Special dispatch: The Rex St. Lucian Hotel, St Lucia

The Rex St. Lucian Hotel

Rodney Bay
St. Lucia
WI
www.rexresorts.com

by Emmanuel Petit-Déjeuner

The St. Lucian by Rex Resorts is the oldest swinger in town... Forty-odd years it's been snoozing amiably on one of the better beaches, as boutique upstarts wax and wane island-wide. Big or small though, pricey or not, they all fall prey to that charming yet notorious Lucian horizontality that sees swimming pools regularly built 'lickle but DEEP BWOY!' due to volume taking precedence over area at the planning stage. 

Still, you can experience wonderful culinary excess in St. Lucia, as was the case with the job in hand – breakfast. Setting aside the quotidian hazards of the all-inclusive resort (pre-printed apology cards to cover a range of likely gripes arrived like clockwork, accompanied by mollifying Israeli cava faster than we could drink it) this was one arena in which our tired old maid of a hotel truly perked up.

The usual cornucopia of pastries, cereals and eye-wateringly fresh fruit (guava, paw-paw, soursop and green fig all delivered with alacrity by Crazy Laughing Machete Fruit Boat Guy) was augmented with above average scrambled eggs, admirably crisp bacon and the noble rot of the pancake and French Toast station. This last had Les Mini Petit-Déjeuners excitedly klanging an imaginary countertop bell and demanding "Breakfast number four pleeeeease!" in the manner of a particularly gluttonous bank cashier.

To one side, with the mercury hot enough even at 7am to make your own T-1000, the luckless omelette sous-chef stood sweating like John Leslie in full whites and a toque (vraiment de trop, non?). A more wan individual it was impossible to imagine, but despite his five vicious burners turning his kitchen corner into a close approximation of Tartarus, he could do things with a spatula that would embarrass many Michelin-botherers back home.

Add to this a surprising and delightful array of local specialities freshly made each day, from the lip smacking akkra fritters (black-eyed peas and saltfish flakes to you or I) to the primordially satisfying griddled plantain and cassava (plus a few curve-balls in the rather unedifying shape of deep-fried dumpling 'bakes', the terminally weird breadfruit – imagine making a salad with DHL foam packing pellets - and baked beans wearing their Sunday best Scotch Bonnets) and we could have lingered there for hours if it weren't for the lonely flagon of Piz Buin crying in Chalet No.4.

So would we go back to St. Lucia? For sure. Almost certainly not to that particular hotel, but did the breakfast linger in the memory? By jingo yes... and who knows, come Jazz Festival time, if you see a somewhat sun-kissed 'heavy fork' bogling under the palms with a stack of perilously teetering pancakes - say bonjour, do.

Sleep-deprived man (David Varela) reviews imaginary breakfast: Raoul's, Ivory Coast

Raoul's

Cap d'Hiver
30km west of Abidjan

Ivory Coast

Commissioned by Malcolm Eggs

Back in December, the writer David Varela devised a project in which he would write "whatever people want, live, on webcam, for 100 hours straight, to raise money for Arvon's work with children's literacy and writing projects". Struck by this opportunity to generate new breakfast content, I made a donation and requested a review of "an imaginary breakfast in an imaginary cafe in an imaginary town". Exactly a month ago to this day, after over thirty hours of constant writing, David responded with the following:

The Ivory Coast's continuing drive for tourists has now reached the high-end market. Raoul's Guesthouse, with its private beach and distinctive lighthouse, is offering secure luxury accommodation for a Western clientele, with a heavy emphasis on pure cotton linen, white driftwood and a sumptuous dining experience.

Having arrived late on the Friday night, my first opportunity to see the layout was at breakfast on Saturday morning. Descending from my guesthouse lighthouse penthouse by fireman's pole, I was greeted on the ground floor by Raoul himself, who showed me to the slide which would carry me to the breakfast room.

Swirled gently around like a delicate wine, I arrived in the breakfast room to find the architect had opted for a subaquatic design. The reinforced glass dome, located some 75m out to sea, afforded ocean views from floor level in every direction. My table was on the beach side, giving me a clear vista of coral and white sand, with colourful fish whisking by in schools or stopping to pucker up against the glass.

The breakfast menu had a similarly pescatarian feel, focusing on salmon dishes (for the European palate) and local catches fresh from the guesthouse's own nets. At lunch, the waiter informed me, Raoul himself would catch the Fish of the Day with a sharpened stick.

I chose the 'Croc, Monsieur,' Raoul's personal adaptation of a traditional Abidjan dish, combining smoked crocodile, kelp, goatfish, bigeye, moony, bubu and electric catfish. 

While I waited, the table team acquainted me with the desalination system which allowed me to process and evaporate the seawater at my seat, producing delightfully fresh flakes of salt.

When the dish arrived, the salt turned out to be redundant. Perfectly seasoned and cooked, the solidity of the crocodile was balanced by the moony, which simply fell apart, and the smoother texture of the goatfish and bigeye. The catfish, lightly seared, added an extra crispness. The bubu, however, was a disappointment.

After a rubdown by the breakfast masseuse, I returned to my winch and wound my way back to the penthouse, eager to see what Raoul would be skewering us for lunch.

Food: 4/5

Service: 3/5

Decor: 3/5

Slide: 4.5/5

Original review and much more here.

The Shepherdess Cafe, Shoreditch

The Shepherdess Cafe
221 City Road
Shoreditch EC1V 1JN
020 7253 2463

by Brannie Hall

***London Review of Breakfasts News Flash***

The full English at the Shepherdess Cafe in City Road, London, won the title of “Best Builders’ Breakfast in Britain” on 26 November 2012, beating out the eggs, bacon, beans, and chips of eateries in Bolton, St Leonards-On-Sea, Durham, and SW1. MyBuilder.com surveyed thousands of breakfast-eaters in the building trades about their favorite morning cafés, restaurants or food vans. The Shepherdess is popular with culinary luminaries such as Jamie Oliver and staff from the Moorfields Eye Hospital as well as those working on nearby building sites (not, presumably, Eagle House, that monument to the financial crisis of 2008, a giant empty structure that was supposed to open in 2010 as one of the largest recent private residential developments in Shoreditch but which has sat nearby, half-finished, for years).

The proprietor of the Shepherdess, Nick Menagatos, was presented with a trophy at a breakfast celebration in late November. A regular said of the Shepherdess that “there is always a warm welcome, they use the best bacon for their fry-ups, and there is always a good mix of people.”

- Brannie Hall

2 Comments:

HappyCamper said:

Well, I'm from Oregon, USA, and I ran across your review looking up the lyrics for a song I used to sing at camp (in the 1950s!), called “Walk Shepherdess Walk” (one of my favorite camp songs - beautiful!). While reading, I came across the term "Fry-up" - does this mean just what it sounds like - fried food? Can you tell me more about the British specialities at the Shepherdess Café? I've never been "across the pond," but that IS on my "to-do" list - after the fjords, that is!

2:15 AM, December 16, 2012

Brannie Hall said:

Dear HappyCamper,

Welcome. I am glad your search for nostalgic mid-century campfire songs led you to this site. The term “fry-up” does, in fact, refer to fried food; specifically, it denotes cold food heated up in a frying pan, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED also places its origins in the 1960s, citing sources such as Elleston Trevor’s 1968 novel A Place for the Wicked, in which a character says, “Are you hungry?...We'll have a fry-up, shall we?” One kind of fry-up is the  “full English breakfast,” often shortened to “full English,” which includes back bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread or toast, sausages and baked beans, and a mug of tea.

This is what I ordered at the Shepherdess Cafe on a recent visit. (Technically, I ordered “eggs, bacon, tom’s & mushrooms” with a side of beans and a tea and stole some of a friend’s sausage. I got chips as a garnish. Nice.) The food at the Shepherdess, happily, is as straightforward as the term “fry-up.” It is not a place where the waitress would ask if you have any questions about the menu, such as, “Could you please tell me what cardoons are?” or “Where do you source your chicken?” It is fairly impossible to ask questions about the menu at the Shepherdess Cafe, which, next to each omelette listed, includes a parenthetical assurance about the plentiful number of eggs used in each (3 eggs) as well as a note at the bottom of the omelette category that reminds diners that each omelette contains 3 eggs. I did not order an omelette, 3-egg or not. I fully enjoyed my runny, bright-yellow-yolked eggs, which they happily and competently poached, my tasty bacon, my friend's hearty sausage, and my plentiful beans, all served at the correct temperature. The tomatoes & mushrooms could have been a bit more assertively grilled. The coffee was weak and the tea strong (“builders’ tea,” as it is known in the UK). The checked curtains are painted on.

Staff were friendly and efficient, yelling over orders from table to counter, and food appeared nearly instantaneously. My friend ordered green tea and was the subject of many solicitous questions about her health from fellow diners, one of whom told us about her childhood in Turkey. HappyCamper, when you visit London, I hope you find time for a breakfast at the Shepherdess Cafe. It’ll be just what you need after a trip to the fjords.

PS: The lyrics to “Walk Shepherdess Walk” are:
Walk, Shepherdess, walk, and I'll walk too
To find the ram with the ebony horn and the gold footed ewe
The lamb with the fleece of silver, like summer sea foam
And the wether with the crystal bell that leads them all home.
Walk, Shepherdess, Walk, and I'll walk too,
And if we never find them, I shan't mind, shall you?

Question for you: what is a wether? Oh, I see.  A castrated male sheep.