Cabmen's Shelter, Russell Square

The Shelter
Russell Square
Bloomsbury
WC1B 5DU
Open from 7am – 3pm

by Evelyn Waughffle

On the west side of Russell Square stands a small wooden construction which looks like a prim garden shed. A Bloomsbury garden shed would, I suppose, be necessarily smarter and more sophisticated than its suburban counterpart, sort of like its snooty distant cousin. This one, a very fine specimen indeed, has a neat black hat of a roof and walls painted a shade of racing-green normally reserved for billiard tables. My curiosity had long been piqued by this strayed piece of garden architecture which, for all its nattiness is still somewhat provincial, not so much out of place as it is out of time. Earlier this year I was thrilled to discover that it is not a shed at all. The structure is one of thirteen still standing in London, out of sixty-odd built between 1875 and 1914 by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund. This was a fund set up by a gang of Victorian philanthropists who took pity on the men who drove hackney carriages at ungodly hours of the day and wondered, presumably, where on earth they would get their breakfasts. It is nice to think that the Victorians thought as highly of this meal as we do, and higher perhaps of cabmen. Not being a cabman I approached the shelter with some trepidation. There was an open hatch out from which blew pleasant frying smells and a door, ever so slightly ajar.

I felt like Lucy, who discovered Narnia inside a wardrobe, except that in my case Narnia was the size of a wardrobe. The shelter is both larger and smaller than you might imagine. One half houses a very well stocked kitchen, the other benches and a strange adjustable running board of a table. The eating-half is not quite as small as a matchbox, more like a decent sized bathtub. But eating your breakfast in a bathtub (with three sturdy workmen flanking you to the left and a refrigerator hemming you to the right) is not for the faint-hearted. Like Archimedes, I was suddenly keenly aware of the volume of irregular objects. Everything worked with a floating co-dependent gravity; we all had to be very careful not to upset the ketchup or the boiled eggs would fall out. Turning the pages of the Sun was a feat of marvellous collaboration.

The root of this extreme spatial curtailment is the adjustable table which loops above the benches and holds diners in place like a harness on a theme park ride. It was how I imagine eating breakfast in a lifeboat might feel; birdcage on your lap, bobbing up and down in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by rather grim strangers who you can’t quite be sure understood your request for them to ‘pass the salt’. Interestingly the ‘lifeboat’ approach to seating has been adopted (perhaps in homage) in the back of the Monmouth Coffee shop not far from here. It is as though they either don’t want you to eat at all, or for you not to be able to leave if you do.

The food. I opted for a sausage sandwich. But I could have been more imaginative as the size of the kitchen does not reflect the limits of the menu. If you want it, Terry can probably make it. The sandwich was piping hot, a tidy squelch of thick white bloomer (margarine, un-toasted) and a crush of sausages. It was a full sandwich, as if, in an unconscious echo of the shelter, the bread had been stuffed, packed, crammed. It was a rush-hour-platform of a sandwich; I was a little overwhelmed. I sipped my coffee and waited for the sandwich to cool, wondering how to tackle it. The coffee was of the milky, sugary, instant variety that I associate with youth hostels. It was lovely. The sausages were good; thick and pink, crisp and brown, but there were so many of them! The sauce to sausage ratio (there was a generous slathering of HB and tomato ketchup) was such that the thing started to lose its shape. The integrity of the structure crumbled entirely when not one but two sausage halves slipped from my grip, and out onto the plate; men overboard!

There is no cutlery in the cabmen’s shelter so I ate the escapees with my fingers which, while it may have been a little revolting to observe, was both necessary and satisfying. It also gave me the chance to effect an introduction to the three men I was breakfasting with. Our knees were practically touching but English breakfast sang-froid meant we had not shared anything but gruff nods and evasive grunts during the pantomime of sitting down without knocking anything over. There aren’t many situations as disarming as being temporarily incapacitated by a sausage sandwich. They saw me floundering, offered a stack of paper napkins and we all made friends. They were lift-repair men and gave me some very good advice about why you should never take lifts. I wondered if the shelter were smaller or larger than those famously claustrophobic spaces but kept it to myself. I will be going back. The food was good, the price excellent (£2.50 for vast s/w and coffee), and the surroundings, not to be missed.

Special Dispatch: Breakfast in Yangon

by Daw Aung San Mue Sli

Most shop-bought food in Myanmar is consumed sitting on tiny plastic stools of the sort you might find in a kindergarten. They come with both backs and no-backs, and in numerous colours though sun-bleached red and blue are favourites, usually with matching tiny tables. I have seen many of these stools stapled back together where a particularly heavy customer has flattened one. Such fixing is proudly described as doing it ‘Bamar-lo’, the Burmese way of getting around even the most arduous junta-imposed restrictions. These stools are not limited to teashops and rice shops, they can also be handily brought out to seat passengers sitting in the aisle of a bus. Myanmar's people may be small and stunted through years of malnutrition but their knees almost reach their ears when they sit on them too. They are quite small.

Not necessarily the most comfortable position in which to digest breakfast.

But dear reader, the breakfasts are worth it even if you have to eat them folded up. The greatest of all breakfast food in Yangon (and many other parts of the country) is mohinga. Your mohinga server unthreads a handful of fresh noodles from the clump of noodles in the display case, dumps them in a bowl, and spoons over them a grey-brown coloured fish broth out of a big tin tureen. It’s optional to add a boiled duck egg, or broken up bits of fried corn wafer, or fried gourd, or a few other fried items. This dish [there's a recipe at meemalee.com] is then brought to your plastic table where you can add a squeeze of lime, a pinch of fresh coriander from a little tin bowl, a spoonful of dried chilli.

Tin Tin Aye mohinga shop on the roadside in Yankin Township (and 4 other locations in Yangon) produces the richest, fishiest broth (if you prefer it thinner, you are better off at Myaung Mya Daw Cho). Tin Tin Aye’s broth is made in a factory somewhere in Okkalapa, an old kingdom of Myanmar on the outskirts of Yangon. Apparently it tastes so good because of the special salt that they bring from the seaside resort of Ngapali, but it could also be the MSG, which adds a special zing to most breakfast options in the Golden Land.

Hackney Bureau, Hackney

Hackney Bureau
3 Mare St
Hackney
E8 4RP
020 8533 6083
www.hackneybureau.com

by Typhoo Mary

I mooched my way to brunch, the first time in Hackney for four years, beyond the beginning of the Saturday kerfuffle of Broadway Market, arriving at the Bureau in a slightly detached frame of mind.

There were chilled beats and big bay windows, allowing one to gaze out at the multitudes of white vans roaring past on a soggy Mare Street. There was a lot of light wood: cork floors, mixed and matched tables and chairs with an open plan kitchen. Above my head, it looked like someone had pulled the ceiling down and thought – bare boards, bare lightbulbs, concrete I-beams, protruding nails and visible trap doors – that looks GREAT, let’s just leave it like that. If Rachel Whiteread visited, she’d embalm it all in resin.

I thought that for my first LRB review, I should go traditional with a full English (£8.50). I decided on poached eggs, and there was not a flicker of disapproval when I asked for fried tomato rather than black pudding. The veggy option, £7.50 had also looked tempting, with mashed up avocado and sourdough bread. Another option, truffled mushrooms, had also appealed, although the mention of rocket should have been a warning for what was to come.

The French chef bore more than a passing resemblance to Matt the Horn from the Blues Brothers sans hair net and saxophone. The waitress made a comment about the distance to her art studio. A father and his sons came in silently, in football strips, presumably from a Vicky Park practice. The boys looked miserable. Perhaps their team had lost. Perhaps their dad was the coach. He looked stern as he barked at them as to whether they wanted bacon rolls. Which were not on the chalk board menu… Regulars then? A small child gleefully was sat in the window pulling a huge croissant into piles of decorative crumbs. His beatific American mother carefully sipped her soy latte.

The counter groaned under a huge pile of pastries. I am always suspicious when there are so many cakes – are they fresh is my question… But I suspect one of my usual companions to brunch, Edwardian Man, would have been pleased at the breadth of selection. But he was in Russia with his lady, so he’ll have to wait.

Artist/Waitress cheerfully delivered my breakfast. The poached eggs looked perfect, the tomatoes golden, the bacon crispy, and although the sausage was cut in two to be fried flat on a hotplate (not aesthetically pleasing please note chefs – it indicates a need-for-speed over traditional means) it looked home-made or at least well-sourced so I was pacified. The baked beans were home-made, carrots and beetroot ahoy, and were DELICIOUS. (I first came across baked beans with veg in my stalwart Little Georgia, and these beans could give them a run for their money). The bread was glorious. But hold on, wait a moment, what’s this… Oh dear god. SALAD? Salad with DRESSING?

Like vampire films, brunch will always have its variety on the core themes – different riffs on bread, bacon, black pudding, baked beans, but never in my life have I seen a full English with a handful of salad garnish. Dressed garnish no less. These were jolly leaves, and they looked like they were dressed well – but in my book the only thing green on a brunch platter should be wilted spinach with eggs Florentine. Et c’est TOUT! Edwardian Man would have sniffed. I, in turn, did not touch the jolly salad.

I had a second coffee, which was much better than the first, and a teeny blueberry friand from the mound of cakes. It was fresh. It was delicious. It gave me that brunch pudding hit I love.

A bevy of men came in. They all looked French. Some ordered coffee. Their arrival had pushed back the rain, and when I left, the sun had come out on Mare Street.

Breakfast in America: Barney Greengrass, New York

Barney Greengrass
541 Amsterdam Avenue at 86th Street
New York, NY 10024
USA
+1 212 724 4707
www.barneygreengrass.com

by Pam O'Raisin

I wasn’t going for the lox, nor the sturgeon for which Barney Greengrass is famous: even though this is the self-proclaimed “Sturgeon King”. And whitefish salad I prefer to keep for after noon, thanks. No, this breakfast was all about the blintz. I’ve had them at Katz’s, the vast portion enough to feed a small family for about a week. I’ve had them at Veselka, in the East Village, radically folded around the sweet cheese filling in a delicate triangle.

But I was still in search of the best: so the Upper West Side, and Barney Greengrass it had to be. On one side, a deli and takeaway, counters piled with bagels and rugelach and black and white cookies, huge trays of smoked fish.

On the other side, a crush of Formica tables, all packed with noisy families and kvetching Jewish men, even at ten thirty on a weekday morning. I didn’t need the laminated menu.

“I’ll take the cheese blintzes, no sour cream, but maple syrup on the side.” The waiter’s eyes narrowed. I was tampering with the proper order of things. Would it be allowed?

The blintzes arrived, three plump parcels of pancake, briefly fried in butter, the sweet cheese filling oozing out as I cut into them, drizzled in maple sweetness. This was my perfect Manhattan breakfast – almost.

More heresy was to come as I accessorised the blintzes with my own pack of raisins. The waiter caught sight of my plate.

“Raisins, huh?”

I held my nerve. “Yes, actually. They’re delicious.”

As he took my empty plate, later, scraped clean of telltale syrup and dried fruit, I caught sight of a wink.

“Raisins!”

He was still smiling when I left.

Frank's Café, Southwark

Frank’s Café

132 Southwark Street

Southwark

SE1 0SW

0207 928 3850

Mon – Fri 6.30-3.30

by Evelyn Waughffle

Do you believe in love at first sight? What about love at first breakfast? 

A few months ago at a friend’s wedding I felt that irresistible tug towards another person that is a little like falling over and a little like being gripped about the kidneys by an invisible fist. He was flailing somewhere in the middle of the reception with what looked like a handheld mixer. I was at the edge of the room with a paper plate full of potato salad. Was it his helplessness that drew me to him? His evident laissez-fair attitude to the wrapping of wedding presents? Or was it his coal eyes and crumpled black suit? Whatever it was I longed to be near him. I tried to follow his progress while making small talk and spearing resistant cherry tomatoes onto my fork but lost him somewhere between the disobedient crudité and a story about the bride’s due date (imminent). Moments later he was in front of me, asking if there was room on my bench for one more. I said there was, shuffled along awkwardly, and then wracked my brains for a suitable opener, something that would convey to him our shared fate, our comingled destiny, our blended reasons for being. I found myself looking into his eyes and asking instead, “Do you have a favourite greasy spoon?”.

We talked for a while and in the confusion of toasts, tears and cake were separated. I was kicking myself for being so inane when suddenly he was beside me again, a dark figure in the awkward mill of friends and relatives that had accumulated in the space between the tables and chairs. The band began to play. As the conga line started I felt him put his hands around my waist and tried not to fall over. 

That was three months ago now and I would have forgotten all about the mysterious stranger from the conga line had I not chanced to walk past the café he had recommended during our fleeting (too fleeting!) moments of conversation. What would I discover about him there? Not to be confused with Peckham’s gentrified car park rooftop bar, this café remembers when Campari was as cool as, well, your mother. With an unprepossessing façade, plastic lettering that doesn’t quite achieve nostalgia, and food photographs that look to have been boiled before they were stuck to the window, you would be forgiven for walking straight past this humble humdrum haven. But reader, Franks is the place the proverbial book and cover were coined for. It is an exquisite greasy spoon. If these things do it for you then prepare to be seduced.

As soon as you enter you are greeted by two countermen who take your order. Behind them, ’spoon essentials cram themselves into view; epic constructions which have more in common with ancient sites of worship than kitchen ingredients. Stacks of bread teetering like plaster columns, pyramids of butter pats and a vast totem of a peanut butter pot which demands submission from the tea bags that surround it. Along the walls hang framed pictures of sporting heroes, a collage made for ‘the world’s best Dad’ and several shots of a variety of people holding up an implausibly large fish. I felt myself go weak at the knees.

Even ordering was a joy. The man behind the till performed an acrobatic ritual combining money taking and coffee pouring that was the most dexterous thing I have ever seen at such close quarters. He whisked away my note and threw it down on top of his till whilst frothing milk in a small white cup with his other hand. Between filling the cup with coffee from a great silver drum and placing it onto a saucer he had somehow also scooped the note into the till and fished out my change. He handed me coins and cup with a flourish and, after admonishing another customer for swearing in a lady’s presence, told me to sit down. 

I sat down obediently in a booth next to the kitchen hatch. Lists of ingredients were shouted out when ready. Delicately tuned combinations like, “Fanta, chips, lasagna!” “Sausage, chips, beans!” and “Double scrambled eggs on brown toast!” The words were like music to my ears, a song sung which only I could hear. Is this what love feels like? My breakfast arrived in a three-slice stack which glistened pleasingly. It was thinly sliced bread of good quality (crisply crusted but forgiving in the middle) and generously spread with crunchy peanut butter. The coffee was too hot to taste and somewhat overwhelmed by bathwateresque foam. I followed it up with a black one which was thick and bitter (much better). 

As I sat in the booth, enjoying my second coffee and the clatter of crockery, I could not help but think about what might have been. A man who knows how to breakfast is hard to find. Could it be that he is sitting somewhere, above a fried egg sandwich, dreaming of me?

We’ll always have the conga line. 

Op-Egg: Pro tips for a good business breakfast

by T. N. Toost

There was a recent article in Forbes by an attorney named, curiously, Judge, that discussed the advantages of breakfast for business. It was an article worthy of Forbes. She told stories about breakfast, and how she was in a big city in the States and learned how to eat breakfast and do business at the same time, and oh! when she came to London it was such a foreign concept to the peasants! and she discovered The Wolseley before it was popular, and now it's popular, so she goes to The Lanesborough, but it might be a bit expensive for you, and it has a lot of tourists so it is good for business!  

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

It is nice to see a rag like Forbes getting into the breakfast game. Maybe they're trying to diversify their income stream or something. Of course, any regular reader of the LRB can tell that they have a lot to learn, but they have to start somewhere, don't they? At least she brings a lawyer's attention to detail to her observations.

While she touches on some of the virtues of a business breakfast, she doesn't really get into the finer points of how to pull one off. Instead, if one were to read this piece carefully, one would learn:

1) She started in the business breakfast world by being nice to the maitre'd;

2) Breakfast is generally cheaper than lunch or dinner, and she does not drink as much;

3) Lawyer Judge quotes herself;

4) She can laugh if she makes a joke about breakfast, because it's funny;

5) She won't pay £15 for a cup of coffee, even if it comes with breakfast;

6) She will deny it, but among some people, her opinion of breakfast restaurants is rated very highly indeed;

7) She likes to have breakfast where there are important people like her around; 

8) She can't hear very well;

9) WTF is that picture? Don't tell me she chose it for herself? For God's sake, don't these Americans have any taste?  

Now, I've similarly had a "lifetime of breaking bread with clients," even if my lifetime has been much shorter than hers, and not nearly as tied to the rise of atomic energy. Regardless, here, mes amis, are some pro tips that you can use to have a good business breakfast:

1) Keep it to a reasonable hour, and leave when you have to. Don't be shy about cutting it short in the name of D-U-T-Y.  

2) Scope the place out beforehand, and figure out where the restaurant has its clocks. You want to sit where you can see a clock so that you don't have to rudely glance at your watch when you think you might have to leave.  

3) Become a regular at a place. In fact, become a regular at a few very good places, and offer to meet clients at a place convenient for them. They think that they have the home court advantage, but you should have already left several healthy tips for the waitress, who will remember how you like your eggs.  

4) If you can't be a regular at a place, at least get there a few minutes earlier than your breakfast companion. Review the menu and choose what you will order. If they know what they want when they arrive, it puts you on equal footing; if they have to scan the menu, it gives you an upper edge.  

Order coffee early and put a discreet amount of sugar in it. Opt for brown crystals over white, of course; hell, if they have pieces of raw cane on the table, use that. Just get a small amount of it in your system early so that you can regulate your blood sugar. If your dining partner decides not to poison his veins with that tropical filth, laugh inwardly at him, knowing that your brain will be working faster, faster.  

5) If you're at your regular spot, order the same thing every time. There's no need to make it the healthiest thing on the menu, but don't order the Fullest English in England. Tweak it in some way - get the eggs shirred, or over easy on the potatoes so you can pierce the yolks, or ask for Sriracha (actually, always ask for Sriracha). Do one thing different so that not only does the waitress remember, but your partner will notice how particular and exacting you are.  

6) Tip well.  

7) Bring paper. Sketch things out with a pen. Breakfast time is no time for tablets, and certainly not a time for your partner to stare at the back of a screen.  

8) Bring a newspaper so that, if you have to wait, you can be productive.  

9) Do not use your phone at all, especially if you're waiting for the other person. Use the moments for reflection and thought and preparing for the day. Or read the paper.  

10) Come with a goal. If you know what you want, clearly, you're more likely to get it from your companion. People are very agreeable at breakfast, all things considered.  

11) Leave with action items that you can email around immediately upon arriving at the office.  

12) If you are not independently wealthy, make sure you tell people what you just did at the office, and get them in on it. "Hey Gary!  I just had breakfast with Lady Judge.  No, she doesn't look like that picture at all. I know, I know. Yeah. Well it's confusing, but she's American. Oh, no discretion at all, mate. Or style. Well listen: we should invest in atomic energy, it's about to blow up. No, no pun intended. Yeah. Well, she's going to send me a spreadsheet of the companies that they're going to contract with so I can move money into the right accounts. Yeah. OK then, ta."

13) As long as your breakfast partner doesn't have a hearing problem, go somewhere moderately loud. The advantage is that it forces you to lean in, forcing intimacy and a sense of camaraderie.  What's more important than anything is the table size; you want to be close yet have a wide surface on which to write and sketch and doodle.  

14) Do not order kippers. In fact, don't order anything that requires any thought or special effort whatsoever to consume. Don't distract yourself; eat something simple and relatively healthy and focus on what you want out of the business, not the breakfast. I once had breakfast with Malcolm Eggs, and we both ordered kippers, and were silent for almost a whole minute. Then we had a bottle of champagne, had a good laugh, became close friends and got on with our business in the allocated hour. On our subsequent meetings during my trips to London we always had breakfast like that.

Special Dispatch: The Breakfasts of Portland

By Grits Lang

You might have heard: Portland, Oregon is kind of a Thing right now. Things, in my humble opinion, always warrant eye-rolling mockery. I, however, am a third-generation Portland native, and being a proper Portland hipster, can say without sarcasm that I was here before it was cool. As a native, I have a love-hate relationship with the television program Portlandia. Portland natives mostly just hate it when Portlandia is accurate, and that show is very accurate about one thing: Portlanders are completely stupid for breakfast.

In Portland, foods that, anywhere else in the United States would be eaten only by farmers and the working poor, warrant an hour-long wait and $20. True, there are things like marionberry-studded pancakes with honey from neighborhood bees, and cold-smoked fish wrested from local waters. These things are not at all a cliché, and are, in fact, delicious and worth every inconvenience; these are examples of Portland doing things properly. But for the most part, everywhere you go, you’re beaten over the head with foods invented to sustain lumberjacks and other beardymen. I don’t even have to mention any specific establishment, because no matter where you go, this is what you’re offered:

1) Biscuits and gravy. Seriously, I can’t think of any restaurants that don’t have B&G on the menu. Due to the overall drear of our climate (and a populace overwhelmingly originating from drier states) Portland is in the middle of a long, sordid love affair with gravy. High-end places have their versions using sausage made in-house from hazelnut-fed pigs; dives have theirs served with gravy from an industrial food service drum. Even vegan places have their own almond milk versions, just as savory and delectable as library paste. Biscuits and gravy are more ubiquitous than bacon and eggs.

2) Fried chicken and waffles. This combo dates back to the 1800s in cookbooks from the South, which is an instant formula for success in Stumptown. Take a waffle, put a bird on it, and then douse the whole thing in honey or maple syrup. This sweet/savory flavor profile is ideal for our city, since Portlanders are prone to smoke crippling amounts of marijuana.

3) Strange amalgams of fried chicken/biscuits and gravy. One place serves this beautiful chimera under the name “The Reggie”: fried chicken, bacon and cheese on a buttermilk biscuit, topped with gravy. Some genius thought to himself one day, “Let’s just take all of the things and put them together on the same biscuit. Oh, what the hell: Gravy.” Jealous? Well, take heart. Your friendly neighborhood breakfast joint is just one wake-and-bake away from its own Reggie.

4) Grits. Seriously, what is this, Louisiana? Restaurants don’t even bother calling it ‘polenta’ anymore. Grits sounds folksy and rustic, and Portland, with its penchant for pairing flannel with expensive spectacles, is all about being rugged, or at least the illusion of it.

5) Shit with bacon on it. Shit with kale on it. Bacony kale on grits with a fried or poached egg on top. (Disclaimer: I will admit that I have been known to make grits and put greens, gravy and fried eggs on top. Completely sober!) Speaking of fried or poached eggs,

6) Things that are hashed and have fried or poached eggs on top. I think it goes without saying that the yolk must be runny. Yolks are nature’s gravy, and Portland loves gravy! Pork shoulder, duck confit, beef brisket; all are fair game for shredding and frying with root vegetables. Being in the Great Northwest means there are several places to get a good smoked trout or salmon hash, but the hash scene is justly dominated by meat. But hey, some places offer vegan hash, and they don’t even get laughed out of town.

7) Ridiculous Bloody Marys with like, fifty different house-made, artisanal pickles on top of the glass (Portlandia also got the “we can pickle that” thing embarrassingly correct). One place I frequent even includes a pickled, hard-boiled egg on the same skewer as spicy asparagus, lactofermented pearl onions and a cube of house-cured pork belly. With bacon and eggs in your morning cocktail, do you even need to look at the menu?

I guess I should be thankful that the worst thing about my hometown is that the food scene is a parody of itself. It sure as hell beats living in Darfur. If your heart yearns for handcrafted foods created by aggressively handsome people who take pride in their craft— in everything from growing baby heirloom turnips to slinging shade-grown, fair-trade espresso— then please, come to the gastronomic wonderland that is Portland. And while you’re waiting in some line— some god-forsaken, Communist Russia-length breakfast line, remember that there is probably a really decent plate of pancakes at the completely empty café across the street.

Grits Lang is the alter-eggo of Heather Arndt Anderson, author of Breakfast: A History.

Breakfast in America: Buehler's Grocery Store, Ashland, Ohio

Buehler's Grocery Store
Ashland
1055 Sugarbush Dr.
Ashland, Ohio 44805
+1 (419) 282-9800
www.buehlers.com

by T. N. Toost

Ahead, on the side of the road, something rose up out of the pavement. It swayed, serpentine, and at first I thought it was a palm tree, then realized it was an unusually thick cobra coming out of a furry body, with a deer head at the end, a cobra with a deer head and a deer nose straight up in the air, the tongue protruding even further up, the mouth opened, gasping. The neck whipped back and forth, the head shooting left, then right. Then, with a final, graceful curve, it collapsed onto the road, vertebra by vertebra, until, in slow, peaceful motion, the head settled on the ground, not even bouncing. This happened in two, maybe three seconds, and I muttered, "Holy shit that's a fucking deer," as I passed by its newly lifeless form.

I realized that it must have been screaming, as a deer screams, and in pain, and scared. It may have been warning another deer of danger, or lamenting its own demise. Two hundred yards down the road, a black Volkswagen with temporary license plates was pulled over to the side. A woman in the driver's seat was rigid, with her mouth open, just like the doe's, and, from the bubble of my passing car, just as silent. If I hadn't have pulled into a rest stop to search for a breakfast spot nearby, we could easily have been in different positions.

Five minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Buehler's. It was nearly deserted, save for a man sorting large racks of plants for sale. The restaurant, however, was moderately busy - several full tables, and a guy who looked like he was getting off of the night shift was sitting at the counter. I joined him. The waitress seemed artificially pleasant in the American manner, but was nice enough, and brought my egg, bacon and cheese sandwich out in short order. It was delicious - the bacon was crispy, the egg puffed up well, and the cheese was American and oily and clung to everything. The fruit salad, while fairly standard, was at least an attempt at health, and the coffee was weak but pleasant. Five minutes later I was out the door, and the night shift man was chatting to the waitress. I wished them both well. She was pretty in the way a small town waitress might be pretty, making an effort to marry before even that is taken away from her.

And then it hit me. After our few words exchanged - the "have a nice day" crap - she went back to talking to the man at the counter. They had some business together. I looked back, and they looked conspiratorial, but not in a lover sense - in the sense that they had deep understandings that others would not understand just yet. They had secrets. What if American superficiality was actually a form of courtliness, a cover for deeper thoughts and ambitions?  What if it was a way for them to be pleasant to each others' faces as they planned to put daggers in each others' backs? What if their greatest feat was getting everyone in the world to think they were simple when, in reality, they were actually quite complex?

I looked back. The waitress guffawed unconvincingly at something her customer had said. Maybe she actually did have designs on him in which case he would be the fool and I realized I shouldn't project such grand abilities on such simple people.

Breakfasts and Beds: Seaham Hall Hotel, Sunderland

Seaham Hall Hotel

Lord Byron's Walk

Seaham

SR7 7AG

0191 516 1400

www.seaham-hall.co.uk

by Fleeter Noggins

If work takes you to Sunderland there are worse hotels in the region than this five star boutique hotel. Admittedly 'boutique' has in this, as in so many cases, come to indicate a keen yet amateur approach, more enthusiastic than stylish: pink track lighting behind repros of old masters, cocktails that the bar man has never had experience in mixing. But they mean well.

The staff are all smiles. They stand to attention and they do their very best, but like the interior décor it's all a bit amateur. What I will not complain about is the beds. The mattresses are thick, the sheets very fine and once you have learnt how to control the twenty button control panel of dimmers and air conditioning the rooms are pretty good too. I got the hang of this but my poor colleague could not silence the continuous whirring of his air conditioning. Neither could the desk clerk he phoned for help.

I regret to report that this well-meaning-but-amateur theme extends to breakfast. Any modest cook can manage hollandaise sauce and if you are offering it at breakfast you can make it in advance and store in a preheated wide neck thermos. Seaham Hall Cook! Here are some instructions for you: it's just like mayo only warm because you heat your lemon juice and vinegar and use melted butter instead of oil. It couldn’t be simpler. Put your eggs yolks in a blender, drip in the heated lemon and vinegar and then drip in your foamed and unburnt butter. It thickens like magic. It's beautiful. How can you, then, how can you serve, a full half an hour after I ordered it, a whipped egg, curdling with butter grease, with no thickness at all and no seasoning? Don’t put it on the menu if you can’t cook it. I had a train to catch otherwise I would have gone into the kitchen and given you a lesson.

The cafetiere coffee was faultless. God knows what it cost, I was on expenses. My colleague took care of it.

Special dispatch: Breakfast in Naples / Gran Caffè Gambrinus

Breakfast in Naples
(via Gran Caffè Gambrinus
Via Chiaia 1
Piazza Trieste e Trento
80132
Naples, Italy
+39 081 41 75 82
http://grancaffegambrinus.com/en

by Maggie Arto

It has been written in the LRB before that the Italians do not know how to have breakfast. Or don't have breakfast at all. Many a disappointing hotel table – featuring, for example, those small packets of dry toast biscuits, sugary yoghurt and an individual pod of jam – testifies to the fact that in Italy you might be better off waiting for the primi pasta and seconde of carne at lunch.* Which is sad, for where lunch feels functional, a punctual interruption to the tasks of the day, breakfast is hopeful: you begin half-there and end half-high. The transition from bleary-eyed to awake is a space not only where dreams linger, but where fresh ideas are made.

Alas, breakfast in Italy rarely summons reveries.

This noted, I'm here to write about the most essential Neapolitan morning ritual:  coffee. It is said, in some roundabout histories, that in 1901 a gentleman in Naples complained about the time that his coffee took to brew, that in response an engineer in Milan invented a faster method of coffee extraction – what we would come to know as the modern espresso machine.

Today in Naples, the expression of espresso occurs via hefty manual machines – still several models removed from this early prototype – whereby a large lever is pulled down to build up pressure, and as it is lifted, the shot starts to drip. At first caramel in colour – this is the coffee's surf, the oil-ish amalgam that will form the espresso's head – a chain of steady, small pearls soon become thin mice tails, which curve slightly inwards, then stop; for the Neapolitan espresso is nearly always more of a ristretto, and must be cut off before in any way dilute. Next there is the option of a macchiato dash of foam, or for the sweeter inclined, a spoonful of nocciola cream, which is dished out of an obscene-looking vat. If, and only if, you're drinking mid-morning or earlier, you may enjoy the svelte foam of a cappuccino.

Such is the espresso spectacle at the Gran Caffè Gambrinus, one of the prestigious nineteenth-century establishments in Naples' Vomero district. As is proper, it has a metres-wide machine and a solid zinc bar. There's also a marble-floored tearoom, should you wish to linger, a gelato bar and a pastry counter. If you must wedge your hunger, a slice of anything orange or lemon-scented is desirable given the proximity of Sorrentine citrus groves. Those who can stomach sweetened ricotta in the first part of the day could opt for sfogliatelle, a local confection of fine pastry leaves forming a clam-shaped shell, piped with candied fruit filling. Biscotti come sharded with almonds, sometimes in the shape of thorny crowns.

This same ritual may be observed in countless other corner cafés. Your espresso is served with a thin glass of effervescent water while you watch other shots delivered in plastic cups, on yellow trays with covers, to nearby households and businesses; a zip-fast, to-the-door service that seems, from the perspective of a waitress, overly generous, but also crucial to the functioning of an informal but highly caffeinated city. Waiting staff develop keen right angles between their upper arm and elbows, my favourite delivery sighting being macchiato-by-moped, one arm on the bars, one beneath the tray.

As I write this, over a slow home breakfast and a fast coffee take-out, I am grateful for the Milanese engineer's invention.

*I had once believed that the breakfast situation in Portugal could be similarly under-thought, but one of the best hotel breakfasts I have ever experienced was on a twenty-five degree morning in the Lisbon hills - the kind of early spread that requires much rearrangement of crockery: freshly baked madeira cake, wild strawberries and home-strained yoghurt, seedy bread drizzled with olive oil alongside sliced, glistening tomatoes and soft white cheese, delicate jasmine tea and a silver pot of coffee…

Breakfast and energy: an experiment

by Blake Pudding

Hypothesis:

From my vast experience of cereal eating I had noticed that Shreddies seem to keep me full of energy longer than most cereals. But was this really the case? I put the most popular brands of cereals through a rigorous scientific test so as to discern which contains the most energy. 

To liven things up a bit I added some non-cereals to the experiment. Who wants to just eat cereal for breakfast for two weeks?

Method:

At 8.10am every morning I ate breakfast.

At 8.40am I cycled to work from my home in Bethnal Green, East London to Holland Park, West London, a distance of 8.2 miles.

This normally took about 40 minutes. I then settled down to my working day and noted the exact time that I began to feel hungry again.

The control breakfast was 2 slices of brown toast (I opted for the nutty low GI loaf from Percy Ingle on Bethnal Green Road) with butter and marmalade.

Cereals tested: Corn Flakes, Bran Flakes, Weetabix, Shreddies, Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes, Sugar puffs, Coco Pops, Shredded Wheat and porridge.

Amount consumed: 50g of each cereal (a variety pack contains 25g of serial, which is not enough for a fully-grown adult) with 200ml of semi-skimmed milk.

On one of the days of the experiment my wife made me a sandwich consisting of two slices of toast as above with 2 fried eggs with a little cheese and some Red Rooster hot sauce. Mmmmmm, that was a good morning!

Apparatus:

Bowl 

Spoon

State-of-the-art circa 1989 14 speed racing bike with flat handlebars for city riding.

Results (in order of efficacy):

Sugar Puffs – 10.32am

Coco Pops – 10.40am

Corn flakes – 10.43am

Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes – 10.50am

Bran flakes – 11.06am

Shredded Wheat – 11.10am

Control – 11:20am

Weetabix – 11.21am

Shreddies – 11.38am

Porridge – 12.02pm

Double-fried egg sandwich (see above) – 12.37pm

Conclusions:

Shreddies are indeed good at filling one up. 

It is interesting to note how not very filling the best known brands are: Corn Flakes, Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes etc. After a bowl of one of these I was starving again very soon afterwards.

The best cereals were the stodgier ones such as Weetabix and Shredded Wheat.

The ‘fun’ sugary ones fared particularly badly.

The best cereal was the most traditional, porridge. With a bowl of porridge inside me, I worked without a rumble until well after noon and had a most productive day.

My control breakfast beat all the fun cereals and held its own with the stodgy ones.

The victor, however, by a long way was the least healthy breakfast: double-fried egg sandwich with cheese.

So tests prove that if you want to work without a break, you should have a big greasy sandwich before you leave home.

Poem: Our Love Could Spoil Dinner by Emily Berry

Emily Berry is a veteran LRB contributor (you may know her as Poppy Tartt) and one of the main co-writers of The Breakfast Bible. She is also an Eric Gregory award-winning poet whose work was described by The Guardian as "a host of surreally imagined everyday scenes in which speakers and characters, by turns emotionally, intellectually and physically compromised, perform accepted, expected and imagined roles". Like all good literature, it sometimes mentions breakfast.

We are pleased to share this, the opening poem from her recently-published first collection Dear Boy.

Our Love Could Spoil Dinner

We always breakfast with the biographer.

On day one I showed him my grapefruit spoon;

it has a serrated edge. My father gave him

a Mont Blanc fountain pen as a welcome gift,

but I think he was more impressed by the spoon.

‘It’s almost like a knife!’ he said. The biographer

is a coffee nut and I use this fact to bond with him.

‘Oh, Robusta,’ I say dramatically when I know

he’s listening. ‘You inferior bean.’ When we pass

in the hall I fling my arm back and say things like:

‘Am I strung out or what!’ and ‘Time for another

caffeine fix, methinks!’ I am not allowed coffee

because of my nerves, but the biographer doesn’t

know this. Sometimes we sit up in bed comparing

moans. Mine are always loudest. The biographer’s

are hampered by his boarding-school education

and the British flair for embarrassment. Sometimes

the publishers call. When he gets on the phone,

he sweats; afterwards the right side of his face is damp.

I like to monitor these subtle changes. Last night

my father found us touching legs. ‘Go to your room!’

he shouted. ‘You shabby daughter.’ ‘You worthless

excuse for a story,’ the biographer added. They played

cards to settle a debt. That day my mouth felt wetter

than usual. I asked the biographer to check. He used

his tongue. ‘This may affect the results,’ he said.

Dear Boy is published by Faber. Buy it here.

Special dispatch: Radisson Blu Hotel, Durham

Radisson Blu Hotel
Frankland Lane
City of Durham
DH1 5TA
0191 372 7200

by Fleeter Noggins

At the Radisson Blue Hotel in Durham, the breakfast staff seemed more concerned with whether I was a guest of the hotel than with telling me what options were available.

On day 1 of my stay they asked me to sign a slip. On day 2 they wanted me to go back to my room to fetch the means to pay there and then. I held the waitress's gaze and told her that I was not going to do a runner and she could trust me to sign the same slip as yesterday.

Once the staff had established my guesthood they seemed unwilling to approach our table. I tried to use catching-the-eye skills but it took getting up and standing in the path of one to acquire some coffee, which was served weak and lukewarm. I saw other diners being served lattes but had not been informed that these were on offer. They were succeeding in making me feel I was a bad person. Maybe I need more therapy? But I was not the only guest who was not thoughtfully dealt with. I saw a man in typical Pakistani dress make his way along the buffet. He put beans and sausage on his plate and then strawberry jam, which had been positioned right next to the beans: unless you are familiar with English food you would have no idea than the two items are not normally taken together.

I opted for toast and a pain au chocolat  With the former, I went for what I thought was marmalade but was not recognisable as having a basis in any particular fruit. The latter was cold, stale and probably more than twenty four hours old.

I asked the Pakistani gentleman if he had enjoyed his breakfast and he tactfully replied that it was not what he is used to. He will probably try the Marriott if he ever needs to be in Durham again. When I was there two years ago I cannot recall it being more than marginally better than the Radisson except the coffee was easier to gain access to, but across the road from the Marriott is the Cafe Continental. I'm not sure how it is qualified to call itself ‘continental’ but there I did get a freshly cooked British fry up, a pot of decent tea and two slices here for well under a tenner. It was great. And I was treated like a human being rather than being subjected to customer training's unmeant simperings.

Breakfasts of New York: IHOP, Commack, Long Island

IHOP
2159 Jericho Turnpike
Commack
NY 11725
+1 631 499 7265
www.ihop.com

by Malcolm Eggs

I finished reading The Great Gatsby just in time to look out of a plane window and see Long Island, to which I was headed, from above: a surprisingly thin sausage of green, brown and sandy yellow surrounded by flawless blue sea. Somewhere down there was the town of Great Neck, F. Scott Fitzgerald's home for a couple of years in the 1920s and his model for the fictional town of West Egg, where, not long before returning to the Midwest, Nick calls out a final "goodbye" to his friend followed by those immortal words: "I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby". (Like most worthwhile novels, The Great Gatsby is ultimately about breakfast).

We landed at JFK and drove out to Commack on the North Shore. During the next week or so I had reason to visit the following: a friendly pizza parlour, a hair salon with a fine selection of New York magazines, a liquor store that sold gift bottles presented in pink replica shoes, the office (in Great Neck) of a commercial realty company for which the door was broken and so had to be entered via a side door, a beach with a boardwalk, an old town hall, the foyer of a medical centre, a drive-in Dunkin' Donuts, a vet. Long Island is not a place where anyone walks anywhere, so most of these locations were in malls, either of the cluster-with-parking variety known as a 'strip mall' or of the large indoor kind (heartbreakingly the Walt Whitman Mall did not have "I Contain Multitudes" engraved above the entrance).

As a Londoner I tend to pair the word 'mall' with 'soulless', but the people in these outlets were friendlier and more anxious about my well-being than on any South East English high street. A perfect example of this solicitude occurred at the Commack branch of the International House of Pancakes. Sure, the restaurant's interior – a neat grid of banquette seating, windowed partitions, walls with abstract canvas prints on them depicting coffee, strawberries etc – was almost identical to the transitional places you find at the side of any British 'A' road. But this impression vanished the moment that our waitress, Joni, came over and enquired as to our thoughts on several matters (her daughter's college choices; the egg style I would prefer in my Pick-A-Pancake Combo) as if we were two of her oldest friends.

When my breakfast came it was divided between two plates. The one on the right held a pair of large, fluffy buttermilk pancakes topped with a nob of half-melted butter, and to accompany them a selection of their famous on-table flavoured syrups. The one on the left supported two rashers of crisp bacon, a hash brown and an immaculate pair of over-easy eggs. It was not the largest breakfast I have eaten but the stereo nature of its presentation made it one of the only honest breakfasts I have ever known. It showed how either plate of food was perfectly ample in its own right.

That night, back on the plane, I looked out of the window once more and watched the lights of the North Shore scroll down below us, followed by the pure darkness that signified the sea's current, then the green glow of Connecticut. Minute by minute, my IHOP breakfast receded before me --

"Goodbye," I whispered. "I enjoyed my Pick-A-Pancake Combo, Joni."

Special Dispatch: The Breakfast Club at In De Roscam, Antwerp, Belgium

The Breakfast Club at In De Roscam

12 Vrijdagmarkt
Antwerp , Belgium
32 48 642-5606
otarkproductions.blogspot.co.uk/

by Hashley Brown

The legend of the city of Antwerp, so told to me by a lady at the excellent Objectif Exhibitions where the walls were festooned with fetishised food portraits and a mechanical man ran to the sounds of 2011, says that there was a giant called Antigoon. Antigoon was mostly being a pain, blocking trade and such, so a plucky young chap called Salvus Brabo cut the giant's hand off and threw it in the river. It's no surprise that Hand-Werpen, throwing hands, became the name of the town after that little spectacle. A place synonymous with the high-end fashion industry, Antwerp has so much fashion in it, it almost puts you off. Instead of craving for a little Dries Van Noten or Ann Demeulemeester you find yourself guiltily pining for a little bit of rough, a Uniqlo or Primark perhaps.

If the art, fashion and severed-hand legends are high-end, then the breakfast options can seem lacking. Finding a place with good coffee can be tricky, so it's worth seeking out Caffènation for locally roasted treats. However good it is though, a flat white doesn't make a morning meal, so step into the frame  local food co-operative Otark Productions. Young, beautiful and delicious, they embody everything you want an Antwerp breakfast to be about. Run by Hadas Cna'ani and Charlotte Koopman, Otark started as a 'a travel agency for taste', importing foods and toothsome delights, and over the last four years has settled into a culinary curiosity shop, taking over cafes and bars to create flavoursome menus. 

On Sunday mornings Otark reside in the tiny cafe In De Roscam for The Breakfast Club. A miniscule space chock full of mismatched wooden furniture, the bar heavy with bulbous Belgian beer glasses, each week there's a different themed menu, beautifully conceived and designed (it's worth checking the menus online even if you can't make it there to eat). The morning we arrive, like a 1950s travel advert the breakfast is titled "An Escapist Breakfast: Grenada", but the 'purple sweet potatoe pancakes with Cinnamon and Bacon' have already run out, as have the 'shrimps with hot sauce and pickled mirliton'. Thankfully there are still endless supplies of the traditional Georgian bread baked in a monastery, and this week's variation on the sunny side up. Wooden handled multicoloured cast-iron frying pans appear loaded with even more multicoloured carrots, sliced and fried in a ginger butter, that in turn play host to a clutch of fried eggs, gently cooked, oozing their sunny yellow yolks into the technicolour spiced carrots. It's a sweet warming combination that, spooned onto the fresh baked Georgian bread as Fela Kuti chugs away gently in the background, definitely takes you on a journey away from the snowy streets outside. Coffee comes in litre cafetieres or as cappuccinos in delicate ceramic bowls to cradle. You can order unctuous tahini with date syrup to dip your warm bread into, and looking back over past menus, there always seems to be some kind of sweet dessert in case breakfast becomes more of a brunch. Service is friendly in a way that you feel like you're hanging out with new friends, rather than being preyed upon by a diner host, and so anything that doesn't work out just feels charmingly shambolic.

In a town so convincingly stylish, Otark's The Breakfast Club makes for a reassuringly grounded morning. Overwhelmingly hand-crafted, it is full of love for good food, and good breakfast. Just make sure you get up earlier so as not to miss any of the culinary exploring next week.

Ten jokes to tell at the breakfast table

Hey breakfasters! Brighten up your morning meal with these chortle-soaked sun-up funnies. Read 'em out loud. Go on. All of them. In a row. That's it. And don't any of you say a word. Don't anyone say a word. Not until you've chuckled at all ten of these brilliant breakfast hooties!

*********

A man walks into a bar with a fried egg on his head. ‘Why have you got a fried egg on your head?’ asks the bartender. The man replies: ‘Because a boiled one would have rolled off.’

*********

Bacon and Eggs walk into a bar. The bartender takes one look at them and says: ‘Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast.’

*********

Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Omelette.
Omelette who?
Omelette smarter than I look.

*********

There are two sausages in a pan. One says to the other: ‘Christ, it’s hot in here.’ The other one says: ‘Holy shit, a talking sausage!’

*********

A guy walks into a doctor’s office. He has a sausage coming out of his ear, a waffle coming out of his nose, and bacon coming out of his other ear. He says worriedly, ‘Doc, what’s wrong with me?’ The doctor replies, ‘You’re not eating properly.’

*********

An angry wife meets her husband at the door. There is alcohol on his breath and lipstick on his cheek. ‘I assume,’ she snarls, ‘that there is a very good reason for you to come waltzing in at six o’clock in the morning?’
‘There is,’ he replies. ‘Breakfast.’

*********

What did one mushroom say to the other mushroom?
 You’re one fungi to be with.

*********

A pastor and his wife were arguing about who should brew the coffee each morning. She said, ‘You get up first so you should do it so we won’t have to wait so long for our coffee.’ He replied, ‘You’re in charge of all cooking related duties, so it’s your job.’ She responded, ‘No, you should do it. As a matter of fact even the Bible says the man should make the coffee.’ ‘That’s ridiculous!’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘Show me where it says that.’ She calmly brought the Bible and opened it to the New Testament where indeed at the top of several pages it says ‘Hebrews’.

*********

Why do the French only eat one egg for breakfast? Because one is enoeuf.

*********

Did you hear about the man who drowned in his breakfast cereal?
He was dragged under by a strong currant.

Breakfasts of New York: Balthazar

Balthazar

80 Spring Street
SoHo

New York

NY 10012

USA

+1 212-965-1414

www.balthazarny.com

Posted in the run-up to the US release of this.

by Malcolm Eggs

Breakfast at Balthazar, which turns up on listings websites when you Google 'best New York breakfast', is probably meant to be a bit of an event. For Seggolène Royal and I it was just opportunism. We stumbled across it – oh, that's Balthazar – on the way to eat eggs somewhere else and I argued that we needed to seize the moment, that here was an unmissable chance to gain credibility amongst my peers. A breakfast writer who has never tried Balthazar, I reasoned, is like a film critic who has never seen Titanic.

When we left the restaurant about an hour later, I felt less like I'd been watching an important blockbuster than had been skipping through a CD-Rom labelled 'what people say when they free associate about Paris'. There had been dusty old bottles of wine on out-of-the-way shelves and meticulous waiters in black and white uniforms. There had been backlit Art Deco panels and the recorded sounds of melancholy violin quartets. Everything had been dark red, dark brown, goldy yellow or yellowy gold. 

A large part of the atmosphere in Balthazar is to do with the height of its ceiling. Few things make a person feel more instantly wealthy than breakfasting in a place where you can't imagine how they change the lightbulb. When my companion told me that the clientele generally consists of "tourists and powerbrokers" it made perfect sense, both categories tending to value high ceilings, along with pomp in general and a sense (real or synthetic) of history, above food.

The food in Balthazar was forgettable. I feel about it as I feel about normal journeys between one mundane place and another, journeys in which nothing in particular happened and of which I have no recollection. I had brioche French toast with bacon ($18). My companion had sour cream waffles with warm fruit ($18). It wasn't bad (that would be memorable) and it wasn't good. By the twenties I will have no mental impression of it at all. I might remember that they had toilet attendants complete with one of those trays of aftershave and boiled sweets, an unexpected echo of the terrible nightclubs I'd go to in the nineties (right up to the pang of guilt I felt when I left without paying for the privilege). I will also remember the fascinating and admirable way with which the waitress took on the task of defining 'granola' and then 'oats' to a quizzical couple from Germany. But I won't recall the tasteless bowl of cafe au lait or the French toast with applewood smoked bacon that came within a few minutes and without maple syrup.

I'd been looking forward to visiting the new London branch of Balthazar but now I'm not so sure. If the original is such an underwhelming homage to a sort of fantasy version of a Paris bistro, do I really want to try a copy of that homage? The answer is yes, I do, but only because a breakfast writer who has never tried Balthazar London… etc, and so on.

Breakfasts of New York: Cronuts at Dominique Ansel Bakery

Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring Street
SoHo
New York
USA
+1 212 219 2773
www.dominiqueansel.com

by Malcolm Eggs

Whither the cupcake? It has been eight years since hysteria for the snack hit current levels. We are at the point when it is about to transcend craze status, and we will have to acknowledge that this is a Cupcake Age. Punk, by comparison, was a vital movement for just seven years. It's depressing. That generation defined itself with blue mohicans and Anarchy in the UK. Ours is in a perma-hooha over "a small cake," as Wikipedia has it, "designed to serve one person".

That said, there has been a marked increase recently in what you might call 'cupdeath chatter', which can be defined as the rate of cupcake obituaries being uploaded onto news and snark websites. It began when cupcake chain Crumbs Bake Shop saw its share price (yes, there are cupcakes on Nasdaq) plummet after announcing that sales were down by 22%. Then Dominique Ansel Bakery unveiled their cupcake killer: a new breakfast-friendly pastry called a 'cronut', combining the texture of a croissant with the shape and fried-ness of a donut. For a couple of mornings it sold out really quickly. 'Are cronuts the new cupcakes?' hooted the international media.

I happened to be in Manhattan just three days after the launch of the cronut; it seemed churlish not to pop in. We arrived late in the morning. Too late – not only had they sold out of cronuts, but all of the waiting lists were full. It was as if I was trying to secure a good apartment in 1970s Moscow. Nevertheless, after a conversation with their press handler they agreed they would hold one back for me the next day. So back we went.

The interior of Dominique Ansel Bakery (there is pleasant outdoor seating) almost entirely consists of a counter and a queue. A leather-jacketed man was lurking near the doorway trying to give out business cards for his hairdressing shop. On the counter were gift packages of cookies and macarons. Early Belle & Sebastian was playing on the stereo. When I reached the front of the line I was handed a golden box containing a cronut ($5) but also another treasure: a kouign amann, the traditional pastry of Brittany (it is pronounced "queen, a man"). Also, for the hell of it, I ordered their 'perfect little egg sandwich'.

I liked the cronut ($5) more than I like a donut. Biting through layers of fried croissant pastry rather than the conventional dense dough, you are surprised by its overall lightness. It feels delicate, and not too gimmicky, and like a distinct item in its own right, rather than a Frankenstein-esque hybrid. You can imagine – if Ansel's secret method ever gets out – a cronut tradition emerging, and mass-produced cronuts becoming standard fare at Dunkin' Donuts (Crunkin' Cronuts?), and people in a hundred years saying "did you know the word 'cronut' is a combination of the words 'donut' and 'croissant'?". Although it had a light pink rose glaze on top and vanilla cream in the middle, the sweetness had been kept just low-volume enough for a breakfast 'nut. But it was still very sweet (did it really need that cream?), which is one reason that I don't like Ansel's cronut as much as I like a good croissant, by which I mean the heavenly, slightly oily kind you get in Paris and not the bready muck you get at most places in London (apart, curiously, from Pret a Manger).

And are cronuts the new cupcakes? Yes, OK, alright, cronuts are the new cupcakes. Happy now?

I was mostly grateful to them, however, for leading me to the 'DKA' or 'Dominique's kouign amann'  ($5.25), which I would go as far as saying was the flakiest, stickiest, butteriest and altogether best kouign amann I have ever tasted. And the egg sandwich ($5)? Into a weeny brioche bun (the kind they use for burgers) was wedged a thick square of hot omelette, coated in melted gruyere. You probably wouldn't serve it in a building site canteen, but it was pretty good.

When we left, the queue was the same length as it was when we arrived. The people in it looked to be from a wide range of different backgrounds; they could have played one of those representative cross-sections of citizens that you get in disaster movies. If you're in town, you should join them.

The Village Cafe, Ladywell

The Village Cafe
251 Algernon Rd
Ladywell
London
SE13 7AG
020 8690 1252

by Billie Hollandaise

These balmy summer evenings lend themselves to what I like to call a little drinky-poos. If one can organise for a curry to complement the ale, all the better. As another pint is always the best option - and the cycle can repeat itself a very many times - one can easily find oneself, upon arrival back home, in all sorts of trouble. Yes, I am thinking of a recent night.

The following morning, having violently ejected those materials which my body deemed surplus to requirements - an impressive and quite surprising rainbow of rogan josh particles - my thoughts turned towards breakfast. As luck would have it, not a hundred yards from my front door sits The Village Cafe, an honest greasy spoon nestled in the heart of what an estate agent would call Ladywell Village. My wife, showing a level of sympathy which quite put me on edge, told me that in my current state the best thing I could do was get myself down there and get myself outside of a fry-up. This sort of gesture comes, on average, about once every five years. I never miss my chance.

The cafe offers dishes for all times of the day but the main event is its numbered, bullet-pointed, ten-strong breakfast menu. There is nothing clever on offer here, nothing 'modern'. You know the list. From 1 to 10, every breakfast carries the air of a guaranteed winner. That said, the plate (number 2, £4.40) I ordered - eggs, bacon, chips and beans - forced me to go slightly off-piste, replacing sausages with bacon. Offered a choice between tea and coffee, I opted for tea and was delighted to witness the process which ensued, a sort of riot of hissing and splashing. From the giant urn came what must have been a kind of tea concentrate, as the mug was only half filled. Then a whistling, spitting gush of boiling hot water was directed towards the concentrate. Unfortunately, in her struggles the lady rather overdid this dilution stage and the tea emerged slightly weak, although wonderfully hot.

I took a place by the window and awaited my food. A couple of tables away, men in hi-vis were discussing football, and in particular Tottenham Hotspur, and in particular Gareth Bale. I longed to join in, for I have views on these subjects, but I've never in my whole life been able to easily converse with working men of this type, and after so many awkward moments in my own home with plumbers, builders etc. I have learned, finally, to give up trying. So I remained mute and on the fringes. Thankfully, though, my breakfast came very soon – a handsome, symmetrical breakfast. Chips up top, beans in the centre, an egg either side and two rashers shoring things up across the base. In fact, so beautiful did the ensemble look that I instinctively pulled out my iPhone and took a photo: it was that kind of a moment. And once I'd been through the little ritual whereby I empty one egg over the chips and the other over the bacon, the meal did not fail to deliver. It was perfect. I gobbled it up in an ecstatic blur, climaxing on a little bacon and egg piece which I had constructed early in the procedure and saved for the end. I do this every time, despite a bitter childhood memory in which my sister stole the trophy from the plate and, right in front of my eyes, slammed it into her fat mouth. I have never forgotten that.

I had arrived at the Village Cafe broken and twenty minutes later had emerged into the sunlight fully restored. In these circumstances, I can afford the place no less than a full ten out of ten.

Win a signed copy of The Breakfast Bible

Breaking news: we have three signed copies of The Breakfast Bible to give away.

For a chance to win our compendium of recipes, facts, essays and wild theories (see what people have been saying about it here and here), all we ask is that you tell us about a real place that has a breakfasty name.

Here's an example: Bacon Street, just off Brick Lane in London. Or the village of Bean, in Kent. If you know one already, great. If not, be a detective (or use the internet).

Leave your answers in the comments section below. You'll only be eligible if you're the first person to suggest a place, which means the sooner you enter, the easier it will be.

The competition will close at 6pm on Tuesday 7 May and we'll pick the winners at random. If you've left a comment anonymously, you should check back later that week to see if you're a victor. Good luck!

Special dispatch: bills, Sydney, Australia

bills
433 Liverpool St
Darlinghurst
Sydney, NSW 2010
Australia
+61 (2) 9360 9631
www.bills.com.au

by Sunni Sidup

There are certain unquestionable truths that you grow up with as an Australian. Christmas will always be scorching; Vegemite is a perfectly decent thing to eat; thongs are things that you wear on your feet; Richie Benaud will dominate the airwaves in the summertime; Asian food is cheap and resolutely delicious; suntans are a right; ‘mate’ is a suitable greeting for people you don’t like or even know; and somewhere, along the line, your family members are likely to have come from somewhere else.

It’s not until these family members come to visit – curious to get a glimpse of their antipodean cousins – that you begin to question such naturalised notions. Suddenly the eating of Vegemite is scorned; ‘thongs’ are deemed wholly inappropriate attire; red-faced relatives look uncomfortable wearing shorts to Christmas lunch. Everything you once thought was normal is now, apparently, not. And this extends to your breakfast garnish.

It has recently been brought to my attention that Australian cafes cannot serve breakfast without a side of rocket. This is something that most Australians likely will have noted but never questioned; we are far too busy merrily chomping the bitter leaf down with our poached eggs on soy and linseed. Malcolm Eggs, the editor of this blog and, incidentally, the person who observed this strange phenomenon, has asked me to get to the bottom of it. I asked friends, waitstaff and everyday Australians why we felt the need to garnish our breakfast plates with fancy lettuce. Here is what they came up with:

1) Rocket is to spinach what Australian Breakfast tea is to English Breakfast tea: essentially the same thing but with our own stubborn take on it.
2) It’s a cheap way to fill up a big plate. And Australian cafes love a big, white plate.
3) Rocket is an aspirational lettuce. It reflects our dreams of home ownership and quarter acre
lawns.
4) Rocket is peppery, robust and dynamic – like all most Australian men.
5) Like quinoa, macchiatos and merguez, a little bit of rocket (sorry, arugula) makes us feel cultured on a daily basis.
6) Rocket is just the contemporary version of semi-sundried tomatoes and pesto.
7) It’s a lifestyle thing, y’know?

None of the above is particularly enlightening. So ingrained is rocket in our daily consumption that we have come to think of it as a desirable – perhaps even essential – condiment. No one that I spoke to was averse to the dear old leaf. But then no one had paid much attention to it either. Like sands through the hourglass, so rocket was slipping by unnoticed: a constant, but insignificant part of our daily Australian lives.

I knew there was only one place I could go to put this theory to the test; that quintessentially Australian stalwart of the breakfast dining scene, bills. Opened by Bill Granger (the Flaxen-haired, forever-barbequing, food magazine pin-up) in 1993, the original bills in Darlinghurst is still the veritable breakfast of choice for Sydney’s early risers.

Located in an area of Sydney once colloquially known as ‘Razorhurst’, these days the bills morning crowd are more ‘push-bike’ than ‘Push’ gang. On a Saturday morning the place is full of shiny, happy people. There is not a hangover in sight. Lycra is the attire of choice. Soy lattes are ordered freely. A chef darts out and returns with a bag of green leaves. I order a stack of sweetcorn fritters; my companion a ‘full aussie breakfast’. We sit back and wait for the rocket onslaught to begin.

But lo – what is this? We both get spinach with our meals. The woman at the table next to me has boiled eggs with a side of salsa. A trendy youth across the room orders a wagyu beef burger which comes without any form of lettuce. The only green side option on the menu is avocado. I feel as though my brain is going to implode. My faith in Australian stereotypes is shattered. You can discount everything I have written above. Who am I? Where am I? And why is there no rocket!?

The Breakfast Bible: what people are saying (part two)

Earlier round-up here. Buy The Breakfast Bible at any bookshop or online, for example here, here or here.

Jonathan Gibbs, The Independent: "If cook books work then it’s in giving some kind of context to the recipes they contain. Now, obviously for some people, a picture of a cheeky Essex lad perched on a scooter, or a culinary goddess coyly sampling her wares gives all the context you need – flicking through one of these books is like flicking through a magazine. Alternatively you might want some information to browse, which is where The Breakfast Bible seems to offer a neat solution. Written by Seb Emina ‘and’ Malcolm Eggs (the same person) based on ‘their’ London Review of Breakfasts blog, it’s essentially a cross between a recipe book and Schott’s Miscellany, with its recipes interspersed with essays, facts and diversions. I particularly like the ‘Songs to Boil an Egg to’." [Read more]

Alex Heminsley and Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show: "We are literally weeping! Weeping with joy."

Josh Raymond, The Times Literary Supplement: "Emina devotes a chapter to each of "The Magic Nine" components of a full English fry-up and goes on to describe "fast-breakers" from around the world, interspersing recipes and advice on buying ingredients with short essays on subjects ranging from reading tea leaves to breakfast proverbs. "Songs to Boil an Egg to" stands out by providing pieces of music whose durations correspond to cooking times (Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" will, ironically, yield only "medium"). Other, more complex, directions produce flavoursome results – the "omelette Arnold Bennett" combines haddock, gruyere and nutmeg – and the language is toothsome too. The supermarket cereal aisle is "a dazzling cardboard Manhattan" and bacon is "the last temptation of the vegetarian and the Jew". Of eating breakfast in bed, we are asked, "are you feeling decadent and pampered, or imprisoned and a little squalid? This attractively produced book is deceptively ambitious."

Seb Emina (co-author), The Guardian Review: "Breakfast is not love, or war, or death, or life. It is not one of the great themes of literature." [Read more]

David Leafe, The Daily Mail: "Nutritionists might shudder at some of his choices, but Churchill obviously appreciated what they have been telling us for years — that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or the ‘sexiest’, according to the American poet Anne Sexton. That message is at the heart of an entertaining new book called The Breakfast Bible, written by food journalist Seb Emina. The most fascinating passages describe the breakfasts enjoyed by famous people over the centuries." [Read more]

Nikki Spencer, Living South (cover story): "It's a practical book, but an entertaining book, too, including good songs to boil an egg to (Roxette's Listen to Your Heart, apparently) and a page of Freud's Breakfast Dream."

Kerstin Rodgers, Ms Marmite Lover: "Breakfast is a neglected meal in terms of cookery books, until the twin-headed Seb/Malcolm wrote the recently released and rather brilliant 'The Breakfast Bible'. Written in customary witty style, with great research into the origins of breakfast food stuffs, musings on the philosophy of the first meal, this book reminds me of Schotts Miscellaney, lots of fun facts but with recipes." [Read more]

Carolyn Hart, The Lady: "The Breakfast Bible, published by Seb Emina, founder of the cheekily named (given the august presence of the similarly titled London Review Books) The London Review Of Breakfast blog. Emina and his merry gang of breakfast bloggers - Blake Pudding, HP Seuss, Poppy Tartt and Malcolm Eggs - have been described as a 'band of breakfast-obsessed radicals', bestowing the same amount of serious attention on breakfast as you might on Ian McEwan's latest novel..." [Read more]

Hannah Rose, Capture the Castle: "Finally getting to live my breakfast tray dream, thanks to a generous Easter Bunny and Freedom Furniture. I can't even begin to relay the delight when I received my gift - the gift of breakfast - a stripey oversized mug, the glorious, glorious, glorious (the third glorious is necessary, trust me) Breakfast Bible by Seb Emina." [Read more]

James Ramsden, Guardian Word of Mouth blog: "The Great British fry-up? This is the most overrated of British dishes, the scourge of the breakfast table, and the cruellest of ends for some of our finest produce [...] 'I find your views shocking and upsetting,' says Seb Emina, author of the Breakfast Bible. 'Fry-ups are a way of showing off good ingredients. You take bacon, egg, black pudding, mushrooms etc, cook them to your liking, and arrange them on a plate. That's it.' But that's not a dish. It's a few ingredients, cooked identically, then forced to compete for your attention. Perhaps 'British breakfast mezze' might make a better epithet. 'It's interactive, customisable,' argues Emina..." [Read more]

Katy Salter, Guardian Word of Mouth blog: "So if cleaning the kitchen afterwards is the first rule of successful breakfast in bed, what are the others? 'Arrange everything properly,' says Seb Emina, author of The Breakfast Bible. 'Pillows are important – they need a decent set to support both back and head when they are sitting upright. You don't want to be at less than a 90-degree angle when you're eating. Don't forget the small touches either – flowers, music and a handmade card or drawing.'" [Read more]

Cool Culinaria: "Author Seb Emina, who writes a blog about our first meal of the day under his alter ego Malcolm Eggs, has written a great history of the breakfast in his book "The Breakfast Bible". Along with ways to time your boiled egg to perfection – by listening to particular songs – it’s a fount of information about other people’s breakfast habits." [Read more]

India Knight, on Twitter: "A small masterpiece." [Link]

Stylist Magazine: "Every witty, wise and wonderful thing you can do with words about the first meal of the day is found in The Breakfast Bible."

Maddy Hubbard, The Mancunion: "Clearly, this is a man that respects breakfasts and treats it with due reverence and sincerity. One would be a fool to visit London without referring to the London Review of Breakfasts, and now his new book will enable lovers of breakfast to create the perfect breakfast at home as well." [Read more] 

Clara Silva, i Newspaper (Portugal): "'Eggs and Sausage', de Tom Waits, 'Breakfast In America', dos Supertramp, 'Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast', de Julie London, ou 'St Alphonso’s Pancake Breakfast', de Frank Zappa. Se está farto de pequenos-almoços silenciosos, inspire-se nas músicas da playlist de Malcolm Eggs, o alter-ego de Seb Emina, o autor do livro 'The Breakfast Bible', o título essencial daquela que dizem ser a refeição mais importante do dia." [Read more]

Prufrock Café, Clerkenwell

Prufrock Café
23-25 Leather Lane
Clerkenwell
EC1N 7TE
207 242 0467
www.prufrockcoffee.com

by Bee Loobury

***caveat***
This writing considers only a single aspect of this lovely café, which deserves far more comprehensive appraisal.

One day a week I rise relatively early and head to Clerkenwell. As I am not a morning person it’s pretty much all I can do to make it in to work on time. So it’s no surprise that I don’t usually have time for a breakfast outing. That said last Wednesday there was a confluence of perfectly timed tube, train, and bus routes that left me with an extra 20 minutes before work. This gift from the heavens (or TFL, take your pick) allowed me to do something I’d been dreaming of.

For the past few months I‘ve spent my workday lunches at Prufrock Café, and consistently my eyes have been drawn to one particular item on the menu board – cinnamon toast. Now before I continue and extoll the virtues of this delectable treat I am going to write something that some may consider sacrilegious, especially when writing about Prufrock: I don’t drink coffee.

I know, this place is a coffee mecca, coffee is their raison d’etre, they have a coffee training center fer chrissake. And I can appreciate the sensuous aroma, the art of the barista, the paraphernalia, the stunning milky decoration, even the political aspect of the bean; it’s just not my thing. So I won’t be writing about the coffee at this coffee house as I am obviously not qualified. I prefer tea.

And this is where I find myself with just enough time for tea and toast. And the ultimate tea and toast at that. This cinnamon toast is not just your everyday stick-some-bread-in-the-toaster, slather-on-some-butter-and-sprinkle-with-a-bit-of-sugar-and-cinnamon. Oh no, this is GRIDDLED CINNAMON TOAST. Hot and melting with dark spice and sweetness. This must have been what in earlier centuries people experienced when cinnamon first arrived to the West. Almost tart aromatic spice caramelized and generously lathered on a freshly sliced loaf exceeded my weeks of expectation. This was my reward for having eaten properly balanced meals all those lunchtimes. Not that I had suffered in any way!

Prufrock does some of the best soups and stews around and always has yummy cheese or avocado on toast, too. But, knowing I’d be returning to the second half of my workday, I felt obliged to be sensible; protein would be required to endure the remaining hours and not start to flag and fade away come 4 o’clock. So the decadent pleasure of their sideboard, groaning with cakes and pies, tarts and brownies, had to wait. I think this might have made the griddled cinnamon toast taste even better – if that’s even possible.

Paternoster Chop House, The City

Paternoster Chop House
1 Warwick Court
Paternoster Square
The City
EC4M 7DX
020 7029 9400
www.paternosterchophouse.co.uk

by Anne O'Raisin

Now I like a place with an idiosyncratic breakfast menu: and surprisingly for a place nestling in the shadow of St Paul’s, the Paternoster Chop House has a decidedly eclectic mix. Alongside the usual egg dishes, there are home-made crumpets with fresh honeycomb. A pile of toast comes with 'foraged jam'. I asked what fruit they had managed to gather by hand at this rather desolate time of year: it turned out to be crab apples. There was also some presumably un-foraged orange marmalade.

I'm a strictly sweet-food-for-breakfast kind of girl, so while my friend merrily ordered poached eggs, bacon and hash browns, I dithered over the "lighter fare". Fruit salad didn't sound nearly exciting enough. Poached berries and yoghurt was a tad healthy. Perhaps a signature crumpet?

Somehow the restaurant staff seemed to know what I really wanted without me asking - and without it even featuring on the menu. Now that's what I call service.

Unprompted, I was brought a tower of mini pancakes – a cross between drop scones and American silver dollars – studded with dried fruit and drizzled with poached berries in a vanilla syrup. It was delicious, although I asked for a splodge of Greek yoghurt on the side, just to be really reckless. If there had been an extra jug of syrup I wouldn’t have turned it away.

My friend's eggs came in a deep dish, the potatoes more of a hash than a hash brown and mixed with what looked like cabbage and possibly foraged herbs. There were two shards of properly crispy bacon on top, which made her happy.

Even the coffee was good - I tried regular and decaff, just to make sure.

As for the secret pancakes, I've been reliably informed that they'll be on the menu shortly so you won't have to rely on mind-reading staff to get hold of them.

Op-Egg: an attempt to exhaust a breakfast

(Tentative d'Épuisement d'un Petit-Déj)
by Georges Berecfast

Breakfast is a matter of proportion.

Any proportion can be expressed and analysed mathematically.

Take the four basic breakfast ingredients: egg, bacon, tomato¹, sausage.

The first thing to notice is that they can be eaten in various combinations. The taste of each ingredient is enhanced by combination with another. This is one of the chief pleasures of breakfast. Some people prefer the taste of sausage with egg; others, bacon with tomato. Fewer will eat sausage with tomato, and almost none, tomato with egg or sausage with bacon. This can be expressed thus:

Interesting results can be gained from converting this into a Venn diagram showing the most popular combinations, which expresses a fascinating and pleasing circularity accounting, perhaps, for the continuing popularity of the four basic ingredients (please ignore the central shaded area on the diagram below, which we shall come back to later).

Each combination can be called a ‘fork’. While it is difficult to fit more than two ingredients on a ‘fork’, it is possible to vary the proportions of the ingredients as below.

While its exact permutations are endless, the possible combinations on the ‘fork’  are also to some extent dictated by the proportions of each ingredient available on the entire breakfast plate. The ideal combination of sausage/bacon/egg/tomato remains controversial. The ideal breakfast plate (I am using current ‘Wolseley Standard’ proportions for the sake of argument) can be expressed in the form of a pie chart.

(It is not recommended that you eat pies for breakfast, even if they are made from breakfast ingredients).

The ‘fork’, though informative and graphically pleasing, can only describe a single instance of the ingredients on the fork of one individual breakfaster. If you were to map a whole breakfast room or table in, say, a hotel, at home, or in a greasy spoon, it is necessary to change the instrument of analysis. The more sophisticated scatter graph (below) can show the ‘fork’ combinations of a number of breakfasters simultaneously. We can also use it to show the ‘forks’ of a number of individual breakfasters during the course of a breakfast, where * = Malcolm Eggs, + = Seggolene Royal, and § = Georges Berecfast. 

If we look more closely at the scatter graph above, we notice that the vertical axis is vegetarian (eggs, tomatoes), and the horizontal axis is meat (sausages, bacon): another pleasing evidence of the natural balance of standard breakfast ingredients.

Toast: the Missing Factor.

I haven’t so for included toast as a factor as it is a neutral, and can be combined with any one of the other ingredients, or with several at a time. Unlike the ‘fork’, the form of toast (unless it is very soggy) can support more than two ingredients, taking taste combinations to a new level, the logical conclusion of which is the ‘breakfast bap’.

If toast is to be included on either the Venn diagram or scattergraph, we would have to place it centrally and assume the possibility of its presence in any possible ‘fork’ . You will see this, expressed as the shaded area on my Venn and scatter graphs above. 

Tea or Coffee - the Continental/Analytic divide?

This question has been regarded as philosophically dead for some time. If you like Wittgenstein, drink tea: if you like Sartre, drink coffee.

A Word on Beans.

Some would criticise me for not including beans in my analysis. This is not a mistake. Beans are a problematic ingredient incompatible with the idea of the ‘fork’, unless the ’fork’ is used to spear a single or small number of beans, or alternatively used to scoop them up like a spoon. Either technique makes the combination of beans with other ingredients on the same ‘fork’ almost impossible, though this has been disputed in controversial research conducted recently by Malcolm Eggs. 

Also, I don’t like beans. 

These calculations were worked out on a napkin during breakfasts at Le Bal Cafe, and Le Petit Cardinal, Paris.

¹ Tomato, for the purposes of our argument, stands for ‘tomato or mushrooms (but not beans: see ‘A word on beans’)’ ie the vegetable ingredient of the breakfast.