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.