Casa Madeira
48 Albert Embankment
Vauxhall
SE1 7TL
020 7735 0592
by Shreddie Kruger
Tucked away under the arches in Vauxhall, just a short mince from Chariots Roman Spa and well within eavesdropping range of MI6 is Casa Madeira. On arrival we were greeted with a pall of smoke from charring baps and a shudder inducing rattle from the trains chugging overhead that made it seem as though we were entering the Battle of Britain experience. The corrugated roof seemed to quake and we all held our breath as the roof to our would-be-air-raid-shelter held true.
With the chaos around us we feared not only a return to wartime rationing but also for our lives and so ordered fast from the Portuguese staff. During our short wait, for what we thought might be our last ever breakfast, we were relieved to see from Sky News that London was not actually under attack - or if it was, that the state of the lap dancing industry was more important to report on.
My full English breakfast was a joy, although I felt like an annoyed dwarf whilst trying to lift my comically oversized fork. The beans weren’t just warmed up, they had been allowed to break down to a slightly sludgy consistency that some hate, but I love. Yes, the sausage was made by robotic machine and not from a family recipe handed down from generation to generation like haemophilia, but that was just what was needed. The poached eggs were perfect with yolks that were so bright they could have been used as the amber in a set of traffic lights and not a trace of detestable vinegar. Bacon was salty and crisp. But the star of the show was a platter of buns that had been lovingly charred on the grill. They were still billowing little feathers of smoke that filled the air of our bomb shelter café like burnt out cars after a riot.
A trip to Casa Madeira is not complete without a shot of their espresso at the end. It was the caffeine equivalent of being woken up on a sleepy Monday morning with Dennis Hopper playing The Flight of the Valkyries out of the side of his helicopter.
This is by far and away the best breakfast meets Blitz experience that you’re likely to get in London. I’m just surprised that it’s not in the guidebooks. Or maybe I got the wrong end of the stick.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sveti Vrach Spa Hotel, Sandanski, Bulgaria
Sveti Vrach Spa Hotel
Sandanski 2800
Bulgaria
+359 746 000 000
Breakfast from 8am to 10am daily.
by Nelson Griddle
Breakfast on the Continent can be a fraught affair.
The French, supposedly, revel in café au lait and croissants, although in my experience the latter tend quite often to be usurped by strange, dry, stick-like biscuits. The Germans have two breakfasts, but even with two goes they never seem to get it right. And one of the worst breakfasts I have eaten came courtesy of a youth hostel in Amsterdam (the exact details have faded mercifully from memory but sour coffee and indigestible cheese figured prominently).
So expectations of breakfasting in God’s Own Country of Bulgaria were not exactly sky high.
Especially when staying for a week or two at Sveti Vrach, a sprawling, neglected hotel in the hills above the southern spa town of Sandanski. Once a retreat for the Bulgarian Politburo, the place features a Henry Moore sculpture, a petting zoo, endless gloomy marble corridors, modernist chandeliers in which 90% of the bulbs don’t work, and a strange aura of repressed menace.
A cavernous, near empty dining room filled with wood panelling, pounding Europop and pistachio-coloured linen is the mise-en-scene for a breakfast as resolutely unchanging as the communist regime Todor Zhivkov imposed between 1954 and 1989. Each morning brings a fried egg, a couple of pieces of feta cheese, half a tomato, half a cold frankfurter, a slice of indifferent ham, a slice of tasteless cheese, two slices of toast with butter and honey and a choice of tea or coffee.
It’s a strange business being presented with exactly the same heavy-going assemblage, morning after morning after morning, and two months after leaving, the experience is etched uncannily on my memory.
Although I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In the guidebook it says Bulgarians usually begin the day with an espresso and a cigarette, and if that doesn’t kill the hunger pangs, they simply repeat the process.
If the alternative is a Sveti Vrach breakfast, one begins to understand why.
Sandanski 2800
Bulgaria
+359 746 000 000
Breakfast from 8am to 10am daily.
by Nelson Griddle
Breakfast on the Continent can be a fraught affair.
The French, supposedly, revel in café au lait and croissants, although in my experience the latter tend quite often to be usurped by strange, dry, stick-like biscuits. The Germans have two breakfasts, but even with two goes they never seem to get it right. And one of the worst breakfasts I have eaten came courtesy of a youth hostel in Amsterdam (the exact details have faded mercifully from memory but sour coffee and indigestible cheese figured prominently).
So expectations of breakfasting in God’s Own Country of Bulgaria were not exactly sky high.
Especially when staying for a week or two at Sveti Vrach, a sprawling, neglected hotel in the hills above the southern spa town of Sandanski. Once a retreat for the Bulgarian Politburo, the place features a Henry Moore sculpture, a petting zoo, endless gloomy marble corridors, modernist chandeliers in which 90% of the bulbs don’t work, and a strange aura of repressed menace.
A cavernous, near empty dining room filled with wood panelling, pounding Europop and pistachio-coloured linen is the mise-en-scene for a breakfast as resolutely unchanging as the communist regime Todor Zhivkov imposed between 1954 and 1989. Each morning brings a fried egg, a couple of pieces of feta cheese, half a tomato, half a cold frankfurter, a slice of indifferent ham, a slice of tasteless cheese, two slices of toast with butter and honey and a choice of tea or coffee.
It’s a strange business being presented with exactly the same heavy-going assemblage, morning after morning after morning, and two months after leaving, the experience is etched uncannily on my memory.
Although I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In the guidebook it says Bulgarians usually begin the day with an espresso and a cigarette, and if that doesn’t kill the hunger pangs, they simply repeat the process.
If the alternative is a Sveti Vrach breakfast, one begins to understand why.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Automat, Mayfair
Automat
33 Dover Street
Mayfair
W1S 4NF
www.automat-london.com
020 7499 3033
by Rhys Chris Peese
If you really want to hear about it, you’ll probably want to know what an American brasserie is doing in Mayfair, and the décor and the service and all that kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it. OK, so there’s chairs and tables and white tiles. You happy now? This ain’t some kind of interior design website, this is about breakfast.
I like the British, they do a good breakfast. But you ever seen a British breakfast with a steak in it? 'Cos I ain’t. I’ve seen all kinds of crap in their breakfasts, like blood sausage and all, but not that. You go to Automat, though, you get a goddam steak. You got to pay fifteen British pounds for the privilege, but you get it. I guess you’re thinking that twenty-five dollars is a hell of a price for a breakfast, but that steak is USDA premium non-hormone treated Nebraskan corn-fed beef. That stuff don’t come cheap. And it don’t come large, neither: go to this joint expecting some kinda twenty-four ounce T-bone and you leave disappointed. Two small pieces of fillet, that’s what you get. But that’s OK, 'cos this is breakfast. And it’s the best goddam breakfast you gonna find in London: steak, bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, and a grilled tomato as big as a man’s fist. That might be extra: this was such a goddam amazing breakfast that I was distracted from taking notes.
Anyway, I been going on about steak so much, you’re probably thinking, you crazy bastard, what else is on the menu? Well, there’s all kinds of crap, but if you order the fifteen dollar muesli or the sixteen dollar pancakes, all you gonna end up doing is looking enviously at other folks’ plates while they tuck into their steaks and all. No, you pick the Automat Big Breakfast. Best goddam breakfast in London.
33 Dover Street
Mayfair
W1S 4NF
www.automat-london.com
020 7499 3033
by Rhys Chris Peese
If you really want to hear about it, you’ll probably want to know what an American brasserie is doing in Mayfair, and the décor and the service and all that kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it. OK, so there’s chairs and tables and white tiles. You happy now? This ain’t some kind of interior design website, this is about breakfast.
I like the British, they do a good breakfast. But you ever seen a British breakfast with a steak in it? 'Cos I ain’t. I’ve seen all kinds of crap in their breakfasts, like blood sausage and all, but not that. You go to Automat, though, you get a goddam steak. You got to pay fifteen British pounds for the privilege, but you get it. I guess you’re thinking that twenty-five dollars is a hell of a price for a breakfast, but that steak is USDA premium non-hormone treated Nebraskan corn-fed beef. That stuff don’t come cheap. And it don’t come large, neither: go to this joint expecting some kinda twenty-four ounce T-bone and you leave disappointed. Two small pieces of fillet, that’s what you get. But that’s OK, 'cos this is breakfast. And it’s the best goddam breakfast you gonna find in London: steak, bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, and a grilled tomato as big as a man’s fist. That might be extra: this was such a goddam amazing breakfast that I was distracted from taking notes.
Anyway, I been going on about steak so much, you’re probably thinking, you crazy bastard, what else is on the menu? Well, there’s all kinds of crap, but if you order the fifteen dollar muesli or the sixteen dollar pancakes, all you gonna end up doing is looking enviously at other folks’ plates while they tuck into their steaks and all. No, you pick the Automat Big Breakfast. Best goddam breakfast in London.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Jack N Jill's, Beverly Hills, USA
Jack N Jill's
342 North Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills CA 90210
USA
+1 310 247 4500
www.eatatjacknjills.com
by Des Ayuno
I hadn't seen C in 12 or 13 years, and we were never really friends. But when my mum ran into his mum at the shops and reported back that he was now a wildly successful soundtrack composer in Los Angeles, I was curious. While I had sneered at the tall, tanned bullies in our class, C was their nerdy, eternally good-natured tagalong. “Wow, you're coming to LA! It would be great to see you!!” he emailed, friendly as ever, and suggested Jack N Jill's, a Beverly Hills joint considerately close to my lodgings.
Jack N Jill's is a long, clattering, airy room full of identikit ageless blondes in bikini tops, denim short shorts, golf ball-sized diamonds and pneumatic busoms. Whilst the rest of our classmates are busy hitting 30, bearing unattractive children and going soft round the edges, C was skinnier than ever, the wire-framed glasses that must have looked so punchable on his 13-year-old face now lending a thoughtful air. His girlfriend was not just LA-standard gorgeous but also funny, sharp-tongued and immediately likeable. All boded well.
I ordered a Mexican-ish scramble, perky with tomato and coriander. The tortillas were a bit soggy, but the fruit in the accompanying salad - strawberries, pineapple, kiwi - was lusciously ripe. The girlfriend had a similarly sprightly-looking scramble with tomato, feta and parsley, which she sweetly pronounced “delish”. C's plate, though, was breathtaking: a Matterhorn of Reese's Pieces pancakes, with melting chunks both embedded into fluffy half-inch-thick cakes and carpeting the top of the stack like gravel on a drive. Butter and maple syrup were also piled on generously, for a textbook heart attack on a plate. C made a noble effort and got halfway through before collapsing in distended delight. He also insisted on treating me, mentioning a recent, slightly cheesy box-office number one I hadn't seen. “Yeah, that paid for my new studio,” he said a bit sheepishly. “It can pay for breakfast too.” We all sat back and admired one another for a moment, me at least reflecting, blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth.
342 North Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills CA 90210
USA
+1 310 247 4500
www.eatatjacknjills.com
by Des Ayuno
I hadn't seen C in 12 or 13 years, and we were never really friends. But when my mum ran into his mum at the shops and reported back that he was now a wildly successful soundtrack composer in Los Angeles, I was curious. While I had sneered at the tall, tanned bullies in our class, C was their nerdy, eternally good-natured tagalong. “Wow, you're coming to LA! It would be great to see you!!” he emailed, friendly as ever, and suggested Jack N Jill's, a Beverly Hills joint considerately close to my lodgings.
Jack N Jill's is a long, clattering, airy room full of identikit ageless blondes in bikini tops, denim short shorts, golf ball-sized diamonds and pneumatic busoms. Whilst the rest of our classmates are busy hitting 30, bearing unattractive children and going soft round the edges, C was skinnier than ever, the wire-framed glasses that must have looked so punchable on his 13-year-old face now lending a thoughtful air. His girlfriend was not just LA-standard gorgeous but also funny, sharp-tongued and immediately likeable. All boded well.
I ordered a Mexican-ish scramble, perky with tomato and coriander. The tortillas were a bit soggy, but the fruit in the accompanying salad - strawberries, pineapple, kiwi - was lusciously ripe. The girlfriend had a similarly sprightly-looking scramble with tomato, feta and parsley, which she sweetly pronounced “delish”. C's plate, though, was breathtaking: a Matterhorn of Reese's Pieces pancakes, with melting chunks both embedded into fluffy half-inch-thick cakes and carpeting the top of the stack like gravel on a drive. Butter and maple syrup were also piled on generously, for a textbook heart attack on a plate. C made a noble effort and got halfway through before collapsing in distended delight. He also insisted on treating me, mentioning a recent, slightly cheesy box-office number one I hadn't seen. “Yeah, that paid for my new studio,” he said a bit sheepishly. “It can pay for breakfast too.” We all sat back and admired one another for a moment, me at least reflecting, blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Luxe, Spitalfields
The Luxe
109 Commercial Street,
Spitalfields
E1 6BG
020 7101 1751
www.theluxe.co.uk
by Sunni Sidup
One of the things that I like best about Saturday morning breakfasts is the routine of dividing and reading the paper. Sarah gets the self-torture out of the way early by reading the Work section first. I start with the magazine and then swap with Kate for the Review, and Raoul goes straight for the news, dictating the world’s events to me as I salivate over Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest recipe. Sport is ignored entirely, and it takes a particularly long and lingering breakfast for the Family section to make an appearance. We can be quiet like this for hours, with only the crunching of toast and the trickle of tea to disturb us.
Not so at The Luxe, recently opened in Spitalfields market. Sat beneath a speaker blaring electronic remixes of generic British boy bands, the music is so loud that I’m having trouble discerning if I ever actually left last night’s party. Time is also against us. It seems that half of East London has come to sample the new local, and so the waiters fuss around us, clearing our plates before we can even put our forks down. It’s evident that we’re wanted out, and I’m not even halfway through the Review yet.
For £5.50 the vegetarian breakfast is generous and well-priced: eggs, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, tomatoes, veggie sausage and toast all vie for attention on the same plate. The toast is soggy on the bottom but overall no one complains too much. I opt for poached eggs on toast with bacon and am similarly disappointed with my limp and unappealing slice of white bread. The poached eggs make up for it somewhat with solid white exteriors and gushing yolky goodness, and the bacon is cooked to a crispy perfection.
I am in need of caffeine and order a tea and an espresso coffee, and I am disappointed with both. The tea comes in a mug with the bag still in. As someone who usually drinks her tea black, I am dismayed that the brew (or should I say stew?) is totally undrinkable without milk. The lukewarm and bitter espresso is also a let-down. Despite my fatigue and its diminutive size, I cannot get it all down.
Having only been open a mere few weeks, I’m willing to put my gripes down to teething issues and return to The Luxe at a later date. Open until 11pm and serving as a bar as well as a restaurant, perhaps it's best to enjoy this place from lunchtime onwards, and leave the breakfast papers at home.
109 Commercial Street,
Spitalfields
E1 6BG
020 7101 1751
www.theluxe.co.uk
by Sunni Sidup
One of the things that I like best about Saturday morning breakfasts is the routine of dividing and reading the paper. Sarah gets the self-torture out of the way early by reading the Work section first. I start with the magazine and then swap with Kate for the Review, and Raoul goes straight for the news, dictating the world’s events to me as I salivate over Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest recipe. Sport is ignored entirely, and it takes a particularly long and lingering breakfast for the Family section to make an appearance. We can be quiet like this for hours, with only the crunching of toast and the trickle of tea to disturb us.
Not so at The Luxe, recently opened in Spitalfields market. Sat beneath a speaker blaring electronic remixes of generic British boy bands, the music is so loud that I’m having trouble discerning if I ever actually left last night’s party. Time is also against us. It seems that half of East London has come to sample the new local, and so the waiters fuss around us, clearing our plates before we can even put our forks down. It’s evident that we’re wanted out, and I’m not even halfway through the Review yet.
For £5.50 the vegetarian breakfast is generous and well-priced: eggs, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, tomatoes, veggie sausage and toast all vie for attention on the same plate. The toast is soggy on the bottom but overall no one complains too much. I opt for poached eggs on toast with bacon and am similarly disappointed with my limp and unappealing slice of white bread. The poached eggs make up for it somewhat with solid white exteriors and gushing yolky goodness, and the bacon is cooked to a crispy perfection.
I am in need of caffeine and order a tea and an espresso coffee, and I am disappointed with both. The tea comes in a mug with the bag still in. As someone who usually drinks her tea black, I am dismayed that the brew (or should I say stew?) is totally undrinkable without milk. The lukewarm and bitter espresso is also a let-down. Despite my fatigue and its diminutive size, I cannot get it all down.
Having only been open a mere few weeks, I’m willing to put my gripes down to teething issues and return to The Luxe at a later date. Open until 11pm and serving as a bar as well as a restaurant, perhaps it's best to enjoy this place from lunchtime onwards, and leave the breakfast papers at home.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Olympia Restaurant, Mount Airy, USA
Olympia Restaurant
602 Linville Rd
Mount Airy
North Carolina
USA 27030
+1 (336) 786-7556
by Hashley Brown
...
OUTSIDE RESTAURANT
Hashley Brown rushes from his Cadillac Escalade with New York licence plates through the torrential summer rain. Peering through the steamed up windows of the restaurant, he can just make out the outline of bearded men in dungarees. Most of them are wearing caps.
…
INSIDE RESTAURANT
Taking a seat Hashley is joined by the City Commissioner and his wife. This is the first time they have met.
Waitress: “Hey, how y’all doin?, Whadda y’all gonna have to drink”
HB: “Splendid, thank you. Coffee please”
Waitress: “I just love you're ah-ccent. Hello ‘Lundun’, ‘Splendid’, huh-huh!”
…
IN KITCHEN
Hashley is talking noisily to the owner of the restaurant.
Proprietor: “To have a true Southern breakfast you’ve gotta have grits, you’ve gotta have home-made sausage gravy, gotta make your biscuits from scratch; sell every part of the pig, tenderloin, ham, sausage, bacon..
HB: “What about eggs?”
Proprietor: “Eggs are very important, you can get ‘em scrambled, scrambled soft, scrambled medium, scrambled well, over light, over easy, over medium, over medium well, over well, over hard, now which ones did I leave out? poached, boiled, basted, so I guess that’s what about twenty different ways, at least.”
…
AT TABLE
The order arrives. Pale cornmeal grits like anaemic porridge are doused with butter and salt. The fluffy biscuits, like savoury scones, come with their own paddling pool of sausage gravy. Like a meaty white sauce it slowly thickens as the languorous Southern morning drifts by. Country Ham is the saltiest thing on the table, if not in the whole state. The City Commissioner smiles.
…
OUTSIDE RESTAURANT
Hashley struggles from the table, the last biscuit starting to weigh heavily on his constitution. As he crosses the car park, now sparkling with the clarity that only a rainstorm can bring to a summer morning, the waitress accosts him.
Waitress: “Will you say ‘Splendid’ again?”
HB: “Um, splendid?”
Waitress: “Huh-huh! Now y’all come back and see us again y’hear”
Hashley embraces the waitress.
…
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
G Muratori, Clerkenwell
***G MURATORI HAS NOW CLOSED***
G Muratori
162 Farringdon Road
Clerkenwell
EC1R 3AS
020 7837 4015
by Hashley Brown
Two days with no letters. If I was a postman I'd stay in bed. Imagine! It's not the kind of profession with many lie-ins, although I guess industrial action isn't about having fun, more about standing in a line outside your office (and, you know, defending a vital industry against unprecedented change, harassment and bullying). But in any case there wasn't really any protest when I arrived at the Mount Pleasant depot last Friday morning for another frontline LRB despatch - in fact there wasn't really anyone. So, in the absence of any inside scoop on a disgruntled postie's choice of pork products, I turned to the proprietor of the nearest cafe. The man in First Class Cafe, on Mount Pleasant itself, seemed very pleased: the union fund the bacon sarnie and cups of tea habits of the picketers, which is good for them and certainly good for him. "I send 'em a bill at the end. One man's misery, is... well you know..." he trailed off.
I needed a sit down to contemplate the complex economics at play, and although the 'First Class' may have won prizes for its topical nomenclature, it didn't really have any seats, so a retreat was in order. Just down the hill, and round the back of the business end of the Royal Mail's sorting office, sits the Muratori cafe. It's wonderfully brown, and run by an Italian lady of advancing years called Vita, who dispatches the cups of tea on the steadier side of very slowly. Vita's been there for 50 years, and as I nervously told her that I'd like to order off-piste from their small but well worn menu, she encouraged me to order what I liked, with enough warmth and affection for me to feel like a regular already, only pausing in taking my order to yell, 'Toast burning!' across the room, in some olfactory pavlovian reaction to the first tendrils of smoke creeping out from the kitchen.
The Muratori is a cabbie's favourite, but looks out on the bustling cycling freeway that is Margery Street. I've often wondered whether the cab drivers are sizing up their opponents over their egg and chips, or just as I was, marvelling at the variety of London's bicycle pushers. Neither probably, but over my sausage, bubble, egg, black pudding and toast I kept a wary eye out for the cabbie who had called me a 'silly c*nt' as I pedalled home the night before. The indignity of sharing a breakfast table with one's 4-wheeled nemesis may have been pushing things a bit too far. Anyhow, the food was great. Fat jolly sausages, generous black pudding, a bubble with a healthy but not over-zealous green to white ratio, and a perfect egg. The tea was good and strong, and the toast not in the least bit burnt - this place really did live up to Vita's claims. "Remember, where the taxi drivers are, the food is the best!". I'd learnt no more about the postal strike, but for less than £4 had had a lovely breakfast.
G Muratori
162 Farringdon Road
Clerkenwell
EC1R 3AS
020 7837 4015
by Hashley Brown
Two days with no letters. If I was a postman I'd stay in bed. Imagine! It's not the kind of profession with many lie-ins, although I guess industrial action isn't about having fun, more about standing in a line outside your office (and, you know, defending a vital industry against unprecedented change, harassment and bullying). But in any case there wasn't really any protest when I arrived at the Mount Pleasant depot last Friday morning for another frontline LRB despatch - in fact there wasn't really anyone. So, in the absence of any inside scoop on a disgruntled postie's choice of pork products, I turned to the proprietor of the nearest cafe. The man in First Class Cafe, on Mount Pleasant itself, seemed very pleased: the union fund the bacon sarnie and cups of tea habits of the picketers, which is good for them and certainly good for him. "I send 'em a bill at the end. One man's misery, is... well you know..." he trailed off.
I needed a sit down to contemplate the complex economics at play, and although the 'First Class' may have won prizes for its topical nomenclature, it didn't really have any seats, so a retreat was in order. Just down the hill, and round the back of the business end of the Royal Mail's sorting office, sits the Muratori cafe. It's wonderfully brown, and run by an Italian lady of advancing years called Vita, who dispatches the cups of tea on the steadier side of very slowly. Vita's been there for 50 years, and as I nervously told her that I'd like to order off-piste from their small but well worn menu, she encouraged me to order what I liked, with enough warmth and affection for me to feel like a regular already, only pausing in taking my order to yell, 'Toast burning!' across the room, in some olfactory pavlovian reaction to the first tendrils of smoke creeping out from the kitchen.
The Muratori is a cabbie's favourite, but looks out on the bustling cycling freeway that is Margery Street. I've often wondered whether the cab drivers are sizing up their opponents over their egg and chips, or just as I was, marvelling at the variety of London's bicycle pushers. Neither probably, but over my sausage, bubble, egg, black pudding and toast I kept a wary eye out for the cabbie who had called me a 'silly c*nt' as I pedalled home the night before. The indignity of sharing a breakfast table with one's 4-wheeled nemesis may have been pushing things a bit too far. Anyhow, the food was great. Fat jolly sausages, generous black pudding, a bubble with a healthy but not over-zealous green to white ratio, and a perfect egg. The tea was good and strong, and the toast not in the least bit burnt - this place really did live up to Vita's claims. "Remember, where the taxi drivers are, the food is the best!". I'd learnt no more about the postal strike, but for less than £4 had had a lovely breakfast.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Foyer, BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush
The Foyer
BBC Television Centre
Wood Lane
Shepherd's Bush
W12 7RJ
www.bbc.co.uk
(open to staff and their guests only)
by Eggy Mair
Spare a thought for the philosophical problems of the night shift worker. Breakfast: is it the bowl of cereal you grab after stumbling out of bed in the middle of the afternoon, while still several hours shy of your recommended daily allowance of sleep? Is the meal you put away at the crack of dawn actually dinner, or is it just breakfast in another time zone? Can a breakfast really be considered "all day" when the outlet serving it is only open from midnight till 5pm?
Your intrepid correspondent finds himself considering these dilemmas, while midway through a gruelling week of nights spent in Television Centre. During the day, several thousand people work there, but overnight, a forgotten few are hidden away in its labyrinth of curved corridors, writing the morning's news, keeping services for insomniacs on air, and dusting and polishing Mark Thompson's throne. Making sure all these people can do their jobs smoothly relies on the relentlessly cheerful duo in the Foyer Cafe.
For £2.15, I think it's fair to assume that the 'all-day' breakfast on offer is either subsidised, or made from pretty poor quality ingredients. Having tried most of its combinations, I think your licence fee is probably safe. The bacon is salty, and often so crispy as to preclude cutting with the supplied plastic cutlery. The sausage is bland; its vegetarian counterpart a cylinder of Quorny nothingness. The fried egg can be a saving grace, but only if you can get it back to your office before it solidifies. I tried the poached option one day, and was baffled to find that it tasted of water, not egg.
I still don't know what they use to make the toast, but the plasticy texture and stripey pattern leads me to believe it may be a laminator - fried bread is a tastier, if deadlier choice. The mushrooms are generally too bland to merit a comment, and the hash browns notable mainly for their ability to melt through the polystyrene container. However, it's the presence of the takeaway box that causes a key problem with the dawn feast: baked beans, which can brighten any cooked breakfast, just swamp everything else in the box while in transit back to your desk. I have one colleague who will enthuse about this as a benefit to anyone who doesn't care to listen, but he's generally wrong about everything, and can be safely ignored. Substituting a grilled tomato is still a poor substitute for beans.
Nothing about the Foyer's breakfast is particularly satisfying, but the alternative is attempting the commute home on an empty stomach, and that's a potentially even less satisfying. Just another problem for the night shift worker.
BBC Television Centre
Wood Lane
Shepherd's Bush
W12 7RJ
www.bbc.co.uk
(open to staff and their guests only)
by Eggy Mair
Spare a thought for the philosophical problems of the night shift worker. Breakfast: is it the bowl of cereal you grab after stumbling out of bed in the middle of the afternoon, while still several hours shy of your recommended daily allowance of sleep? Is the meal you put away at the crack of dawn actually dinner, or is it just breakfast in another time zone? Can a breakfast really be considered "all day" when the outlet serving it is only open from midnight till 5pm?
Your intrepid correspondent finds himself considering these dilemmas, while midway through a gruelling week of nights spent in Television Centre. During the day, several thousand people work there, but overnight, a forgotten few are hidden away in its labyrinth of curved corridors, writing the morning's news, keeping services for insomniacs on air, and dusting and polishing Mark Thompson's throne. Making sure all these people can do their jobs smoothly relies on the relentlessly cheerful duo in the Foyer Cafe.
For £2.15, I think it's fair to assume that the 'all-day' breakfast on offer is either subsidised, or made from pretty poor quality ingredients. Having tried most of its combinations, I think your licence fee is probably safe. The bacon is salty, and often so crispy as to preclude cutting with the supplied plastic cutlery. The sausage is bland; its vegetarian counterpart a cylinder of Quorny nothingness. The fried egg can be a saving grace, but only if you can get it back to your office before it solidifies. I tried the poached option one day, and was baffled to find that it tasted of water, not egg.
I still don't know what they use to make the toast, but the plasticy texture and stripey pattern leads me to believe it may be a laminator - fried bread is a tastier, if deadlier choice. The mushrooms are generally too bland to merit a comment, and the hash browns notable mainly for their ability to melt through the polystyrene container. However, it's the presence of the takeaway box that causes a key problem with the dawn feast: baked beans, which can brighten any cooked breakfast, just swamp everything else in the box while in transit back to your desk. I have one colleague who will enthuse about this as a benefit to anyone who doesn't care to listen, but he's generally wrong about everything, and can be safely ignored. Substituting a grilled tomato is still a poor substitute for beans.
Nothing about the Foyer's breakfast is particularly satisfying, but the alternative is attempting the commute home on an empty stomach, and that's a potentially even less satisfying. Just another problem for the night shift worker.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Bob Bob Ricard, Soho
*****BOB BOB RICARD IS NO LONGER SERVING BREAKFAST*****
Bob Bob Ricard
1 - 3 Upper James St
Soho
W1F 9DF
020 3145 1000
www.bobbobricard.com
by Emma Ricano
Last week I was surprised to receive a call from an unknown gent claiming to know the whereabouts of dearest Yvette, who I’d not heard from since our trip to Dottie's. He suggested we meet for breakfast. I suggested Bob Bob Ricard. If my friend was swimming with the fishes I wanted to hear it someplace public.
With an appetite the size of Nelson’s column (and the fuzz on speed dial) I stepped into BBR, just off Regent Street. I made a mental note of the turquoise and gold wallpaper. One day my living space will be as camp as this.
I was ushered to a booth, in which I perched near the edge; I wanted privacy, but also visibility in case the gent decided to abduct me too. I checked my rouge in the reflection of our personal toaster (one is provided at every table) and knocked back a silver pot of English Breakfast tea. It was just the right strength to take the edge off my nerves, but tea is not to be treated like tequila and my throat was seared like tuna.
Tall, dark and wearing a cravat, he arrived. He ordered the BBR Pink lemonade. A satisfied smile played across his lips and he’d drained the glass before uttering a word. I braced myself, for a ransom demand at the very least.
Then he told me that Yvette was doing so well in an NBC cop drama that she’d decided to cut all ties with the UK. What a Judas, I cried.
Small mercy I’d ordered a comforting BBR Morning Toaster selection. I fed soft muffin halves into the jaws of my personal toaster, slamming my hand on the ejection button every five seconds to purge my anger at being both abandoned and much less successful. It wasn’t long before my mood was lifted by lashings of unsalted butter, sloshes of tea and the finest BBR lemon curd I’d tasted this side of the green belt. My friendship with Judas Yvette may have withered on the vine but that buttery, tangy, zesty curd gave me a lust for life I hadn’t felt since discovering sticklebricks.
Emboldened by these victuals, conversation began to flow. He was charming, but I found myself distracted by the plump, poached eggs of his Florentine, which I wanted to stab, like a psycho. Finally the urge grew too much. I distracted him by pointing out the curious pink outfits worn by the waiters, went in for the kill and was rewarded with a sparktastic spinach-and-egg explosion in my mouth.
And then it happened. As I was toasting my last muffin slice, our fingers met on the ejection button. There was an electrical spark, and it wasn’t caused by a badly wired appliance. In that moment I realised I’d found someone who shared my ADD when it comes to toasters, and an exciting future lay before us - such as a full English, with extra bacon.
Bob Bob Ricard
1 - 3 Upper James St
Soho
W1F 9DF
020 3145 1000
www.bobbobricard.com
by Emma Ricano
Last week I was surprised to receive a call from an unknown gent claiming to know the whereabouts of dearest Yvette, who I’d not heard from since our trip to Dottie's. He suggested we meet for breakfast. I suggested Bob Bob Ricard. If my friend was swimming with the fishes I wanted to hear it someplace public.
With an appetite the size of Nelson’s column (and the fuzz on speed dial) I stepped into BBR, just off Regent Street. I made a mental note of the turquoise and gold wallpaper. One day my living space will be as camp as this.
I was ushered to a booth, in which I perched near the edge; I wanted privacy, but also visibility in case the gent decided to abduct me too. I checked my rouge in the reflection of our personal toaster (one is provided at every table) and knocked back a silver pot of English Breakfast tea. It was just the right strength to take the edge off my nerves, but tea is not to be treated like tequila and my throat was seared like tuna.
Tall, dark and wearing a cravat, he arrived. He ordered the BBR Pink lemonade. A satisfied smile played across his lips and he’d drained the glass before uttering a word. I braced myself, for a ransom demand at the very least.
Then he told me that Yvette was doing so well in an NBC cop drama that she’d decided to cut all ties with the UK. What a Judas, I cried.
Small mercy I’d ordered a comforting BBR Morning Toaster selection. I fed soft muffin halves into the jaws of my personal toaster, slamming my hand on the ejection button every five seconds to purge my anger at being both abandoned and much less successful. It wasn’t long before my mood was lifted by lashings of unsalted butter, sloshes of tea and the finest BBR lemon curd I’d tasted this side of the green belt. My friendship with Judas Yvette may have withered on the vine but that buttery, tangy, zesty curd gave me a lust for life I hadn’t felt since discovering sticklebricks.
Emboldened by these victuals, conversation began to flow. He was charming, but I found myself distracted by the plump, poached eggs of his Florentine, which I wanted to stab, like a psycho. Finally the urge grew too much. I distracted him by pointing out the curious pink outfits worn by the waiters, went in for the kill and was rewarded with a sparktastic spinach-and-egg explosion in my mouth.
And then it happened. As I was toasting my last muffin slice, our fingers met on the ejection button. There was an electrical spark, and it wasn’t caused by a badly wired appliance. In that moment I realised I’d found someone who shared my ADD when it comes to toasters, and an exciting future lay before us - such as a full English, with extra bacon.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Wapping Project, Wapping
The Wapping Project
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
Wapping Wall
Wapping
E1 3SG
020 7680 2080
www.thewappingproject.com
by Malcolm Eggs
A while ago I considered starting a political party. It was to be called The Cut and Run Democrats, its one policy being to pool all the money in the country and divide it equally between everybody. With around £100,000 each, we could then get the hell out of here to hotter, cheaper places. The rich wouldn’t have liked it, but being so far outnumbered they could never win an election. It could not have gone wrong.
Since then, the LRB millions have flowed in and my radical ideology has mellowed somewhat. I now think The Wapping Project – a glorious restaurant in a decaying power station – offers a more compelling and realistic vision for the future. Let’s forget the old effort, the old scrum of industry and focus on what we now do best: eating, with a special focus on breakfast.
We’ll leave in the gauges and levers, the cogs and the pulleys. Greened with age but still proud, they remind us of the sterling work put in by our mothers and fathers to get us here. But amongst all that we’ll place speakers playing endless guitar instrumentals. Our milkshakes will be speckled with the black of real vanilla, our conversation will be roused by the pep of proper coffee and our fry-ups will be as carefully composed as the ceilings of central Venice, which is just as well because the whole place is bathed in a radiant light that occasionally forms into a single beam, enlightening a plate of pancakes or a particularly celestial sausage. Everything will taste fantastic, the portions will be generous and, my brothers and sisters, there will be a good range of options on the menu.
We will march on Battersea. We will heat bacon on the nuclear ball thing at Sellafield. We will laugh at the fact that there is a power station called Eggington.
In summary, it was a fucking good breakfast.
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
Wapping Wall
Wapping
E1 3SG
020 7680 2080
www.thewappingproject.com
by Malcolm Eggs
A while ago I considered starting a political party. It was to be called The Cut and Run Democrats, its one policy being to pool all the money in the country and divide it equally between everybody. With around £100,000 each, we could then get the hell out of here to hotter, cheaper places. The rich wouldn’t have liked it, but being so far outnumbered they could never win an election. It could not have gone wrong.
Since then, the LRB millions have flowed in and my radical ideology has mellowed somewhat. I now think The Wapping Project – a glorious restaurant in a decaying power station – offers a more compelling and realistic vision for the future. Let’s forget the old effort, the old scrum of industry and focus on what we now do best: eating, with a special focus on breakfast.
We’ll leave in the gauges and levers, the cogs and the pulleys. Greened with age but still proud, they remind us of the sterling work put in by our mothers and fathers to get us here. But amongst all that we’ll place speakers playing endless guitar instrumentals. Our milkshakes will be speckled with the black of real vanilla, our conversation will be roused by the pep of proper coffee and our fry-ups will be as carefully composed as the ceilings of central Venice, which is just as well because the whole place is bathed in a radiant light that occasionally forms into a single beam, enlightening a plate of pancakes or a particularly celestial sausage. Everything will taste fantastic, the portions will be generous and, my brothers and sisters, there will be a good range of options on the menu.
We will march on Battersea. We will heat bacon on the nuclear ball thing at Sellafield. We will laugh at the fact that there is a power station called Eggington.
In summary, it was a fucking good breakfast.
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