help you understand the importance of this breakfast, the last time we invited the candidates to breakfast, in 2008, John McCain, Ron Paul, Hilary Clinton and John Edwards all turned us down, citing scheduling conflicts. Each and every one of them lost the election.
Once we have interviewed each of the candidates extensively we will be in a position to endorse the candidate who will eventually win the nomination and the Presidential election in November.
We are busy, however, so please contact us soon to ensure that your schedule can be arranged to accommodate ours.
We look forward to breakfast with the future POTUS.
Sincerely,
Malcolm Eggs and T. N. Toost
The Ohio primary is on 6 March 2012
To: All candidates for President of the United States of America
Dear Candidate,
As you no doubt know, The London Review of Breakfasts is the preeminent breakfast review organization in London, and as such is in a unique position to offer you the kind of international attention that you have no chance of finding anywhere else. We have a cadre of fans all around the world, many of whom vote in the most important elections in your country.
Our American bureau is conveniently located in Cleveland, Ohio – a small, sleepy yet important village on the North Coast of America. Because of your election system that almost nobody else in the world understands (save us, mind), Ohio is going to be one of the must-win states.
We therefore invite you to a candidate breakfast to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on a date convenient for you. To help you understand the importance of this breakfast, the last time we invited the candidates to breakfast, in 2008, John McCain, Ron Paul, Hilary Clinton and John Edwards all turned us down, citing scheduling conflicts. Each and every one of them lost the election.
Once we have interviewed each of the candidates extensively we will be in a position to endorse the candidate who will eventually win the nomination and the Presidential election in November.
We are busy, however, so please contact us soon to ensure that your schedule can be arranged to accommodate ours.
We look forward to breakfast with the future POTUS.
Sincerely,
Malcolm Eggs and T. N. Toost
The Ohio primary is on 6 March 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Fleet River Bakery, Holborn
The Fleet River Bakery
71 Lincolns Inn Fields
Holborn
WC2A 3JF
020 7691 1457
www.fleetriverbakery.com
by Flora Ashley
There are a few things which drive me into a vicious, murderous rage: tourists who dawdle on Tube platforms; people who sniff persistently; tights which ladder at the heel after a day’s wear; Melanie Philips; and overheated university libraries. Another is cafes which don’t include prices on their blackboard-walled menus.
Why, I ask you, should a relatively low-priced restaurant not inform its customers how much their coffee, cake, soup, and sandwiches will cost? Why so coy? Surely they understand that the transfer of money from customer to shopkeeper is vital to the success of any business? Do they realise that the only person in Britain who considers references to money to be vulgar is Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and she’s a character in a TV series?
Ahem.
It’s because of this strange fiscal bashfulness that I haven’t been to the Fleet River Bakery for more than two years. I used to pop by for coffee whenever I used the LSE’s excellent library. But on the sole occasion that I stopped for lunch, I was so hungry that I didn’t notice the lack of prices on the menu. When I arrived at the front of the queue, I was charged nearly ten quid for a slice of quiche, salad, and something to drink. I lost my temper and stalked out.
I was so afflicted with guilt – my behaviour was ridiculous, and it was hardly the fault of the cashier that the Bakery didn’t list prices – that I couldn’t return. I skirted the Bakery for months, stealing glances at its delicious-looking pastries and lovely coffee from behind the upturned points of my coat collar.
But relief arrived a few weeks ago, in the form of breakfast with ML, a friend who studies at the LSE. I was curious about her choice of the Bakery: had her degree in economics transformed her into a proto-banker so rapacious that menu prices no longer meant anything to her? Or did she agree with my views on menu pricing, and suggested the Bakery because it had changed its policy? So brave in the belief that the staff wouldn’t recognise me with shorter hair, I returned. And I am so pleased I did. I could not recommend the Fleet River Bakery’s breakfasts highly enough.
True, these are not substantial beans-and-bacon-and-eggs breakfasts, nor do they offer porridge, pancakes, nor any of the variations of eggs Benedict. But their focus on pastry means that they produce something so close to the Platonic ideal of the croissant that one can forgive their austere attitude towards choice at the breakfast table. Their croissants are so buttery that they need only to be eaten with jam, and I was halfway through mine before I remembered to smear jam on it. ML’s pain au chocolat was as much chocolat as it was pain. The flat whites came in deep cups, and at just the right temperature: neither tongue-blisteringly hot, nor insipidly cold.
The Bakery itself is pleasingly cosy, with its wooden tables and comfortable chairs squirrelled away into nooks and corners. And ML and I talked away an hour in the basement. She’s considering a career in community radio, and approved heartily of the well-displayed prices on the menu: croissants were £2 each, and flat whites £2.60.
71 Lincolns Inn Fields
Holborn
WC2A 3JF
020 7691 1457
www.fleetriverbakery.com
by Flora Ashley
There are a few things which drive me into a vicious, murderous rage: tourists who dawdle on Tube platforms; people who sniff persistently; tights which ladder at the heel after a day’s wear; Melanie Philips; and overheated university libraries. Another is cafes which don’t include prices on their blackboard-walled menus.
Why, I ask you, should a relatively low-priced restaurant not inform its customers how much their coffee, cake, soup, and sandwiches will cost? Why so coy? Surely they understand that the transfer of money from customer to shopkeeper is vital to the success of any business? Do they realise that the only person in Britain who considers references to money to be vulgar is Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and she’s a character in a TV series?
Ahem.
It’s because of this strange fiscal bashfulness that I haven’t been to the Fleet River Bakery for more than two years. I used to pop by for coffee whenever I used the LSE’s excellent library. But on the sole occasion that I stopped for lunch, I was so hungry that I didn’t notice the lack of prices on the menu. When I arrived at the front of the queue, I was charged nearly ten quid for a slice of quiche, salad, and something to drink. I lost my temper and stalked out.
I was so afflicted with guilt – my behaviour was ridiculous, and it was hardly the fault of the cashier that the Bakery didn’t list prices – that I couldn’t return. I skirted the Bakery for months, stealing glances at its delicious-looking pastries and lovely coffee from behind the upturned points of my coat collar.
But relief arrived a few weeks ago, in the form of breakfast with ML, a friend who studies at the LSE. I was curious about her choice of the Bakery: had her degree in economics transformed her into a proto-banker so rapacious that menu prices no longer meant anything to her? Or did she agree with my views on menu pricing, and suggested the Bakery because it had changed its policy? So brave in the belief that the staff wouldn’t recognise me with shorter hair, I returned. And I am so pleased I did. I could not recommend the Fleet River Bakery’s breakfasts highly enough.
True, these are not substantial beans-and-bacon-and-eggs breakfasts, nor do they offer porridge, pancakes, nor any of the variations of eggs Benedict. But their focus on pastry means that they produce something so close to the Platonic ideal of the croissant that one can forgive their austere attitude towards choice at the breakfast table. Their croissants are so buttery that they need only to be eaten with jam, and I was halfway through mine before I remembered to smear jam on it. ML’s pain au chocolat was as much chocolat as it was pain. The flat whites came in deep cups, and at just the right temperature: neither tongue-blisteringly hot, nor insipidly cold.
The Bakery itself is pleasingly cosy, with its wooden tables and comfortable chairs squirrelled away into nooks and corners. And ML and I talked away an hour in the basement. She’s considering a career in community radio, and approved heartily of the well-displayed prices on the menu: croissants were £2 each, and flat whites £2.60.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Delaunay, Covent Garden
The Delaunay
55 Aldwych
Covent Garden
WC2B 4BB
020 7499 8558
www.thedelaunay.com
by Malcolm Eggs
Christmas Eve at Paddington Station. People are everywhere. Cases trundle, big hanging clocks flip between digits, hungover men and women trot along platforms, panicked by the strangely widespread notion that eight minutes is not long enough to walk the distance of four carriages.
Me? I am in WH Smith, in a huge queue, waiting to buy a magazine. I wanted to grab it quickly but it is now on the verge of being untenable because, on this entirely predictable bottleneck of a day, they have decided to employ just one till operator. Understaffing! It is the bane of English life. How many times has it led to me waiting in huge, bored crowd at a bar? I want to buy a drink and their reason for existing is to sell it to me but they can't, because of a misguided austerity measure. Or being told in a hipster restaurant, "I'm sorry, but there's a huge wait and everything will be substandard because we have so many customers today". My dear restaurant, I always reply (inside my mind), do you believe in what you do? If so, you should expect to be popular.
I think wistfully back to my birthday, of eating breakfast at The Wolseley's new sister restaurant The Delaunay. It is the epitome of not having an understaffing problem. When I arrived at 11.31am I was consulted by no less than three staff on the implications of missing the breakfast menu (several egg-based dishes, they established, were still available to me courtesy of the a la carte menu). After being led through to a spacious and classy room (dark wood-panelled walls, monochrome marble floor tiles) I sat, spellbound, and watched the restaurant's remarkable - almost naval - systems at work. What were the ranks and roles? There were at least seventeen staff compared, at this time of day, with thirteen diners. Some wore black suits, several wore waistcoats and others were all in white. A few had aprons. The majority wore light grey ties, while two or three sported darker ones that seemed to give them huge amounts of authority. I saw a dark-tie quibbling with a light-tie about using the wrong sort of tablecloth.
Five of them attended to me during my breakfast, which was eggs Arlington (£8.50) - i.e. what most places call eggs Royale, or Benedict with smoked salmon in place of ham. My over-riding impression was of its neatness. Several sheets of smoked salmon were shaped - by a team of salmon shapers, no doubt - into a thick orange wheel whose edge at no point breached the muffin perimeter. A tidy circle of yellow Hollandaise shone out from its centre. The effect was of a kind of triple brunch eclipse. The whole thing towered to around six inches high. It tasted very good. The egg was perfectly poached. The salmon tasted reasonably well - if a touch cost-effectively - sourced. If the muffin was homemade, I salute them for replicating the delicious qualities of a mass-produced muffin so accurately.
On my right, two ladies with necklaces on the outside of their rollneck jumpers discussed whether or not to have the schnitzel. Almost everywhere else, waiters huddled in pairs or threes. They would confer and glance around; then one would suddenly break free and deliver a message to someone eighteen feet away, who would respond by hotfooting it to a knife that needed wiping. Mini-processions marched to tables carrying trays of coffee, teapots, wine, cocktails...
"Next please." I am roused from my daydream by the woman at the till. She calls me forward and I pay for my magazine. During the time it takes Christmas, New Year and early January to occur, I will stand in several more queues caused by willful understaffing. Often I will think back to The Delaunay and wonder if it could be the model for a different, happier version of England. I conclude that this would definitely be true for the 'customers', and probably for the 'dark-ties' as well.
55 Aldwych
Covent Garden
WC2B 4BB
020 7499 8558
www.thedelaunay.com
by Malcolm Eggs
Christmas Eve at Paddington Station. People are everywhere. Cases trundle, big hanging clocks flip between digits, hungover men and women trot along platforms, panicked by the strangely widespread notion that eight minutes is not long enough to walk the distance of four carriages.
Me? I am in WH Smith, in a huge queue, waiting to buy a magazine. I wanted to grab it quickly but it is now on the verge of being untenable because, on this entirely predictable bottleneck of a day, they have decided to employ just one till operator. Understaffing! It is the bane of English life. How many times has it led to me waiting in huge, bored crowd at a bar? I want to buy a drink and their reason for existing is to sell it to me but they can't, because of a misguided austerity measure. Or being told in a hipster restaurant, "I'm sorry, but there's a huge wait and everything will be substandard because we have so many customers today". My dear restaurant, I always reply (inside my mind), do you believe in what you do? If so, you should expect to be popular.
I think wistfully back to my birthday, of eating breakfast at The Wolseley's new sister restaurant The Delaunay. It is the epitome of not having an understaffing problem. When I arrived at 11.31am I was consulted by no less than three staff on the implications of missing the breakfast menu (several egg-based dishes, they established, were still available to me courtesy of the a la carte menu). After being led through to a spacious and classy room (dark wood-panelled walls, monochrome marble floor tiles) I sat, spellbound, and watched the restaurant's remarkable - almost naval - systems at work. What were the ranks and roles? There were at least seventeen staff compared, at this time of day, with thirteen diners. Some wore black suits, several wore waistcoats and others were all in white. A few had aprons. The majority wore light grey ties, while two or three sported darker ones that seemed to give them huge amounts of authority. I saw a dark-tie quibbling with a light-tie about using the wrong sort of tablecloth.
Five of them attended to me during my breakfast, which was eggs Arlington (£8.50) - i.e. what most places call eggs Royale, or Benedict with smoked salmon in place of ham. My over-riding impression was of its neatness. Several sheets of smoked salmon were shaped - by a team of salmon shapers, no doubt - into a thick orange wheel whose edge at no point breached the muffin perimeter. A tidy circle of yellow Hollandaise shone out from its centre. The effect was of a kind of triple brunch eclipse. The whole thing towered to around six inches high. It tasted very good. The egg was perfectly poached. The salmon tasted reasonably well - if a touch cost-effectively - sourced. If the muffin was homemade, I salute them for replicating the delicious qualities of a mass-produced muffin so accurately.
On my right, two ladies with necklaces on the outside of their rollneck jumpers discussed whether or not to have the schnitzel. Almost everywhere else, waiters huddled in pairs or threes. They would confer and glance around; then one would suddenly break free and deliver a message to someone eighteen feet away, who would respond by hotfooting it to a knife that needed wiping. Mini-processions marched to tables carrying trays of coffee, teapots, wine, cocktails...
"Next please." I am roused from my daydream by the woman at the till. She calls me forward and I pay for my magazine. During the time it takes Christmas, New Year and early January to occur, I will stand in several more queues caused by willful understaffing. Often I will think back to The Delaunay and wonder if it could be the model for a different, happier version of England. I conclude that this would definitely be true for the 'customers', and probably for the 'dark-ties' as well.
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