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.