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.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, December 09, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, December 01, 2013
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.
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.
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