by Blake Pudding
Rappers have a taste for the finer things in life and not only do they love luxury goods but they love telling us about their love of luxury goods. Cristal champagne is the most famous example but Courvoisier, Bentley and Rolex have all been praised by hip hop types. Now no one likes conspicuous consumption more than me, but isn’t it a little disappointing that they went for such obvious brands?
If I was in a position to influence popular tastes then I’d go for something more distinctive; something that speaks of taste without being pretentious. This must have been the thinking behind top grime artist Tinie Tempah’s (real name Patrick Okogwu) decision to plug Yorkshire Tea on twitter yesterday. His exact words were “Omdz move over PG Tips.” I’m not sure exactly what he means but the sentiment is clear – Mr Tempah is a discerning tea drinker and he is not afraid to shout about it. Not as discerning, however, as one of his fans who comments that he prefers Yorkshire Gold calling it “the Cristal of teas”.
Tinie Tempah is currently riding high in the charts with Pass Out. Let’s hope that Taylors of Harrogate, producers of Yorkshire Tea, will not now try to distance themselves from their place in popular music as the makers of Cristal did so disdainfully with American rappers. Perhaps they would like to sponsor his next tour with a special one off free gig at Bettys Tea Rooms in Northallerton.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Dean Street Townhouse, Soho
Dean Street Townhouse
69-71 Dean Street
Soho
W1D 3SE
020 7434 1775
www.deanstreettownhouse.com
by Cher E. Jamm
It calls us over from across the street. 'Come in, come in' it says, with the call of a siren. We can't resist. It's been too long since we've spent a day together so we've decided to enjoy a secret day off. No-one will ever know; the possibilities are endless.
The sun isn't shining outside, but it may as well be inside. Think cosy country house hotel. Think slick 1950s French bistro. Then mesh the two together sort of, but not really. It's the type of place you want to move into. We're seated at a red banquet. It's hard to believe a branch of the Slug and Lettuce once stood here. The menu appears.
It's early, perhaps only just past half eight, but the place is buzzing with jolly breakfasters, mostly, it seems, made up of Soho's media contingent. This doesn't put us off - we're cocooned from this, in our own little booth, our hands thawing out as we pour steaming cups of tea from a shared pot.
He doesn't falter, and orders Full English as soon as the chirpy waiter trots over again. I hover over grilled kippers for a moment and then order the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Kippers seem too uncouth, too harsh, for today.
Breakfast arrives with neither fuss nor bother. An artful Full English: two eggs beaming like two small suns; the bacon is crisp and refined; the mushrooms, silky and somewhat obscene; the sausage lies puffed and glistening next to a grilled tomato, which, as usual, is nothing more than a grilled tomato; the black pudding is elegance on a plate.
He pushes the black pudding to one side. He's gone off it these days. I urge him to have a small taste (for you, dear reader, all for you). He refuses. A flash of anger passes over us, but it would be a shame to break the spell, at least so early on.
We eat in careful silence, stealing glances at one another, attempting to gauge the other's mood. The salmon is pale and delicious, the scrambles creamy and delicate, but I seem to have lost my appetite, I don't appreciate them fully. I'm sorry. He has finished eating, declaring it possibly the best he's ever had. No eye contact. Only the fat disk of blood sausage remains. A quiet and cold reminder of how we walk on wire.
69-71 Dean Street
Soho
W1D 3SE
020 7434 1775
www.deanstreettownhouse.com
by Cher E. Jamm
It calls us over from across the street. 'Come in, come in' it says, with the call of a siren. We can't resist. It's been too long since we've spent a day together so we've decided to enjoy a secret day off. No-one will ever know; the possibilities are endless.
The sun isn't shining outside, but it may as well be inside. Think cosy country house hotel. Think slick 1950s French bistro. Then mesh the two together sort of, but not really. It's the type of place you want to move into. We're seated at a red banquet. It's hard to believe a branch of the Slug and Lettuce once stood here. The menu appears.
It's early, perhaps only just past half eight, but the place is buzzing with jolly breakfasters, mostly, it seems, made up of Soho's media contingent. This doesn't put us off - we're cocooned from this, in our own little booth, our hands thawing out as we pour steaming cups of tea from a shared pot.
He doesn't falter, and orders Full English as soon as the chirpy waiter trots over again. I hover over grilled kippers for a moment and then order the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Kippers seem too uncouth, too harsh, for today.
Breakfast arrives with neither fuss nor bother. An artful Full English: two eggs beaming like two small suns; the bacon is crisp and refined; the mushrooms, silky and somewhat obscene; the sausage lies puffed and glistening next to a grilled tomato, which, as usual, is nothing more than a grilled tomato; the black pudding is elegance on a plate.
He pushes the black pudding to one side. He's gone off it these days. I urge him to have a small taste (for you, dear reader, all for you). He refuses. A flash of anger passes over us, but it would be a shame to break the spell, at least so early on.
We eat in careful silence, stealing glances at one another, attempting to gauge the other's mood. The salmon is pale and delicious, the scrambles creamy and delicate, but I seem to have lost my appetite, I don't appreciate them fully. I'm sorry. He has finished eating, declaring it possibly the best he's ever had. No eye contact. Only the fat disk of blood sausage remains. A quiet and cold reminder of how we walk on wire.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Caravan, Clerkenwell
Caravan
11 - 13 Exmouth Market
Clerkenwell
EC1R 4QD
020 7833 8115
caravanonexmouth.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
"The beans were just roasted this morning," said the barista, as if by way of warning. "So if there's a certain... fruitiness to the flavour that will be why."
I hereby coin the term 'caravan apology', as in 'an apology for a benevolent state of affairs'. See: "I'm sorry I'm so early" or "I'm sorry, I know we said we wouldn't do presents"; this was the finest cup of coffee I have set to my lips in as long as I can remember, the froth patterned exactly like one of those 70s ring-binders and the taste smoother than a Don Draper infidelity binge.
We ordered baked eggs with chorizo and a side of black pudding. The latter, from Franconia in Putney, was remarkable - light, subtly smoky and, within a matter of seconds, absent. The chorizo and eggs (£11 for two) were delivered chicken madras-style in a handled silver pot, the chorizo bits lurking like crocodiles in a crimson-doused pool of red pepper, green parsley, piquant oily sauce, Greek yoghurt and gloopy, friendly eggs. It became a proper mess, but a bloody delectable one.
What about the service? Tap water was poured immediately without request, then replenished zealously. The room itself? Attractive and light, a mix of Wellington cocktail bar, London bistro and a branch of All Saints. Well-heeled new mothers and rubber-heeled freelancers have already formed a demographic stand-off.
If I must have a gripe, it's that the 'Caravan Fry Up' is £8 but comprising eggs, bacon, tomatoes, soy mushrooms and toast is holding back on some treasures: black pudding and bubble are available but must be ordered as sides at up to £3.50 each. Vietnam-style mission creep is a danger.
Four and a half years ago, I was in this same room - it being until recently Al's Café Bar - complaining in the first ever LRB review that the bacon was only cooked on one side. "I'm sorry you closed, Al's," can be my first caravan apology.
11 - 13 Exmouth Market
Clerkenwell
EC1R 4QD
020 7833 8115
caravanonexmouth.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
"The beans were just roasted this morning," said the barista, as if by way of warning. "So if there's a certain... fruitiness to the flavour that will be why."
I hereby coin the term 'caravan apology', as in 'an apology for a benevolent state of affairs'. See: "I'm sorry I'm so early" or "I'm sorry, I know we said we wouldn't do presents"; this was the finest cup of coffee I have set to my lips in as long as I can remember, the froth patterned exactly like one of those 70s ring-binders and the taste smoother than a Don Draper infidelity binge.
We ordered baked eggs with chorizo and a side of black pudding. The latter, from Franconia in Putney, was remarkable - light, subtly smoky and, within a matter of seconds, absent. The chorizo and eggs (£11 for two) were delivered chicken madras-style in a handled silver pot, the chorizo bits lurking like crocodiles in a crimson-doused pool of red pepper, green parsley, piquant oily sauce, Greek yoghurt and gloopy, friendly eggs. It became a proper mess, but a bloody delectable one.
What about the service? Tap water was poured immediately without request, then replenished zealously. The room itself? Attractive and light, a mix of Wellington cocktail bar, London bistro and a branch of All Saints. Well-heeled new mothers and rubber-heeled freelancers have already formed a demographic stand-off.
If I must have a gripe, it's that the 'Caravan Fry Up' is £8 but comprising eggs, bacon, tomatoes, soy mushrooms and toast is holding back on some treasures: black pudding and bubble are available but must be ordered as sides at up to £3.50 each. Vietnam-style mission creep is a danger.
Four and a half years ago, I was in this same room - it being until recently Al's Café Bar - complaining in the first ever LRB review that the bacon was only cooked on one side. "I'm sorry you closed, Al's," can be my first caravan apology.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Three Bells, Heathrow Airport
The Three Bells
Terminal Three (pre-security)
Heathrow Airport
TW6 1AD
020 8897 6755
by Joyce Carol Oats
This is the thing about restaurants in airports: they shouldn’t be good. They should be pretty bad. If they were good you might want to linger there, might regret departure, and regretting departure is not something that you should be doing when you are in a place that is all about leaving. We’re pleased to find one, therefore, that strongly resembles a very expensive Wetherspoon’s, and therefore promises to be pretty bad.
Landside restaurants are pretty bad, in particular, because they are full of people being left behind as well as travellers. We are here because only Departing Friend is going: she is emigrating to America, and a trip on this scale, an actual emigration, seemed to require me and Departing Friend’s Brother to pay our respects to her in person, although now we are here we are just grumpy and quiet and sad. We take our seats amongst the other heavy-hearted people: here, a couple clutching hands over untouched plates of breakfast glazed with cold bacon fat; there, a moist-eyed grandmother, her daughter, two small shouty grandchildren who no one would ever want to sit next to on a plane.
This is the flavour of goodbye: a thick Cumberland sausage patty, an egg, a puffy white bun, ketchup. I sink my teeth into it and am immediately surprised because, I realise, I am expecting it to taste like a McDonald’s sausage McMuffin. And it doesn’t, perhaps because it costs about £5. There’s something distinctly British about that Cumberland flavour, that even the most uninspiring Cumberland-esque sausage lacks something of the metallic tang of one with the McD recipe, probably because it might contain fewer pieces of actual metal.
It is pretty bad. And the coffee is pretty bad. And Departing Friend and Departing Friend’s Brother are ploughing their way through their English breakfasts like it is their duty, but they are pretty bad. Departing Friend cannot face the tomato. I bite it and it tastes like nothing, a small mercy on the part of the chefs, to ensure that in a place so charged with emotion, the flavour of the tomato will evoke no feeling. And by the time we pay (something ridiculous, like £20) and proceed to wave Departing Friend through security, we are all so preoccupied by being sluggish and sickly that we forget to cry.
Terminal Three (pre-security)
Heathrow Airport
TW6 1AD
020 8897 6755
by Joyce Carol Oats
This is the thing about restaurants in airports: they shouldn’t be good. They should be pretty bad. If they were good you might want to linger there, might regret departure, and regretting departure is not something that you should be doing when you are in a place that is all about leaving. We’re pleased to find one, therefore, that strongly resembles a very expensive Wetherspoon’s, and therefore promises to be pretty bad.
Landside restaurants are pretty bad, in particular, because they are full of people being left behind as well as travellers. We are here because only Departing Friend is going: she is emigrating to America, and a trip on this scale, an actual emigration, seemed to require me and Departing Friend’s Brother to pay our respects to her in person, although now we are here we are just grumpy and quiet and sad. We take our seats amongst the other heavy-hearted people: here, a couple clutching hands over untouched plates of breakfast glazed with cold bacon fat; there, a moist-eyed grandmother, her daughter, two small shouty grandchildren who no one would ever want to sit next to on a plane.
This is the flavour of goodbye: a thick Cumberland sausage patty, an egg, a puffy white bun, ketchup. I sink my teeth into it and am immediately surprised because, I realise, I am expecting it to taste like a McDonald’s sausage McMuffin. And it doesn’t, perhaps because it costs about £5. There’s something distinctly British about that Cumberland flavour, that even the most uninspiring Cumberland-esque sausage lacks something of the metallic tang of one with the McD recipe, probably because it might contain fewer pieces of actual metal.
It is pretty bad. And the coffee is pretty bad. And Departing Friend and Departing Friend’s Brother are ploughing their way through their English breakfasts like it is their duty, but they are pretty bad. Departing Friend cannot face the tomato. I bite it and it tastes like nothing, a small mercy on the part of the chefs, to ensure that in a place so charged with emotion, the flavour of the tomato will evoke no feeling. And by the time we pay (something ridiculous, like £20) and proceed to wave Departing Friend through security, we are all so preoccupied by being sluggish and sickly that we forget to cry.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Christopher's, Covent Garden
Christopher’s
18 Wellington Street
Covent Garden
London WC2E 7DD
020 7240 4222
www.christophersgrill.com
by Sadie Frosties
I hate the art of Edward Hopper. You had the Nighthawks poster. I saw you buying it at the poster sale during fresher’s week in 1995. You’ve imagined yourself there haven’t you, sitting in that diner. You’re that guy, and that there, that’s your lady.
No you’re not. And nor am I. Although it would seem Christopher’s would really like us to believe it to be the case. Christopher’s fancies itself as just this kind of old fashioned American restaurant... Indeed, sitting in one of its velvety cushioned booths, I felt myself slipping into such an illusion and could almost forget the gaggle of lycra-clad 20 year olds drinking vodka cocktails at 11am on a Sunday.
With its attempts at inventive optimism, the food could also be compared (if, say, a breakfast review’s consistency was at stake) to the art of Edward Hopper. Hash brown with Eggs Royale? Weird, but excellent! I am of the unfortunate breakfast disadvantage of being unable to eat wheat products, so the presence of a crunchy potato rectangle cheers me up no end. And when I told the waiter of my lamentable circumstance in the hope of a stealthy muffin substitution I was met with a stony silence and a glare which suggested perhaps in my youth I’d nicked his wallet and slapped his mum. The muffins stayed.
Still, I’ll try to be objective. The poached eggs were really very good, displaying that bulbous, compact quality that I’ve never quite been able to recreate at home, and were not the slightest bit watery. The smoked salmon was thickly cut and abundant. The hollandaise was fine. The orange juice was, I’m told, outstanding, but I plumped for the coffee, which was abhorrent. The curious hash brown was the one part that felt the most authentically American: flaccid and eggy in a McDonaldsy type of way. It was something that even though every fibre of your body wants to, nay knows it should hate, another part of you is unable to stop eating it. But it’s disgusting! But I secretly like it. It’s how I really feel about the art of Edward Hopper.
18 Wellington Street
Covent Garden
London WC2E 7DD
020 7240 4222
www.christophersgrill.com
by Sadie Frosties
I hate the art of Edward Hopper. You had the Nighthawks poster. I saw you buying it at the poster sale during fresher’s week in 1995. You’ve imagined yourself there haven’t you, sitting in that diner. You’re that guy, and that there, that’s your lady.
No you’re not. And nor am I. Although it would seem Christopher’s would really like us to believe it to be the case. Christopher’s fancies itself as just this kind of old fashioned American restaurant... Indeed, sitting in one of its velvety cushioned booths, I felt myself slipping into such an illusion and could almost forget the gaggle of lycra-clad 20 year olds drinking vodka cocktails at 11am on a Sunday.
With its attempts at inventive optimism, the food could also be compared (if, say, a breakfast review’s consistency was at stake) to the art of Edward Hopper. Hash brown with Eggs Royale? Weird, but excellent! I am of the unfortunate breakfast disadvantage of being unable to eat wheat products, so the presence of a crunchy potato rectangle cheers me up no end. And when I told the waiter of my lamentable circumstance in the hope of a stealthy muffin substitution I was met with a stony silence and a glare which suggested perhaps in my youth I’d nicked his wallet and slapped his mum. The muffins stayed.
Still, I’ll try to be objective. The poached eggs were really very good, displaying that bulbous, compact quality that I’ve never quite been able to recreate at home, and were not the slightest bit watery. The smoked salmon was thickly cut and abundant. The hollandaise was fine. The orange juice was, I’m told, outstanding, but I plumped for the coffee, which was abhorrent. The curious hash brown was the one part that felt the most authentically American: flaccid and eggy in a McDonaldsy type of way. It was something that even though every fibre of your body wants to, nay knows it should hate, another part of you is unable to stop eating it. But it’s disgusting! But I secretly like it. It’s how I really feel about the art of Edward Hopper.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Fika, Shoreditch
Fika
161a Brick Lane
Shoreditch
E1 6SB
020 7613 2013
www.fikalondon.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
There are few things so stressful as taking a New Yorker to breakfast in London. These people can barely step outside their front doors without tripping over a pile of fresh bagels layered with cream cheese and gravadlax, fluffed stacks of blueberry pancakes, sixteen different varieties of omelettes.
‘You have to take the bus to breakfast?’ says New Yorker One, as we wait for one.
‘It’s raining,’ I say, defensively.
We get to Brick Lane, and I have to think fast: we are hungry, we have just taken a bus, there is a LHR-JFK flight to catch. Albion’s the obvious choice, but I can’t really go back there since the last time when they dropped a stealth prawn into my eggs and a big shellfish-allergy drama ensued. And then I clap eyes on Fika. It’s Swedish. I love Swedish food. I am all about smorgasbords.
‘Do you have Swedish breakfasts in New York?’ I ask my New Yorkers.
‘Not really,’ they say. Win.
The breakfast menu is handed to us by a friendly girl with a fake-looking blonde bob. It’s fake-looking, I realise, because when she turns around it is clear that she hasn’t done a very good job of tucking her perfectly nice brown hair into her blonde wig. This is confusing, and also not propitious: if you can’t make your blonde wig look convincing, will you be able to serve a convincing breakfast? No, you will not.
The choice is not extensive: there are waffles, with a small selection of both sweet and savoury toppings. There are eggs on toast. The bread, according to the menu, is likely to be sourdough. That sounds nice, I think. I like a likely sourdough.
The food comes. New Yorker Number Two ordered a waffle with strawberry jam and cream (£4.50); it is brown and flat and looks uninspiring and small, although it tastes OK. But only OK. New Yorker One and I both opted for the fried eggs. The bread, unlikely enough, is not sourdough at all: it is two halves of what seem to be a rather substantial bun that has been dipped in dishwater. Yes, that’s what I said: dishwater. One half of my bun is water-logged and bitter and soap-flavoured.
Is there any point in going on? Need I comment on the texture of the egg (not bad) the flavour of the reindeer sausage that New Yorker One ordered as a side dish (fine for a reindeer sausage, since I have nothing to compare it to), the quality of the coffee (so-so), the fact that the eggs and toast were served with margarine rather than butter (would be gross if I was not contending with dishwatery bread, which made it seem positively delicious by contrast). I think I need not.
But I do need to apologise to the New Yorkers.
161a Brick Lane
Shoreditch
E1 6SB
020 7613 2013
www.fikalondon.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
There are few things so stressful as taking a New Yorker to breakfast in London. These people can barely step outside their front doors without tripping over a pile of fresh bagels layered with cream cheese and gravadlax, fluffed stacks of blueberry pancakes, sixteen different varieties of omelettes.
‘You have to take the bus to breakfast?’ says New Yorker One, as we wait for one.
‘It’s raining,’ I say, defensively.
We get to Brick Lane, and I have to think fast: we are hungry, we have just taken a bus, there is a LHR-JFK flight to catch. Albion’s the obvious choice, but I can’t really go back there since the last time when they dropped a stealth prawn into my eggs and a big shellfish-allergy drama ensued. And then I clap eyes on Fika. It’s Swedish. I love Swedish food. I am all about smorgasbords.
‘Do you have Swedish breakfasts in New York?’ I ask my New Yorkers.
‘Not really,’ they say. Win.
The breakfast menu is handed to us by a friendly girl with a fake-looking blonde bob. It’s fake-looking, I realise, because when she turns around it is clear that she hasn’t done a very good job of tucking her perfectly nice brown hair into her blonde wig. This is confusing, and also not propitious: if you can’t make your blonde wig look convincing, will you be able to serve a convincing breakfast? No, you will not.
The choice is not extensive: there are waffles, with a small selection of both sweet and savoury toppings. There are eggs on toast. The bread, according to the menu, is likely to be sourdough. That sounds nice, I think. I like a likely sourdough.
The food comes. New Yorker Number Two ordered a waffle with strawberry jam and cream (£4.50); it is brown and flat and looks uninspiring and small, although it tastes OK. But only OK. New Yorker One and I both opted for the fried eggs. The bread, unlikely enough, is not sourdough at all: it is two halves of what seem to be a rather substantial bun that has been dipped in dishwater. Yes, that’s what I said: dishwater. One half of my bun is water-logged and bitter and soap-flavoured.
Is there any point in going on? Need I comment on the texture of the egg (not bad) the flavour of the reindeer sausage that New Yorker One ordered as a side dish (fine for a reindeer sausage, since I have nothing to compare it to), the quality of the coffee (so-so), the fact that the eggs and toast were served with margarine rather than butter (would be gross if I was not contending with dishwatery bread, which made it seem positively delicious by contrast). I think I need not.
But I do need to apologise to the New Yorkers.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Official 2012 Olympics Event, The National Portrait Gallery, St James's
Launch of "The National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 Project"
The National Portrait Gallery
2 St Martin's Place
St James's
WC2H 0HE
by Kipper Sutherland
Riggs and Murtagh
discount and fireworks
Olympic and Breakfast.
There are just some rare and racy conjuctions that really agitate the submandibles - that promise greatness, with just a hint of danger.
It is the last of these pair of nouns I pondered as I found myself tripping down St Martin’s Lane at 8am, on the morning that the countdown to East London’s sportsday ticked past 1000 days to go.
In my hand, an invitation to toast this occasion, to parley “with refreshments” with Kelly Holmes, Seb Coe and company in the National Portrait Gallery, to find out first hand, how the sporting elite fuel up. I wondered if anyone would be in shorts.
As I turned into Trafalgar Square, a phalanx of corporate sponsors were inserting Dame Kelly into a hot air balloon. Waving a cheery, flaming, helium bye-bye, she was released, bemused but beaming into the morning air. My appetite soared with her.
Here I was, a revolving door away from real Olympians and lottery funded catering. My imagination was going to town. There’d be gymnasts mainlining carbs; isotonic grapefruits; Greco-Roman wrestling in Ready-Brek mud-pits. I stood on the threshold of once-in-a-lifetime breakfast experience.
Or so I thought.
But settling into the assemblage, something was wrong. The NPG’s Ondaatje Wing, an all-mingling, cutlery-precluding Corbusian temple of geometry was to be our dining room; vacant box-office workstations our breakfast bar. There was no smell of victuals. The ambience was an appetite-suppressing soundtrack of singsong cultural burblechore and profane media hum. Nobody was holding a plate.
Panic shot from stomach to brain. Then Jonathan Edwards arrived. He was wearing a broad grin and clutching a Pret a Manger bag from which he pulled an egg bap. He clearly knew something we didn't.
Groping for the refreshment table, fears coagulated. Wineglasses, cups, saucers... There would be. No food. I was facing a liquid breakfast. Not the good kind, either, as although the pinkish tinge of the orange juice winked kir-royal I held little hope of feeling that delicious lightening behind the eyes, the gift of a pre 9am cocktail. The coffee was doping-scandal strong and Motherwell brown. I couldn't finish a cup.
And that was it. Someone asked if I wanted apple juice. But I was too sad to answer.
Empty and dejected. I chastised myself for not checking the IOC’s breakfast guidelines, for too readily subscribing to the Olympic ideal of Little Chef.
I glimpsed Clive Woodward, striding through the throng. Here was a man who looks like he starts his day with a weak fruit tea and four John Player Specials. But it made me start. He also looked like a winner.
Maybe, I reflected, there's more to this. Maybe the breakfast isn’t wrong, maybe I am wrong. These are go-getters. An egg for them is not for poaching and covering in béchamel while you’re in a dressing gown at ten to twelve. It’s for putting raw in a spoon, and running 26 miles without dropping. No fuss, no mess.
As a nation, we mistrust mollycoddled or sports-scienced sporting stars, in the same way we mistrust avocado in a full English. Sure, it may be the right thing to do, and if we gave it a whirl it may give us an edge against the Swedes, but it feels like cheating.
We respect a noble loser. Likewise we only really respect a certain type of champion: the Chariots-of-Fire, leave-the-bag-in, stir-it-with-a-biro, knock-it-back, squeeze-in-the-paper-round, hitch-to-the-stadium, three-gold-medals-and-back-to-the-village-in-time-for-Countdown Champion. Come 2012 that’s who should carry the torch.
I felt like doing a star-jump. I vowed from now on to eat all my food in bar form. I left feeling lighter, sportier. I caught the bus home, had a bacon sandwich and went back to bed. Maybe these aren’t my games. There’s always Rio 2016.
The National Portrait Gallery
2 St Martin's Place
St James's
WC2H 0HE
by Kipper Sutherland
Riggs and Murtagh
discount and fireworks
Olympic and Breakfast.
There are just some rare and racy conjuctions that really agitate the submandibles - that promise greatness, with just a hint of danger.
It is the last of these pair of nouns I pondered as I found myself tripping down St Martin’s Lane at 8am, on the morning that the countdown to East London’s sportsday ticked past 1000 days to go.
In my hand, an invitation to toast this occasion, to parley “with refreshments” with Kelly Holmes, Seb Coe and company in the National Portrait Gallery, to find out first hand, how the sporting elite fuel up. I wondered if anyone would be in shorts.
As I turned into Trafalgar Square, a phalanx of corporate sponsors were inserting Dame Kelly into a hot air balloon. Waving a cheery, flaming, helium bye-bye, she was released, bemused but beaming into the morning air. My appetite soared with her.
Here I was, a revolving door away from real Olympians and lottery funded catering. My imagination was going to town. There’d be gymnasts mainlining carbs; isotonic grapefruits; Greco-Roman wrestling in Ready-Brek mud-pits. I stood on the threshold of once-in-a-lifetime breakfast experience.
Or so I thought.
But settling into the assemblage, something was wrong. The NPG’s Ondaatje Wing, an all-mingling, cutlery-precluding Corbusian temple of geometry was to be our dining room; vacant box-office workstations our breakfast bar. There was no smell of victuals. The ambience was an appetite-suppressing soundtrack of singsong cultural burblechore and profane media hum. Nobody was holding a plate.
Panic shot from stomach to brain. Then Jonathan Edwards arrived. He was wearing a broad grin and clutching a Pret a Manger bag from which he pulled an egg bap. He clearly knew something we didn't.
Groping for the refreshment table, fears coagulated. Wineglasses, cups, saucers... There would be. No food. I was facing a liquid breakfast. Not the good kind, either, as although the pinkish tinge of the orange juice winked kir-royal I held little hope of feeling that delicious lightening behind the eyes, the gift of a pre 9am cocktail. The coffee was doping-scandal strong and Motherwell brown. I couldn't finish a cup.
And that was it. Someone asked if I wanted apple juice. But I was too sad to answer.
Empty and dejected. I chastised myself for not checking the IOC’s breakfast guidelines, for too readily subscribing to the Olympic ideal of Little Chef.
I glimpsed Clive Woodward, striding through the throng. Here was a man who looks like he starts his day with a weak fruit tea and four John Player Specials. But it made me start. He also looked like a winner.
Maybe, I reflected, there's more to this. Maybe the breakfast isn’t wrong, maybe I am wrong. These are go-getters. An egg for them is not for poaching and covering in béchamel while you’re in a dressing gown at ten to twelve. It’s for putting raw in a spoon, and running 26 miles without dropping. No fuss, no mess.
As a nation, we mistrust mollycoddled or sports-scienced sporting stars, in the same way we mistrust avocado in a full English. Sure, it may be the right thing to do, and if we gave it a whirl it may give us an edge against the Swedes, but it feels like cheating.
We respect a noble loser. Likewise we only really respect a certain type of champion: the Chariots-of-Fire, leave-the-bag-in, stir-it-with-a-biro, knock-it-back, squeeze-in-the-paper-round, hitch-to-the-stadium, three-gold-medals-and-back-to-the-village-in-time-for-Countdown Champion. Come 2012 that’s who should carry the torch.
I felt like doing a star-jump. I vowed from now on to eat all my food in bar form. I left feeling lighter, sportier. I caught the bus home, had a bacon sandwich and went back to bed. Maybe these aren’t my games. There’s always Rio 2016.
Friday, December 11, 2009
York & Albany, Camden Town
York & Albany
127-129 Parkway
Camden Town
NW1 7PS
020 7388 3344
www.gordonramsay.com/yorkandalbany
by Damon Allbran
They say that Gordon Ramsay has a magnetic personality. This may well be true given that he seems to attract and repel with equal force. To me, the idea of dining anywhere even loosely associated with the scrotal wundermensch is anathema whilst, for provincial businessmen, up-in-town for a meeting or assignation his imprimatur is virtual catnip. They patronise his restaurants in barking hordes, their brittle, hard-eyed wives attached to their arms like less benign remora fish, and imagine they have arrived.
The awfulness of both Ramsay and his clientele is really rather problematic for me. You see, the York & Albany, run for Ramsay by Angela Hartnett, is in Camden Parkway - though the extensive PR from the GRH deathstar places it in ‘Regent’s Park’. It’s my local, has a fantastic bar and does a great breakfast.
A few weeks ago, hungover, in need of fortification and unable to face the greased egregiousness of the New Goodfare at the opposite end of Parkway, I dropped into the Y & A for their full fried breakfast, £12.
The place, as usual, was nearly empty so I was seated by the charming and professional waitress in a corner. It was only after the coffee arrived (overextracted, with scorched milk but drinkable) that I noticed the three salarymen sitting in the high-backed armchairs over my shoulder. One was a loud Texan in a glistering blue suit, abidingly awful brown loafers and an aggressive hairpiece. The other two sat opposite in attitudes of supplication; one a beardless junior with artificially spiked forelock, the other an older man whose face formed a rictus of happy compliance while his eyes bled bitter loathing. Their mellifluous Welsh accents seemed strangely out of tune with the Manhattan cocktail-bar roomset and the agonisingly controlled beige decorative palette
My breakfast arrived. A single artisanal Lincolnshire sausage, a slice of Old Spot bacon, a perfectly presented free-range poached egg… but my reverie was interrupted by the urgent voice of the younger suit. He was bartling some vile jargon-laden tosh about how empowering it would be to work with the Texan Mothership. I was overcome with a surge of predatory savagery. Maybe it was the solid whack of haemoglobin from the glorious slice of Irish black pudding, maybe a response to the waft of terror hormones drifting in from the next table.
The Texan was now taking an advantage of a pause in the flattery to hold forth, at length and volume, about his golfing prowess. I hope I betray no sense of anti-Americanism when I say how delighted I was at that moment to see a grilled tomato and mushroom on my plate rather than a smear of baked beans. Full marks to Gordon.
Finally, unable to control himself any longer the young thruster interrupted the Texan’s stream of self-aggrandisement.
Have you considered, he almost pleaded, the financial benefits of locating somewhere outside central London…
I watched as the Texan’s eyes died
…somewhere like Port Talbot.
As I mopped the last of my egg with a crust of sourdough toast, I watched the door swing closed across the broad back of the Texan as across the echoing and empty dining room his two erstwhile partners gazed, disconsolate, at the bill.
127-129 Parkway
Camden Town
NW1 7PS
020 7388 3344
www.gordonramsay.com/yorkandalbany
by Damon Allbran
They say that Gordon Ramsay has a magnetic personality. This may well be true given that he seems to attract and repel with equal force. To me, the idea of dining anywhere even loosely associated with the scrotal wundermensch is anathema whilst, for provincial businessmen, up-in-town for a meeting or assignation his imprimatur is virtual catnip. They patronise his restaurants in barking hordes, their brittle, hard-eyed wives attached to their arms like less benign remora fish, and imagine they have arrived.
The awfulness of both Ramsay and his clientele is really rather problematic for me. You see, the York & Albany, run for Ramsay by Angela Hartnett, is in Camden Parkway - though the extensive PR from the GRH deathstar places it in ‘Regent’s Park’. It’s my local, has a fantastic bar and does a great breakfast.
A few weeks ago, hungover, in need of fortification and unable to face the greased egregiousness of the New Goodfare at the opposite end of Parkway, I dropped into the Y & A for their full fried breakfast, £12.
The place, as usual, was nearly empty so I was seated by the charming and professional waitress in a corner. It was only after the coffee arrived (overextracted, with scorched milk but drinkable) that I noticed the three salarymen sitting in the high-backed armchairs over my shoulder. One was a loud Texan in a glistering blue suit, abidingly awful brown loafers and an aggressive hairpiece. The other two sat opposite in attitudes of supplication; one a beardless junior with artificially spiked forelock, the other an older man whose face formed a rictus of happy compliance while his eyes bled bitter loathing. Their mellifluous Welsh accents seemed strangely out of tune with the Manhattan cocktail-bar roomset and the agonisingly controlled beige decorative palette
My breakfast arrived. A single artisanal Lincolnshire sausage, a slice of Old Spot bacon, a perfectly presented free-range poached egg… but my reverie was interrupted by the urgent voice of the younger suit. He was bartling some vile jargon-laden tosh about how empowering it would be to work with the Texan Mothership. I was overcome with a surge of predatory savagery. Maybe it was the solid whack of haemoglobin from the glorious slice of Irish black pudding, maybe a response to the waft of terror hormones drifting in from the next table.
The Texan was now taking an advantage of a pause in the flattery to hold forth, at length and volume, about his golfing prowess. I hope I betray no sense of anti-Americanism when I say how delighted I was at that moment to see a grilled tomato and mushroom on my plate rather than a smear of baked beans. Full marks to Gordon.
Finally, unable to control himself any longer the young thruster interrupted the Texan’s stream of self-aggrandisement.
Have you considered, he almost pleaded, the financial benefits of locating somewhere outside central London…
I watched as the Texan’s eyes died
…somewhere like Port Talbot.
As I mopped the last of my egg with a crust of sourdough toast, I watched the door swing closed across the broad back of the Texan as across the echoing and empty dining room his two erstwhile partners gazed, disconsolate, at the bill.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Book Club, Shoreditch
Book Club
100-106 Leonard Street
Shoreditch
London
EC2A 4RH
020 7684 8618
by Gregg E. Bread and Moose Lee
Good morning breakfast fans! Good morning ping pong fans! Today, at long last, we witness the bringing together of these two glorious pastimes.
With the blue bat, drinking a passable latte, hailing from way down south of the river, the two-time ping-pong champion of London Fields, Gregg ‘The Eggs-ecutioner’ Bread.
With the red bat, drinking a nigh-on perfect if overpriced tea, the undisputed bantamweight of Welsh table tennis: Moose ‘The Metabolism’ Lee.
It’s a rainy morning here in Shoreditch. We’re in the Book Club, formerly known as Home Bar, now refurbished to include a full-size ping-pong table amidst the exposed brick and photo-art.
Ding ding! We’re off, and both players order French toast with bananas and strawberries drizzled in maple syrup. Before the food arrives, they step up to the ping-pong plate. Honours are even (1-1) as the first course arrives: the ‘Metabolism’ shows good early form, mopping the nicely crunchy eggy bread and snarfling it before his opponent has time to chew. The Eggs-ecutioner makes a considered start, lingering over the ripe banana and saving the last sumptuous strawberry for the strongest possible final mouthful. Nothing can separate these two.
Our contestants are still hungry and signal to the referee for a shared Full English in the hope of breaking the deadlock. Back on the bigger table, slightly impeded by their sticky fingers, these giants of breakfast-ping-pong are still gut and gut. 2-2.
The Full English arrives and the rivals touch cutlery. Moose is almost defeated by the inhumanly big – and judging by his expression – distinctly average sausages. He doesn’t fare much better with the button mushrooms which – as this replay shows – are watery and tasteless. Gregg E Bread sets about the scrummy toast with a series of aggressive chomps before the fried egg checks his progress with its peculiar and disappointing underside.
Moose comes alive on tasting the bacon, making an elongated ‘mmmm’ sound – his trademark. Gregg E Bread replies with a cute combination of the cherry tomatoes - but wait a minute he seems to be signalling to the bench that they are cold and uncooked.
The knives and forks are down as the valiant eaters, now sluggish and glazed-eyed, return to the ping-pong table for the finale. The crowd, a lone woman on a laptop, witness a gargantuan tussle that leaves Gregg E Bread to lick the commemorative plate as he triumphs 3-2. No matter the result, it is clear that the real winner here is the sport of Breakfast-Ping-Pong which has, finally, found a permanent home in East London.
100-106 Leonard Street
Shoreditch
London
EC2A 4RH
020 7684 8618
by Gregg E. Bread and Moose Lee
Good morning breakfast fans! Good morning ping pong fans! Today, at long last, we witness the bringing together of these two glorious pastimes.
With the blue bat, drinking a passable latte, hailing from way down south of the river, the two-time ping-pong champion of London Fields, Gregg ‘The Eggs-ecutioner’ Bread.
With the red bat, drinking a nigh-on perfect if overpriced tea, the undisputed bantamweight of Welsh table tennis: Moose ‘The Metabolism’ Lee.
It’s a rainy morning here in Shoreditch. We’re in the Book Club, formerly known as Home Bar, now refurbished to include a full-size ping-pong table amidst the exposed brick and photo-art.
Ding ding! We’re off, and both players order French toast with bananas and strawberries drizzled in maple syrup. Before the food arrives, they step up to the ping-pong plate. Honours are even (1-1) as the first course arrives: the ‘Metabolism’ shows good early form, mopping the nicely crunchy eggy bread and snarfling it before his opponent has time to chew. The Eggs-ecutioner makes a considered start, lingering over the ripe banana and saving the last sumptuous strawberry for the strongest possible final mouthful. Nothing can separate these two.
Our contestants are still hungry and signal to the referee for a shared Full English in the hope of breaking the deadlock. Back on the bigger table, slightly impeded by their sticky fingers, these giants of breakfast-ping-pong are still gut and gut. 2-2.
The Full English arrives and the rivals touch cutlery. Moose is almost defeated by the inhumanly big – and judging by his expression – distinctly average sausages. He doesn’t fare much better with the button mushrooms which – as this replay shows – are watery and tasteless. Gregg E Bread sets about the scrummy toast with a series of aggressive chomps before the fried egg checks his progress with its peculiar and disappointing underside.
Moose comes alive on tasting the bacon, making an elongated ‘mmmm’ sound – his trademark. Gregg E Bread replies with a cute combination of the cherry tomatoes - but wait a minute he seems to be signalling to the bench that they are cold and uncooked.
The knives and forks are down as the valiant eaters, now sluggish and glazed-eyed, return to the ping-pong table for the finale. The crowd, a lone woman on a laptop, witness a gargantuan tussle that leaves Gregg E Bread to lick the commemorative plate as he triumphs 3-2. No matter the result, it is clear that the real winner here is the sport of Breakfast-Ping-Pong which has, finally, found a permanent home in East London.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Franze and Evans, Shoreditch
Franze and Evans
101 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DL
020 7033 1910
www.franzeevans.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
Franze and Evans is the kind of place you want to have in your neighbourhood. You want to say to someone who you are trying to impress (probably because you want them to sleep with you), ‘hey, meet me at my neighbourhood cafe’ and for them to come and find you there and sit with you at a table in the light, pleasant space, surrounded by very high-end Italian groceries, and you want them to think, ‘my, this is a neighbourhood cafe of a sophisticated, cool, person who I rather want to sleep with.’
I am with Nurse Friend, however, who I do not want to sleep with me, so this effect is somewhat wasted. Instead, we look at the menus and decide what we want to eat. And then we wait to be served. And then we notice that Franze and Evans requires customers to order at the counter. This is a terrible mistake. Such is the layout of this sophisticated, cool neighbourhood cafe that the counter ordering system creates an awkward bottleneck. I want to draw them a flowchart to show how they are doing it all wrong, and I have never drawn a flowchart in my life.
I place our order: eggs Benedict for Nurse Friend; for me, a newly-minted vegetarian, eggs Florentine, which comes with Portobello mushrooms here. Both cost about £7.50. I pay for juice, which is served only in tiny glass bottles imported from Italy, and which are only good for a few gulps. I order coffee.
And then Nurse Friend and I sit. And wait. And watch as food and drinks are delivered to people who definitely came in after us. There are three people behind the counter. There appear to be three people working in the kitchen, but maybe more – they keep emerging, like clowns out of a very small car. The chap in charge – Franze? Evans? – brings us some glasses for our juice, long after we’d finished drinking it. We are forced to read The Sun to pass the time.
The food arrives. The eggs are poached too hard, and aren't especially hot: the yolks are a deep shade that indicate that happy hens were their source, but they don’t run, which makes Nurse Friend unhappy. The hollandaise could do with some more joie de vivre, but it’s nice enough. But the fact that I have mushroom only on one half muffin, and spinach only on the other half, makes me frown: it just seems stingy. Oh, Franze. Oh, Evans. Being stingy is neither sophisticated nor cool, and now I don’t want to sleep with either of you.
101 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DL
020 7033 1910
www.franzeevans.com
by Joyce Carol Oats
Franze and Evans is the kind of place you want to have in your neighbourhood. You want to say to someone who you are trying to impress (probably because you want them to sleep with you), ‘hey, meet me at my neighbourhood cafe’ and for them to come and find you there and sit with you at a table in the light, pleasant space, surrounded by very high-end Italian groceries, and you want them to think, ‘my, this is a neighbourhood cafe of a sophisticated, cool, person who I rather want to sleep with.’
I am with Nurse Friend, however, who I do not want to sleep with me, so this effect is somewhat wasted. Instead, we look at the menus and decide what we want to eat. And then we wait to be served. And then we notice that Franze and Evans requires customers to order at the counter. This is a terrible mistake. Such is the layout of this sophisticated, cool neighbourhood cafe that the counter ordering system creates an awkward bottleneck. I want to draw them a flowchart to show how they are doing it all wrong, and I have never drawn a flowchart in my life.
I place our order: eggs Benedict for Nurse Friend; for me, a newly-minted vegetarian, eggs Florentine, which comes with Portobello mushrooms here. Both cost about £7.50. I pay for juice, which is served only in tiny glass bottles imported from Italy, and which are only good for a few gulps. I order coffee.
And then Nurse Friend and I sit. And wait. And watch as food and drinks are delivered to people who definitely came in after us. There are three people behind the counter. There appear to be three people working in the kitchen, but maybe more – they keep emerging, like clowns out of a very small car. The chap in charge – Franze? Evans? – brings us some glasses for our juice, long after we’d finished drinking it. We are forced to read The Sun to pass the time.
The food arrives. The eggs are poached too hard, and aren't especially hot: the yolks are a deep shade that indicate that happy hens were their source, but they don’t run, which makes Nurse Friend unhappy. The hollandaise could do with some more joie de vivre, but it’s nice enough. But the fact that I have mushroom only on one half muffin, and spinach only on the other half, makes me frown: it just seems stingy. Oh, Franze. Oh, Evans. Being stingy is neither sophisticated nor cool, and now I don’t want to sleep with either of you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)