Stack 'em High
1225 N Croatan Hwy
158 Bypass MP 9
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
+1 (252) 441-7064
www.stackemhigh.com/
by Fidel Gastro
Stack 'em High is always bustling on Sunday mornings, even before the tourists pour into town for the summer. There’s a mix of locals coming back from church service and hungry out-of-towners looking for a good breakfast before the drive back to Washington or New York. It feels like a summer-camp: high ceilings and brightly-painted wooden rafters with various corny words of wisdom written on them; a cafeteria-style queue that offers juice and cold breakfast items before you reach the order counter.
Choosing a breakfast is no easy task: Stack ‘em High is known for its pancakes, including specialty ones, such the "Island Delight" which comes with coconut, chocolate chips and bananas. They also have “Redneck Specials” like Minnie’s Biscuits and Gravy, which I ordered. Then, for an all-out soul food flourish, I got some cheese grits and a cup of coffee.
The nature of a "real" Southern breakfast can be serious business... or a selling point for a weekend tourist who likes Southern food but has mixed feelings about the South. A real Southern biscuit is a blend of baking powder and slight butteriness, not really flaky in the style of French pastry, but with layers that maintain a certain texture that work equally well with jam and butter and the salty white sausage gravy that are staples of Southern breakfast specialties. The biscuit at Stack 'em High was large, fluffy, and versatile. It was so good and so huge that I couldn't bear to waste it all on the creamy white sausage gravy. I took a portion and put butter and grape jelly on it, savoring the masterful Southernness of my breakfast. I’m pleased to say that even after spooning up cheese grits onto another portion of the biscuit, it maintained that flaky integrity with the slightly sour-tart bite of the baking powder. The cheese grits, in contrast, were a slight disappointment -- too salty, not cheesy enough. But my biscuit more than made up for it.
Feeling stuffed and aware of the five hour drive back to Washington, I finished with a last gulp of coffee and left, already looking forward to the next dose of beach time and down-home cooking.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Milk Bar, Soho
The Milk Bar
3 Bateman St
Soho
W1D 4AG
020 7287 4796
by Blake Pudding
The Antipodean take over of London continues apace. Now normally this would be an excuse for some ill-informed remarks about their aggressive informality, their funny accents or our recent victory in the cricket. Not this time however because the Milk Bar is run by New Zealanders who couldn’t care less about a little urn and when the coffee is this good I don’t care how inappropriately friendly they are. “Aw look mate, do you mind if I have sex with your girlfriend?” “Not at all, my good fellow, just bring me another one of these delicious flat white things first.”
I was with Natasha Solomons, recently returned from America. She was itching to tell me about her novel but I was more interested in finding out about the cured fish scene in New York. As she told me about the lox in Russ & Daughters on Houston, I actually started drooling. It was time to order some food.
The Milk Bar has a very short menu which is mainly variations on scrambled eggs. Luckily I love scrambled eggs. We could have had ours with bacon, mushrooms or smoked salmon but I wanted to preserve the purity of their ethical eggs so I went for the classic “on toast” option. Greedily I watched the trendy young thing behind the counter prepare them in a battered saucepan – no microwave trickery here. They were perfect, or nearly perfect. Perhaps they were slightly over-cooked but I am prepared to admit that I like mine very runny. I lightly seasoned them with lots of Tabasco and hoovered them up in about a minute. I belched elegantly, sat back and said “now tell me about this novel of yours Natasha,” though I would have preferred to hear more about the Gravadlax.
3 Bateman St
Soho
W1D 4AG
020 7287 4796
by Blake Pudding
The Antipodean take over of London continues apace. Now normally this would be an excuse for some ill-informed remarks about their aggressive informality, their funny accents or our recent victory in the cricket. Not this time however because the Milk Bar is run by New Zealanders who couldn’t care less about a little urn and when the coffee is this good I don’t care how inappropriately friendly they are. “Aw look mate, do you mind if I have sex with your girlfriend?” “Not at all, my good fellow, just bring me another one of these delicious flat white things first.”
I was with Natasha Solomons, recently returned from America. She was itching to tell me about her novel but I was more interested in finding out about the cured fish scene in New York. As she told me about the lox in Russ & Daughters on Houston, I actually started drooling. It was time to order some food.
The Milk Bar has a very short menu which is mainly variations on scrambled eggs. Luckily I love scrambled eggs. We could have had ours with bacon, mushrooms or smoked salmon but I wanted to preserve the purity of their ethical eggs so I went for the classic “on toast” option. Greedily I watched the trendy young thing behind the counter prepare them in a battered saucepan – no microwave trickery here. They were perfect, or nearly perfect. Perhaps they were slightly over-cooked but I am prepared to admit that I like mine very runny. I lightly seasoned them with lots of Tabasco and hoovered them up in about a minute. I belched elegantly, sat back and said “now tell me about this novel of yours Natasha,” though I would have preferred to hear more about the Gravadlax.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
The Claridges, Faridabad, India
The Claridges, Surajkund
Shooting Range Road
Faridabad – 121 001
India
+91 129 4190 000
www.claridges-hotels.com
by Des Ayuno
The Claridges was my first five-star experience, and I was looking forward to breakfast very much indeed. Not to be confused with our own Claridges, it is an India-only chain of extraordinary ostentation.
Now, only mugs eat Western food when East, so despite the earliness of the hour and the extremity of my temporal-geographical disorientation, I ordered paneer-filled paratha – a round, flaky whole-wheat flatbread – and a sweet lime juice and masala tea. First came a complimentary silver basket of elaborate (Western) mini-pastries that would have done its English namesake proud. I ignored them – not because they were Western, but because I was dying for tea, in a worse-than-hung-over fug brought on by the monsoon season's extreme humidity. But next along was the lime juice, in a tall, frosty glass with a silver stirrer. I ignored it too. Then a glistening pair of chestnut-coloured pancakes – the paratha. I croaked weakly at the six hovering waiters, but they just looked confused. Finally, the tea arrived. It was glorious – hot, wet, strong, sweet and really quite spicy.
The fug cleared instantly. I absent-mindedly nibbled a tiny chocolate-chip muffin, which was oddly dense and eggy. The sweet lime juice was neither sweet nor particularly sour, but was still a refreshing thirst-quencher in the 40+ degree heat. The paratha, though, was the perfect breakfast, in the proud English tradition – hot, greasy, salty and stodgy. It was a ghee-soaked, cheese-oozing triumph of fatty abandon over good sense. Topped with sharp yoghurt and lip-scorching lime pickle, it was divine. I hoovered up one and three-quarters of the rounds before my knife literally came to a grinding halt on the last quarter.
My first thought was, I have been here before. I have been here before with the hair and even after three years, the debate rages on. But the hair was there, longish and white and curly, winding through my sliver of paratha like a rebuke. I sighed.
One of the waiters came up. “Please thank you ma’am. Everything is ok?”
I thought of where the hair might have come from. With the exception of the odd perky tache, Indian men are uniformly clean-shaven, aside from the occasional Sikh. I thought of my guide informing me, last night, in clipped tones, “This is not a Sikh city. They do not come here. They have their own region, to the west.” I imagined a grey-haired Sikh gentleman slaving away in the kitchen, far from his family, earning less for a day's work than I, or rather my sinister multinational client, was paying for this humble dish. I thought of the luxurious jacuzzi-sized bathtub upstairs in my room, which had taken an hour to fill the night before, and I thought of the Hindustan Times’ headline that had greeted me when I emerged: “Drought Looms, Food Prices to Rise Further”.
I gave a big, enthusiastic grin. “Everything is ok!” The waiter looked suspicious. I kept grinning. Finally he retreated to his customary stance of attentiveness ten paces away. Suddenly concerned for my new Sikh friend’s job security, should the hair be discovered by the over-inquisitive waiter, I spent ten minutes secretively digging it out and disposing of it down the side of the table. Then I finished my masala tea and, ready for anything the day might throw at me, bravely headed forth into the heat.
Shooting Range Road
Faridabad – 121 001
India
+91 129 4190 000
www.claridges-hotels.com
by Des Ayuno
The Claridges was my first five-star experience, and I was looking forward to breakfast very much indeed. Not to be confused with our own Claridges, it is an India-only chain of extraordinary ostentation.
Now, only mugs eat Western food when East, so despite the earliness of the hour and the extremity of my temporal-geographical disorientation, I ordered paneer-filled paratha – a round, flaky whole-wheat flatbread – and a sweet lime juice and masala tea. First came a complimentary silver basket of elaborate (Western) mini-pastries that would have done its English namesake proud. I ignored them – not because they were Western, but because I was dying for tea, in a worse-than-hung-over fug brought on by the monsoon season's extreme humidity. But next along was the lime juice, in a tall, frosty glass with a silver stirrer. I ignored it too. Then a glistening pair of chestnut-coloured pancakes – the paratha. I croaked weakly at the six hovering waiters, but they just looked confused. Finally, the tea arrived. It was glorious – hot, wet, strong, sweet and really quite spicy.
The fug cleared instantly. I absent-mindedly nibbled a tiny chocolate-chip muffin, which was oddly dense and eggy. The sweet lime juice was neither sweet nor particularly sour, but was still a refreshing thirst-quencher in the 40+ degree heat. The paratha, though, was the perfect breakfast, in the proud English tradition – hot, greasy, salty and stodgy. It was a ghee-soaked, cheese-oozing triumph of fatty abandon over good sense. Topped with sharp yoghurt and lip-scorching lime pickle, it was divine. I hoovered up one and three-quarters of the rounds before my knife literally came to a grinding halt on the last quarter.
My first thought was, I have been here before. I have been here before with the hair and even after three years, the debate rages on. But the hair was there, longish and white and curly, winding through my sliver of paratha like a rebuke. I sighed.
One of the waiters came up. “Please thank you ma’am. Everything is ok?”
I thought of where the hair might have come from. With the exception of the odd perky tache, Indian men are uniformly clean-shaven, aside from the occasional Sikh. I thought of my guide informing me, last night, in clipped tones, “This is not a Sikh city. They do not come here. They have their own region, to the west.” I imagined a grey-haired Sikh gentleman slaving away in the kitchen, far from his family, earning less for a day's work than I, or rather my sinister multinational client, was paying for this humble dish. I thought of the luxurious jacuzzi-sized bathtub upstairs in my room, which had taken an hour to fill the night before, and I thought of the Hindustan Times’ headline that had greeted me when I emerged: “Drought Looms, Food Prices to Rise Further”.
I gave a big, enthusiastic grin. “Everything is ok!” The waiter looked suspicious. I kept grinning. Finally he retreated to his customary stance of attentiveness ten paces away. Suddenly concerned for my new Sikh friend’s job security, should the hair be discovered by the over-inquisitive waiter, I spent ten minutes secretively digging it out and disposing of it down the side of the table. Then I finished my masala tea and, ready for anything the day might throw at me, bravely headed forth into the heat.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Trattoria Sapori, Newington Green
Trattoria Sapori
Alliance House
44/45 Newington Green
Newington Green
N16 9QH
020 7704 0744
www.trattoriasapori.co.uk
by Gregg E. Bread
Our indulgent post-bruncheon gelatos inspired a re-telling of the incidents surrounding the biggest ice-cream I have ever consumed. Six stupendo scoops scoffed at the Trevi Fountain, Year 10 school trip, Easter 1997. I made two wishes whilst I sat there licking away, sticky faced and foreign. Firstly, I wanted to lose the millstone of my virginity to a goth named Lindsey, and, secondly, I wanted England to qualify for the World Cup.
Both wishes came true. Both featured young English lads making their debut. Both led toward early exits and a now familiar sense of disappointment. Happily my LRB debut turned out to be a considerably longer and more satisfying run-out on the home-turf of Newington Green. A sunny morning combined with the ability to perceive the sound of traffic as birdsong, meant that my cohort M and I were able to dine alfresco, perched atop the wooden terrace.
I played it safe and plumped for the Italian breakfast; eggs, pancetta, Italian sausage, tomato, mushrooms and ciabatta, washed down with a latte. M jazzed things up by ordering the open omelette with parma ham, shaved parmesan, rocket and cherry tomatoes, choosing to suck down on a freshly squeezed apple juice.
I thought we were onto a winner when they asked how I’d like my eggs. They came poached to oozy perfection. The pancetta was crisp and the sausages truly meaty. What’s more the cleanliness of it all left me with a healthy Mediterranean after-glow rather than the traditional Full English edgy meat sweat. My only beefs were the inane button mushrooms – do they ever actually taste of mushroom? – and, be warned, the tartier than tart apple juice,
Throw in some chipper service, another round of decent coffee and the aforementioned gelatos for a touch over twenty British and, believe you me, others have wished for far, far less.
Alliance House
44/45 Newington Green
Newington Green
N16 9QH
020 7704 0744
www.trattoriasapori.co.uk
by Gregg E. Bread
Our indulgent post-bruncheon gelatos inspired a re-telling of the incidents surrounding the biggest ice-cream I have ever consumed. Six stupendo scoops scoffed at the Trevi Fountain, Year 10 school trip, Easter 1997. I made two wishes whilst I sat there licking away, sticky faced and foreign. Firstly, I wanted to lose the millstone of my virginity to a goth named Lindsey, and, secondly, I wanted England to qualify for the World Cup.
Both wishes came true. Both featured young English lads making their debut. Both led toward early exits and a now familiar sense of disappointment. Happily my LRB debut turned out to be a considerably longer and more satisfying run-out on the home-turf of Newington Green. A sunny morning combined with the ability to perceive the sound of traffic as birdsong, meant that my cohort M and I were able to dine alfresco, perched atop the wooden terrace.
I played it safe and plumped for the Italian breakfast; eggs, pancetta, Italian sausage, tomato, mushrooms and ciabatta, washed down with a latte. M jazzed things up by ordering the open omelette with parma ham, shaved parmesan, rocket and cherry tomatoes, choosing to suck down on a freshly squeezed apple juice.
I thought we were onto a winner when they asked how I’d like my eggs. They came poached to oozy perfection. The pancetta was crisp and the sausages truly meaty. What’s more the cleanliness of it all left me with a healthy Mediterranean after-glow rather than the traditional Full English edgy meat sweat. My only beefs were the inane button mushrooms – do they ever actually taste of mushroom? – and, be warned, the tartier than tart apple juice,
Throw in some chipper service, another round of decent coffee and the aforementioned gelatos for a touch over twenty British and, believe you me, others have wished for far, far less.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Empress of India, Victoria Park
The Empress of India
130 Lauriston Rd
Victoria Park
E9 7LH
020 85335123
www.theempressofindia.com
by Blake Pudding
I’m currently researching smoked fish for the forthcoming LRB book (available in all good bookshops and hopefully supermarkets some time in 2011) and have been forbidden from eating a proper cooked breakfast. So at the Empress I ordered the kipper with a poached egg but cleverly persuaded my girlfriend to have the full English so that I could have her black pudding. Our breakfasts arrived and after some juggling to fit the over-sized crockery onto the absurdly small tables we started to eat. A couple of mouthfuls in the future Mrs Pudding noted that her plate did not have any black pudding on it. We called over the waitress and she went away to investigate.
She came back and casually said that the all the black pudding had been thrown away. I was a bit taken aback by this but was distracted by the enormous plate of bacon she brought over to compensate. This waitress obviously knew me.
After scoffing the lot, I pondered Columbo-like why they had binned everything. Hmmmmm. I marshalled my deductive powers, examined the evidence and then it came to me: everything was cooked in advance and not that recently either. Of course! Why and that would explain the generally poor state of all the food. It was like breakfast at a down-market hotel. The bacon was swimming in grease, my kipper was dense with dirty butter, the beans were in a ramekin with a congealed crust and the hash brown was soggy and lukewarm. It was a shame as all the ingredients were good quality; the eggs were freshly prepared and delicious. The Empress of India stops serving breakfast at noon. We arrived at quarter to twelve. If we had arrived at ten we may have had a breakfast worth the money. We may even have had some black pudding.
130 Lauriston Rd
Victoria Park
E9 7LH
020 85335123
www.theempressofindia.com
by Blake Pudding
I’m currently researching smoked fish for the forthcoming LRB book (available in all good bookshops and hopefully supermarkets some time in 2011) and have been forbidden from eating a proper cooked breakfast. So at the Empress I ordered the kipper with a poached egg but cleverly persuaded my girlfriend to have the full English so that I could have her black pudding. Our breakfasts arrived and after some juggling to fit the over-sized crockery onto the absurdly small tables we started to eat. A couple of mouthfuls in the future Mrs Pudding noted that her plate did not have any black pudding on it. We called over the waitress and she went away to investigate.
She came back and casually said that the all the black pudding had been thrown away. I was a bit taken aback by this but was distracted by the enormous plate of bacon she brought over to compensate. This waitress obviously knew me.
After scoffing the lot, I pondered Columbo-like why they had binned everything. Hmmmmm. I marshalled my deductive powers, examined the evidence and then it came to me: everything was cooked in advance and not that recently either. Of course! Why and that would explain the generally poor state of all the food. It was like breakfast at a down-market hotel. The bacon was swimming in grease, my kipper was dense with dirty butter, the beans were in a ramekin with a congealed crust and the hash brown was soggy and lukewarm. It was a shame as all the ingredients were good quality; the eggs were freshly prepared and delicious. The Empress of India stops serving breakfast at noon. We arrived at quarter to twelve. If we had arrived at ten we may have had a breakfast worth the money. We may even have had some black pudding.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Canteen, Southbank
Canteen
Royal Festival Hall
Belvedere Rd
SE1 8XX
0845 686 1122
www.canteen.co.uk
by Sadie Frosties
Recently it has seemed impossible to mention Canteen without prompting serious debate. Perhaps it is to do with the rate at which this Spitalfields start-up has grown since first opening its doors in 2005. Or perhaps the feeling of unease stems from the geographical locations in which one can now find a branch of Canteen – do we secretly fear that, one day in the future, branches will open in Chelsea and Brixton, thus creating an upside-down five-pointed star, and giant walls will rise up from the dirt and we will be entombed forever more within a Canteen fortress, ruled by a dictatorship of additive-free pies? Well I don’t. Nor have I spent a disproportionate amount of my time plotting the locations on Google Maps.
Actually, the Royal Festival Hall branch of Canteen is one of my favourite places to supper. I’ve never been disappointed with the food, and my consistent ordering of the smoked haddock, spinach and mash, I believe, classifies my opinion more as scientific fact than subjective review. But during my most recent visit my eyes glazed over and widened as they settled on the first column on the menu. Breakfast is served all day. Why haven’t I noticed this before? Has haddock-vision denied me life-enriching breakfast experiences?
At precisely 8:55pm I decided to throw caution to the wind and live as dangerously as one can after 14 days of living, post-tonsil extraction, on a diet of liquid food and Spanish cinema. I ordered the bacon, fried egg and bubble and squeak.
Service was swift and pleasant, and I was met with two very happy eggs, fried to perfection, and allowed the freedom during cooking to form whichever eggy shape they so desired. Disappointingly the bacon, although of the streaky variety, was vastly under-cooked in two of the three examples on my plate. However, the bubble and squeak was satisfyingly lumpy in a way that you could believe it was created by man not machine, and measured in at an almost obscene circumference.
There was something intensely satisfying about the act of eating this dish after 9pm, while everyone around me ate ‘proper’ suppers. I then ordered Eton mess, which seemed so fitting after breakfast I wondered why other breakfast menus don’t include a dessert course too.
So now, a few days on, as I settle down to my supper of cabernet sauvignon and jam tarts I wonder, why are we so bound by such strict meal timetabling? Why shouldn’t we be able to have dessert with breakfast? Is it really so unacceptable to eat baked potatoes at dawn, and bacon and eggs at dusk? Now, if it came to breakfast-time at Canteen, I think I’d have the haddock.
Royal Festival Hall
Belvedere Rd
SE1 8XX
0845 686 1122
www.canteen.co.uk
by Sadie Frosties
Recently it has seemed impossible to mention Canteen without prompting serious debate. Perhaps it is to do with the rate at which this Spitalfields start-up has grown since first opening its doors in 2005. Or perhaps the feeling of unease stems from the geographical locations in which one can now find a branch of Canteen – do we secretly fear that, one day in the future, branches will open in Chelsea and Brixton, thus creating an upside-down five-pointed star, and giant walls will rise up from the dirt and we will be entombed forever more within a Canteen fortress, ruled by a dictatorship of additive-free pies? Well I don’t. Nor have I spent a disproportionate amount of my time plotting the locations on Google Maps.
Actually, the Royal Festival Hall branch of Canteen is one of my favourite places to supper. I’ve never been disappointed with the food, and my consistent ordering of the smoked haddock, spinach and mash, I believe, classifies my opinion more as scientific fact than subjective review. But during my most recent visit my eyes glazed over and widened as they settled on the first column on the menu. Breakfast is served all day. Why haven’t I noticed this before? Has haddock-vision denied me life-enriching breakfast experiences?
At precisely 8:55pm I decided to throw caution to the wind and live as dangerously as one can after 14 days of living, post-tonsil extraction, on a diet of liquid food and Spanish cinema. I ordered the bacon, fried egg and bubble and squeak.
Service was swift and pleasant, and I was met with two very happy eggs, fried to perfection, and allowed the freedom during cooking to form whichever eggy shape they so desired. Disappointingly the bacon, although of the streaky variety, was vastly under-cooked in two of the three examples on my plate. However, the bubble and squeak was satisfyingly lumpy in a way that you could believe it was created by man not machine, and measured in at an almost obscene circumference.
There was something intensely satisfying about the act of eating this dish after 9pm, while everyone around me ate ‘proper’ suppers. I then ordered Eton mess, which seemed so fitting after breakfast I wondered why other breakfast menus don’t include a dessert course too.
So now, a few days on, as I settle down to my supper of cabernet sauvignon and jam tarts I wonder, why are we so bound by such strict meal timetabling? Why shouldn’t we be able to have dessert with breakfast? Is it really so unacceptable to eat baked potatoes at dawn, and bacon and eggs at dusk? Now, if it came to breakfast-time at Canteen, I think I’d have the haddock.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Lead Station, Chorlton, Manchester
The Lead Station
99 Beech Rd
Chorlton
Manchester
M21 9EQ
0871 434 8872
by Grease Witherspoon
It is rare that I am thrown into a situation that I am not able to foresee to some degree. Obviously, it is impossible to predict the future, but I do a pretty good job based mostly on forward planning, generalisation and stereotyping. In fact, I’m fairly flawless. Provided, therefore, with the following components- a Mancunian suburb, an English ‘summer’ morning, a shabby pub and an irritable temperament (hunger), I made a quick assessment: this wasn’t going to be a breakfast to write home about.
We arrived at The Lead Station not so much out of choice, but out of necessity- it was the only place open that particular Sunday morning in Chorlton. We were lead through the main body of the empty pub towards the back to a bright sun-trapped garden, filled with families and gossiping friends, spread out supplements and all smiles. Tea and coffee flowed, provided by amiable staff fully prepared for free top-ups and who proved more attentive than one of those waitresses with the little aprons in Hollywood film diners. I had to do several comedy double takes. Wasn’t it meant to be grim up north?
When the breakfast arrived, it was so packed with ingredients it practically fell off the plate. The sausages provided a satisfyingly crisp crunch, oozing the right amount of grease. I was delighted to see the addition of a potato cake, that Lancashire speciality. The eggs were the only disappointment as they were just a tad too rubbery and overdone for my liking and the slightly limp tomatoes lacked the effort I would have liked to see. A miniscule pot of baked beans sat in a decorative attempt, which ultimately seemed a little unnecessary. But as I sat basking in the sun pretending I was on holiday, these things didn’t really bother me. Not when the black pudding was so rich and my breakfast companion let me polish off her vegetarian haggis, a well-seasoned mix of lentils and pearl barley.
Happily, there was an abundance of toast and as I sat watching my little foiled slab of butter melt in the sun I felt perfectly full and content. They let us sit there for another hour without so much as a hint of an evil glare, quite happy to pour more and more coffee. I decided I’d leave my crystal ball behind next time, as my lesson had been learned- all for £6.95.
99 Beech Rd
Chorlton
Manchester
M21 9EQ
0871 434 8872
by Grease Witherspoon
It is rare that I am thrown into a situation that I am not able to foresee to some degree. Obviously, it is impossible to predict the future, but I do a pretty good job based mostly on forward planning, generalisation and stereotyping. In fact, I’m fairly flawless. Provided, therefore, with the following components- a Mancunian suburb, an English ‘summer’ morning, a shabby pub and an irritable temperament (hunger), I made a quick assessment: this wasn’t going to be a breakfast to write home about.
We arrived at The Lead Station not so much out of choice, but out of necessity- it was the only place open that particular Sunday morning in Chorlton. We were lead through the main body of the empty pub towards the back to a bright sun-trapped garden, filled with families and gossiping friends, spread out supplements and all smiles. Tea and coffee flowed, provided by amiable staff fully prepared for free top-ups and who proved more attentive than one of those waitresses with the little aprons in Hollywood film diners. I had to do several comedy double takes. Wasn’t it meant to be grim up north?
When the breakfast arrived, it was so packed with ingredients it practically fell off the plate. The sausages provided a satisfyingly crisp crunch, oozing the right amount of grease. I was delighted to see the addition of a potato cake, that Lancashire speciality. The eggs were the only disappointment as they were just a tad too rubbery and overdone for my liking and the slightly limp tomatoes lacked the effort I would have liked to see. A miniscule pot of baked beans sat in a decorative attempt, which ultimately seemed a little unnecessary. But as I sat basking in the sun pretending I was on holiday, these things didn’t really bother me. Not when the black pudding was so rich and my breakfast companion let me polish off her vegetarian haggis, a well-seasoned mix of lentils and pearl barley.
Happily, there was an abundance of toast and as I sat watching my little foiled slab of butter melt in the sun I felt perfectly full and content. They let us sit there for another hour without so much as a hint of an evil glare, quite happy to pour more and more coffee. I decided I’d leave my crystal ball behind next time, as my lesson had been learned- all for £6.95.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Breakfasts and Beds: Hotel Cabinn City, Copenhagen, Denmark
Hotel Cabinn City
Mitchellsgade 14
Copenhagen 1568
Denmark
+45 3346 1616
www.cabinn.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
‘You cannot leave without me, Joyce,’ the chap who had been chasing me around the dance floor at my friend’s wedding declared in a husky gush of schnapps fumes. ‘Take me back to your hotel.’
‘Even if I fancied you,’ I replied, prising my forearm from his grip. ‘It would be impossible.’ I paused, gazed with meaning into his dilated pupils. ‘You would not fit. Into the room. The room! It is far too small.’
And that is why I am breakfasting alone this morning at the Cabinn City Hotel, the cheapest hotel in expensive Copenhagen. For about fifty quid, you get a miniature room with two narrow bunks and a bathroom where it is impossible to take a shower without soaking the toilet paper. There is a television and a chair if you like sitting. There are even some lights. And in the basement there is a cafeteria where they serve the breakfast buffet. The breakfast costs an additional sixty Danish kroner, which is about six pounds.
The price is an affront: the choices are cold: muesli with yogurt, cornflakes and puffed rice. There are three kinds of juice, including that very highly sweet kind of orange that tastes suspiciously like it contains some high fructose corn syrup. Tea and instant coffee, butter and jam, and then the breads. There are a wide range of breads: white and brown and those square seedy rolls that they have in northern Europe. I love those square seedy rolls, so I select one and grab some packets of butter and jam. I skip the ubiquitous northern European breakfast ham and salami, and then I see it: the cheese slicer.
It is a miraculous little machine: two bricks of cheese sit across from each other on a round board. In the centre is a sort of screw atop which sits a handle which attaches to a wire (I know, it is difficult to envision: this is because you have never seen such a cheese slicer). You spin the handle and the wire slices off a perfectly even slice of cheese from each block; a second round, and it slides down the central screw and slices two more. I am riveted, and not just because I am hungover: it is a thing of beauty, a masterpiece of Scandinavian design.
I join a long table full of other travellers, who are munching away with the bleary, dazed affect of people who have just suffered three hours of Carlsberg nightmares in a narrow bunk bed in a room with no air conditioning. I consider my selection: a seedy roll, marg, jam, and six slices of cheese because, well, I got a little carried away. The flavours are indifferent. The texture requires a fair bit of chewing. I wash it all down with the instant coffee. I take a sour green apple for the road. I attempt to take the cheese slicer, but it is too heavy. I wonder what my would-be suitor is eating for breakfast, and if it is more delicious. I decide I'm quite content not knowing.
Mitchellsgade 14
Copenhagen 1568
Denmark
+45 3346 1616
www.cabinn.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
‘You cannot leave without me, Joyce,’ the chap who had been chasing me around the dance floor at my friend’s wedding declared in a husky gush of schnapps fumes. ‘Take me back to your hotel.’
‘Even if I fancied you,’ I replied, prising my forearm from his grip. ‘It would be impossible.’ I paused, gazed with meaning into his dilated pupils. ‘You would not fit. Into the room. The room! It is far too small.’
And that is why I am breakfasting alone this morning at the Cabinn City Hotel, the cheapest hotel in expensive Copenhagen. For about fifty quid, you get a miniature room with two narrow bunks and a bathroom where it is impossible to take a shower without soaking the toilet paper. There is a television and a chair if you like sitting. There are even some lights. And in the basement there is a cafeteria where they serve the breakfast buffet. The breakfast costs an additional sixty Danish kroner, which is about six pounds.
The price is an affront: the choices are cold: muesli with yogurt, cornflakes and puffed rice. There are three kinds of juice, including that very highly sweet kind of orange that tastes suspiciously like it contains some high fructose corn syrup. Tea and instant coffee, butter and jam, and then the breads. There are a wide range of breads: white and brown and those square seedy rolls that they have in northern Europe. I love those square seedy rolls, so I select one and grab some packets of butter and jam. I skip the ubiquitous northern European breakfast ham and salami, and then I see it: the cheese slicer.
It is a miraculous little machine: two bricks of cheese sit across from each other on a round board. In the centre is a sort of screw atop which sits a handle which attaches to a wire (I know, it is difficult to envision: this is because you have never seen such a cheese slicer). You spin the handle and the wire slices off a perfectly even slice of cheese from each block; a second round, and it slides down the central screw and slices two more. I am riveted, and not just because I am hungover: it is a thing of beauty, a masterpiece of Scandinavian design.
I join a long table full of other travellers, who are munching away with the bleary, dazed affect of people who have just suffered three hours of Carlsberg nightmares in a narrow bunk bed in a room with no air conditioning. I consider my selection: a seedy roll, marg, jam, and six slices of cheese because, well, I got a little carried away. The flavours are indifferent. The texture requires a fair bit of chewing. I wash it all down with the instant coffee. I take a sour green apple for the road. I attempt to take the cheese slicer, but it is too heavy. I wonder what my would-be suitor is eating for breakfast, and if it is more delicious. I decide I'm quite content not knowing.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Bruncheon Club, Hackney
The Bruncheon Club
A Secret Location
Hackney
Sittings occur once a month
Reservations essential
thebruncheonclub.blogspot.com
by Malcolm Eggs
All around the garden, people watched with baited breath. I flung the boule in my trademark style, which I'm sure at least one person would have silently christened ‘the stoat’. It was seven points all. The dense little sphere arced into the air, landed about a metre away from the jack then rolled downslope into a patch of weeds.
We were at the first ever Bruncheon Club, a socio-culinary venture dreamt up by two friends, Gregg and Maya. It’s a hangover-soothing addition to London's new wave of what they’re calling ‘underground restaurants’. These shadowy eateries are a cross between dinner parties and those underground raves in the 80s and 90s, where you’d call a secret number to get the address of a freshly infiltrated warehouse off a slip road somewhere. Twenty years on, I’m sure it must be many of the same people who now go to a private house or flat, eat a home-cooked set menu then pay a suggested donation at the end.
The boules came after three courses served at a garden table, washed down by oft-replenished coffee and water and seasoned with congenial conversation and heaps of newspaper supplements. The atmosphere was that of going to a friend’s house for an 'event breakfast' such as on the morning after a mild win on the premium bonds. Our suggested £12 donation got us bloody maries, fresh strawberries and warm croissants, but the magnum opus was an eggs royale in which duck eggs took all the egg roles. It was one of the eggiest things I have ever seen: impossible amounts of the boldest possible yellowy-orangey yolk gushing out across the smoked salmon, then mingling gloriously with duck-egg-hollandaise, then quickly entering my mouth. The poor muffin halves came nowhere near being able to mop everything up.
After my disappointing throw of the boule my team, hurriedly and a little cringingly titled 'De Beauvoir Rovers', was engaged in a tribute to British sporting patterns: the strong start followed by the pointless unforced errors, the nailbiting war of attrition, the whittling, entropy-like journey towards failure. But, actually, there’s nothing like mutual defeat to help you bond with a group of complete strangers - so my one suggestion to the Bruncheon Club is this: keep the leisure sports, but move them to the start of proceedings. Or indeed replace the leisure sports with hard techno, the food with uppers and hold the whole thing at night in an old business park near Bracknell.
A Secret Location
Hackney
Sittings occur once a month
Reservations essential
thebruncheonclub.blogspot.com
by Malcolm Eggs
All around the garden, people watched with baited breath. I flung the boule in my trademark style, which I'm sure at least one person would have silently christened ‘the stoat’. It was seven points all. The dense little sphere arced into the air, landed about a metre away from the jack then rolled downslope into a patch of weeds.
We were at the first ever Bruncheon Club, a socio-culinary venture dreamt up by two friends, Gregg and Maya. It’s a hangover-soothing addition to London's new wave of what they’re calling ‘underground restaurants’. These shadowy eateries are a cross between dinner parties and those underground raves in the 80s and 90s, where you’d call a secret number to get the address of a freshly infiltrated warehouse off a slip road somewhere. Twenty years on, I’m sure it must be many of the same people who now go to a private house or flat, eat a home-cooked set menu then pay a suggested donation at the end.
The boules came after three courses served at a garden table, washed down by oft-replenished coffee and water and seasoned with congenial conversation and heaps of newspaper supplements. The atmosphere was that of going to a friend’s house for an 'event breakfast' such as on the morning after a mild win on the premium bonds. Our suggested £12 donation got us bloody maries, fresh strawberries and warm croissants, but the magnum opus was an eggs royale in which duck eggs took all the egg roles. It was one of the eggiest things I have ever seen: impossible amounts of the boldest possible yellowy-orangey yolk gushing out across the smoked salmon, then mingling gloriously with duck-egg-hollandaise, then quickly entering my mouth. The poor muffin halves came nowhere near being able to mop everything up.
After my disappointing throw of the boule my team, hurriedly and a little cringingly titled 'De Beauvoir Rovers', was engaged in a tribute to British sporting patterns: the strong start followed by the pointless unforced errors, the nailbiting war of attrition, the whittling, entropy-like journey towards failure. But, actually, there’s nothing like mutual defeat to help you bond with a group of complete strangers - so my one suggestion to the Bruncheon Club is this: keep the leisure sports, but move them to the start of proceedings. Or indeed replace the leisure sports with hard techno, the food with uppers and hold the whole thing at night in an old business park near Bracknell.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Breakfasts and Beds: The W and The James, Chicago
The W
644 North Lakeshore Drive
Chicago
IL 60611
USA
++1 312 943 9200
The James
55 E Ontario St
IL 60611
Chicago
USA
++1 800 745 8883
by Shreddie Kruger
Americans approach breakfast with the gusto us Brits reserve for grumbling about the weather and joining promising looking queues. So when choosing a hotel in America the only important factor is what their breakfast is like. Everything else is insignificant. A hotel with no beds and rats scurrying around is fine by me if it serves a sensational breakfast.
So… if you are visiting Chicago you must avoid the W at all costs. Their room service breakfasts had me seething with irritation. Not only does a modest breakfast of muffins, tea, juice and granola cost $33, but it also comes without milk, is wrapped in Clingfilm and is utterly miserable. Their cooked breakfast is more expensive. And to make matters worse… worse. Eggs are over cooked and lack the illicit trickling of yolk that we all need to set our days off on the right track. I left the W vowing never to return.
With the W spurned the James stepped in. The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. Breakfast is served in David Burke’s Primehouse restaurant, at the base of the hotel, where they age their beef for up to 90 days in a room clad in Himalayan salt. So expectations were high. On the first day my enormous blueberry pancakes with maple sauce instantly turned me into the Cheshire Cat. I giggled all the way to our meeting and spent the rest of morning flying on a sugar high until I spiraled out of control with a migraine as the syrup wore off!
The next morning things got silly. Not content with eggs Benedict, I couldn’t resist ordering a dish titled “fill your own doughnuts”. How could you? It’s impossible. A small cardboard box arrived filled with sugared, hot doughnuts the size of golf balls and two squirty pipettes laced with vanilla cream and butterscotch. Wow. Now, this is what breakfast is all about. Before you could say the word “coronary” I had filled two doughnuts full of gunge and was running around the restaurant like a banshee who’s just injected taurine into his eyeballs.
So if you are on a business trip to Chicago go to the James and make the most of their stupendously good breakfast. And avoid the W at all costs – they put the W into Woeful.
644 North Lakeshore Drive
Chicago
IL 60611
USA
++1 312 943 9200
The James
55 E Ontario St
IL 60611
Chicago
USA
++1 800 745 8883
by Shreddie Kruger
Americans approach breakfast with the gusto us Brits reserve for grumbling about the weather and joining promising looking queues. So when choosing a hotel in America the only important factor is what their breakfast is like. Everything else is insignificant. A hotel with no beds and rats scurrying around is fine by me if it serves a sensational breakfast.
So… if you are visiting Chicago you must avoid the W at all costs. Their room service breakfasts had me seething with irritation. Not only does a modest breakfast of muffins, tea, juice and granola cost $33, but it also comes without milk, is wrapped in Clingfilm and is utterly miserable. Their cooked breakfast is more expensive. And to make matters worse… worse. Eggs are over cooked and lack the illicit trickling of yolk that we all need to set our days off on the right track. I left the W vowing never to return.
With the W spurned the James stepped in. The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. Breakfast is served in David Burke’s Primehouse restaurant, at the base of the hotel, where they age their beef for up to 90 days in a room clad in Himalayan salt. So expectations were high. On the first day my enormous blueberry pancakes with maple sauce instantly turned me into the Cheshire Cat. I giggled all the way to our meeting and spent the rest of morning flying on a sugar high until I spiraled out of control with a migraine as the syrup wore off!
The next morning things got silly. Not content with eggs Benedict, I couldn’t resist ordering a dish titled “fill your own doughnuts”. How could you? It’s impossible. A small cardboard box arrived filled with sugared, hot doughnuts the size of golf balls and two squirty pipettes laced with vanilla cream and butterscotch. Wow. Now, this is what breakfast is all about. Before you could say the word “coronary” I had filled two doughnuts full of gunge and was running around the restaurant like a banshee who’s just injected taurine into his eyeballs.
So if you are on a business trip to Chicago go to the James and make the most of their stupendously good breakfast. And avoid the W at all costs – they put the W into Woeful.
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