Bill's Produce Store, Soho

Bills Produce Store

44 Brewer St

Soho

W1F 9TB

020 7287 8712

www.bills-website.co.uk

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.

Special US dispatch: Republican Party Pancake Breakfast, Brunswick, Ohio

Republican Party Pancake Breakfast

Medina Mapleside Farms
294 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.