Cafe Olive
42a Penton Street
Islington
N1 9QA
020 7713 6888
by Joyce Carol Oats
A Sunday morning. A romantic escape. A quiet street. A single cafe. In the pleasant haze of recent sleep, you enter, seeking breakfast. It’s a family-run joint: charming. A handful of tables; a kitchen tucked behind a counter; three generations elbowing each other in the small cooking space. What’s for breakfast is not entirely clear: there are hints of grilled halloumi and boiled eggs on the board out front but not indoors. Listings for sandwiches that sound lovely but not right for breakfast. Coffee? Coffee? There’s a coffee machine, but you can't seem to see where the prices are listed.
I just want a bacon sandwich, says your companion. Do you think they could just make a bacon sandwich?
I can make you smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, the waitress announces as you sit down. Do you want that?
It’s not really a question. There’s a packet of smoked salmon sitting in a chiller case, next to a large cake that a liberal hand has daubed with whipped cream baubles. The smoked salmon has been expecting you.
OK! says your companion, in haste.
Sure, sure, you say. You want it to be easy. You order a black coffee. The waitress brings you a latte. That’s fine, too.
You can’t see past the chiller case, but the procedure is vivid in sound and smell: of eggs beating, of toast burning. The waitress emerges to open a window to air out the cafe and then returns to jostle with her colleague. A sharp word, here and there, in a language you don’t speak.
The servings are substantial: two slices of very toasted toast under hefty eggs that serve as a luxurious bed for thick slices of salmon. You look at your companion and he looks at you and you shrug and dig in. It requires strength. It is a breakfast to precede a day of heavy lifting. After half, you are exhausted, but you are not going to waste food, not here. It would be rude. So you both carry on. You chew with courage. You leave nary a crust.
Was it good? says the waitress when she comes to pick up your plates.
Yes, you say, even though you feel a bit sick, because under the circumstances you can be nothing but grateful. Yes!
She smiles. You smile. He smiles.
Your companion pays - it's cheap, of course - and you leave.
Well, you say. That was interesting!
I really didn’t want to eat that, he says. I really just wanted a bacon sandwich. But it was good. Sort of!
Yes! you say. Sort of! There’s nothing like breakfasting at a small cafe when you’re on holiday somewhere unfamiliar, and just eating whatever it is that they happen to be cooking that day. It’s just so authentic! Such an experience!
True, he says. But we’re not on holiday. We’re a five-minute walk from your flat.
True, you say. That is also true.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Special Dispatch: Nhow Hotel, Berlin
Nhow Hotel
Stralauer Allee 3
10245 Berlin, Germany
030 2902990
www.nhow-hotels.com/berlin/en
by Sebastian Forks
"People project meaning onto objects. If an object allows you to interact with it, then it becomes part of your being." Karim Rashid
Check in to the world of music. Nhow elevate your stay. Since our arrival late yesterday afternoon, I have taken the strap line for Nhow Berlin - Germany’s brand new design hotel, Europe’s first music concept hotel - at face value. I check in. I listen. I elevate my stay.
Last night I cheated. I got high with my group - partly on the hotel lobby’s techno music, and mostly on Daiquiri, which is a shorter, more chastening version of Mojito. There’s no excuse. It’s made of limes, ice, sugar and mainly white rum, and the rum is easy to taste. Taken before, during or after dinner, it seems to go with everything, is best consumed on pink stools, and gently draws its victim into a place made entirely of words, most of them regrettable.
Now it’s the morning. It is 8 o’clock. I have just woken up. The effects of the Daiquiri are still with me. I can’t wait for breakfast. I am on the hotel’s 1st floor, overlooking a river filled with chunks of ice. My room is enormous. It is designed by Karim Rashid, who works out of New York. I stand in the middle of the room. The floor is made of a special acrylic material, the furniture a mix of futuristic moulds. I especially like the sofa, which looks like the bottom of someone’s mouth. I like to lie on it. A giant flat television sits encased in the room’s dividing wall. Undulating lines of pink cross the floor, and go up the curtains. The bathroom is encased in glass. I feel like I am being dressed by someone who knows a lot about certain types of clothes. It is nice to be made to feel this way.
I sit down on my bed to read up on Karim’s design. It is, says the hotel’s brochure, ‘music for the eyes...a sojourn into a new dimension...’ I’m not sure what this means. Then it says, ‘words...cannot do justice to something that needs to be experienced first-hand – because great design begins at the point where language has reached its limit.’ I put down the brochure. I have reached the limits of hunger. And time is speeding up. I mustn’t be late - I am due to tour the hotel at 9 sharp. I reconnect with my brain’s residual pools of Daiquiri and take a quick shower. I hum and whistle as I dress.
In the lift, I am still humming. I am imagining breakfast. I wonder what music will be played as I eat. I would like some more of the techno. Then I look up and see a colour saturated photograph of Karim. He is in a giant light box. He is on the whole of the ceiling. He stares down at me. He is wearing a white t-shirt, a pair of glasses, and he hasn’t shaved for a couple of days. A woman – a beautiful woman – with half-closed eyes looks up at him. Her mouth is open. She looks like she is going to take a bite out of his cheek. Karim’s mouth is also slightly open. He is looking directly at me. Why is Karim looking at me like that? He is making me feel light headed. I am losing the ability to think. Stop it, Karim.
I enter the breakfast room by way of the lobby, scene of last night’s scene. One final kick from the Daiquiri and I find myself at the foot of a pink plastic lectern. I think I hear music playing. A waiter greets me with a smile. ‘Room number, sir?’ Room number? What is he talking about? I look behind him, into the room. Two huge pink plastic semi-circular breakfast units split the room. Super-white plates lie in piles beneath shelves full of neat little packages of food. Cutlery glints in the winter sun. On either side, white tables – as white as Karim’s t-shirt – line up in perfect inorganic rows. Light pours in from the river.
This morning breakfast is a range of cereals, international right through to locally sourced oats; it is all kinds of bread, and muffins; it is all kinds of eggs - old school, new school, your way; it is smoked salmon in lemon and dill, sausage, cold meats, paper-thin side-plates of prosciutto crudo; it is coffee, tea, juice. I go for the coffee, and a bowl of muesli. I sit down with my group. I see that they’ve had the lot, and toast and butter and small pots of jam compote. I eat my muesli. It is chewy and sweet, and filled with nuts and seeds. I think there’s some coconut in it too. I drink the coffee. It is bitter, and tastes very good indeed. I wonder what it is.
My group leaves. I stare out at the river, which is beginning to look pink. I feel like Karim is right here, next to me, enjoying a quick mint tea, eggs Benedict, French toast and maple syrup. I can’t speak. I am beyond humming. I am completely elevating.
Stralauer Allee 3
10245 Berlin, Germany
030 2902990
www.nhow-hotels.com/berlin/en
by Sebastian Forks
"People project meaning onto objects. If an object allows you to interact with it, then it becomes part of your being." Karim Rashid
Check in to the world of music. Nhow elevate your stay. Since our arrival late yesterday afternoon, I have taken the strap line for Nhow Berlin - Germany’s brand new design hotel, Europe’s first music concept hotel - at face value. I check in. I listen. I elevate my stay.
Last night I cheated. I got high with my group - partly on the hotel lobby’s techno music, and mostly on Daiquiri, which is a shorter, more chastening version of Mojito. There’s no excuse. It’s made of limes, ice, sugar and mainly white rum, and the rum is easy to taste. Taken before, during or after dinner, it seems to go with everything, is best consumed on pink stools, and gently draws its victim into a place made entirely of words, most of them regrettable.
Now it’s the morning. It is 8 o’clock. I have just woken up. The effects of the Daiquiri are still with me. I can’t wait for breakfast. I am on the hotel’s 1st floor, overlooking a river filled with chunks of ice. My room is enormous. It is designed by Karim Rashid, who works out of New York. I stand in the middle of the room. The floor is made of a special acrylic material, the furniture a mix of futuristic moulds. I especially like the sofa, which looks like the bottom of someone’s mouth. I like to lie on it. A giant flat television sits encased in the room’s dividing wall. Undulating lines of pink cross the floor, and go up the curtains. The bathroom is encased in glass. I feel like I am being dressed by someone who knows a lot about certain types of clothes. It is nice to be made to feel this way.
I sit down on my bed to read up on Karim’s design. It is, says the hotel’s brochure, ‘music for the eyes...a sojourn into a new dimension...’ I’m not sure what this means. Then it says, ‘words...cannot do justice to something that needs to be experienced first-hand – because great design begins at the point where language has reached its limit.’ I put down the brochure. I have reached the limits of hunger. And time is speeding up. I mustn’t be late - I am due to tour the hotel at 9 sharp. I reconnect with my brain’s residual pools of Daiquiri and take a quick shower. I hum and whistle as I dress.
In the lift, I am still humming. I am imagining breakfast. I wonder what music will be played as I eat. I would like some more of the techno. Then I look up and see a colour saturated photograph of Karim. He is in a giant light box. He is on the whole of the ceiling. He stares down at me. He is wearing a white t-shirt, a pair of glasses, and he hasn’t shaved for a couple of days. A woman – a beautiful woman – with half-closed eyes looks up at him. Her mouth is open. She looks like she is going to take a bite out of his cheek. Karim’s mouth is also slightly open. He is looking directly at me. Why is Karim looking at me like that? He is making me feel light headed. I am losing the ability to think. Stop it, Karim.
I enter the breakfast room by way of the lobby, scene of last night’s scene. One final kick from the Daiquiri and I find myself at the foot of a pink plastic lectern. I think I hear music playing. A waiter greets me with a smile. ‘Room number, sir?’ Room number? What is he talking about? I look behind him, into the room. Two huge pink plastic semi-circular breakfast units split the room. Super-white plates lie in piles beneath shelves full of neat little packages of food. Cutlery glints in the winter sun. On either side, white tables – as white as Karim’s t-shirt – line up in perfect inorganic rows. Light pours in from the river.
This morning breakfast is a range of cereals, international right through to locally sourced oats; it is all kinds of bread, and muffins; it is all kinds of eggs - old school, new school, your way; it is smoked salmon in lemon and dill, sausage, cold meats, paper-thin side-plates of prosciutto crudo; it is coffee, tea, juice. I go for the coffee, and a bowl of muesli. I sit down with my group. I see that they’ve had the lot, and toast and butter and small pots of jam compote. I eat my muesli. It is chewy and sweet, and filled with nuts and seeds. I think there’s some coconut in it too. I drink the coffee. It is bitter, and tastes very good indeed. I wonder what it is.
My group leaves. I stare out at the river, which is beginning to look pink. I feel like Karim is right here, next to me, enjoying a quick mint tea, eggs Benedict, French toast and maple syrup. I can’t speak. I am beyond humming. I am completely elevating.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Gail's, Clerkenwell
Gail's
33-35 Exmouth Market
Clerkenwell
EC1R 4QL
0207 713 6550
www.gailsbread.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
After more than a year without full time work, I finally have a new job. This is not cause for delight. The under employed life suited me and I had never been happier. Sadly Mrs. Pudding’s costly renovation plans for our London home have forced me back into the rat race. There are consolations, however, in my new employment: I have my own office with a sliding door, minions on call, and best of all, a company credit card.
I decided to celebrate with a slap-up breakfast. I invited along the literary editor of the Observer, Will Skidelsky, who is a keen gourmand (I’m not using this as euphemism for a fat). We met at the latest branch of swanky bakery Gail’s, on Exmouth Market.
First a little gripe about Americanisms on the menu. No one likes Americans and America more than me but we are in England so there is not need to call a muffin an English muffin. In a similar vein why can’t they use our delightful descriptive term eggy bread rather than French toast? Gripe over; for breakfast the proof is in the pudding and no breakfast could be more pudding-like than Mr Skidelsky’s: eggy bread with zabaglione and roasted quince. The bread was crisp and lightly caramelised and the zabaglione functioned, according to William, like a sweet Hollandaise. Delicious but much too sweet for my morning palate.
I ordered baked eggs on a muffin, bacon, and roast tomatoes with cottage cheese. Cottage cheese! Normally I would have asked them to leave it off but I reasoned that taking into account Gail’s reputation and the high price of my breakfast, £8.50, this would be the best cottage cheese in the world. Maybe it was but it tasted just like cottage cheese i.e. horrible but with chives. Sadly it wasn’t the worst component of my meal. That honour went to the muffin which was stale, stodgy and had not been toasted. My baked eggs looked a lot like fried eggs and were overcooked despite specifying them runny. The bacon was tasty but brittle and ungenerously proportioned.
Did I mention that it cost £8.50? What a cynical take on the English breakfast this was. If my new employers hadn’t been picking up the tab, I would have been furious.
33-35 Exmouth Market
Clerkenwell
EC1R 4QL
0207 713 6550
www.gailsbread.co.uk
by Blake Pudding
After more than a year without full time work, I finally have a new job. This is not cause for delight. The under employed life suited me and I had never been happier. Sadly Mrs. Pudding’s costly renovation plans for our London home have forced me back into the rat race. There are consolations, however, in my new employment: I have my own office with a sliding door, minions on call, and best of all, a company credit card.
I decided to celebrate with a slap-up breakfast. I invited along the literary editor of the Observer, Will Skidelsky, who is a keen gourmand (I’m not using this as euphemism for a fat). We met at the latest branch of swanky bakery Gail’s, on Exmouth Market.
First a little gripe about Americanisms on the menu. No one likes Americans and America more than me but we are in England so there is not need to call a muffin an English muffin. In a similar vein why can’t they use our delightful descriptive term eggy bread rather than French toast? Gripe over; for breakfast the proof is in the pudding and no breakfast could be more pudding-like than Mr Skidelsky’s: eggy bread with zabaglione and roasted quince. The bread was crisp and lightly caramelised and the zabaglione functioned, according to William, like a sweet Hollandaise. Delicious but much too sweet for my morning palate.
I ordered baked eggs on a muffin, bacon, and roast tomatoes with cottage cheese. Cottage cheese! Normally I would have asked them to leave it off but I reasoned that taking into account Gail’s reputation and the high price of my breakfast, £8.50, this would be the best cottage cheese in the world. Maybe it was but it tasted just like cottage cheese i.e. horrible but with chives. Sadly it wasn’t the worst component of my meal. That honour went to the muffin which was stale, stodgy and had not been toasted. My baked eggs looked a lot like fried eggs and were overcooked despite specifying them runny. The bacon was tasty but brittle and ungenerously proportioned.
Did I mention that it cost £8.50? What a cynical take on the English breakfast this was. If my new employers hadn’t been picking up the tab, I would have been furious.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Special Dispatch: Kahana Sands, Kahana, Maui
Kahana Sands Restaurant
Sands of Kahana
4299 Lower Honoapiilani Hwy
Kahana, HI, 96761
by Malcolm Eggs
"Speed limit enforced by laser." (Traffic sign, near Kahana)
Sands of Kahana: a four-star hotel full of fake plants, glittering sea views and people reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm sat in the poolside diner, waiting to order breakfast.
Our waiter is in long baggy shorts. He makes a decent attempt at toothy American cheer but there's something else, a fragility behind the eyes. It's like he's one dark thought away from smashing the shit out of a fish tank with the putting wedge he keeps behind the counter in case of visitors from the past.
I'm here to sample loco moco, a Hawaiian traditional breakfast of rice topped with a burger, two fried eggs and onion gravy. It sounds plain terrifying and the name means 'crazy snot', but it's traditional so there absolutely has to be something good about it. Our waiter is delighted.
When he delivers my plate, he says, "don't be intimidated by the way it looks". Which is a fair comment: this gleaming white and brown heap is not Miss Hawaii material. I dig in. The burger is dry, thin and chewy. The gravy is the clingy kind we used to fear more than even nuclear winter back in the school dinner halls of 80s Birmingham. Competent rice and eggs are slaughtered in the crossfire.
I'm ashamed to say I make myself eat enough to avoid awkwardness, and then sit scowling at a distant palm tree. Our waiter picks it up without a word and walks off. Such a beautiful place; such an unbeautiful breakfast. London seems so far away.
Sands of Kahana
4299 Lower Honoapiilani Hwy
Kahana, HI, 96761
by Malcolm Eggs
"Speed limit enforced by laser." (Traffic sign, near Kahana)
Sands of Kahana: a four-star hotel full of fake plants, glittering sea views and people reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm sat in the poolside diner, waiting to order breakfast.
Our waiter is in long baggy shorts. He makes a decent attempt at toothy American cheer but there's something else, a fragility behind the eyes. It's like he's one dark thought away from smashing the shit out of a fish tank with the putting wedge he keeps behind the counter in case of visitors from the past.
I'm here to sample loco moco, a Hawaiian traditional breakfast of rice topped with a burger, two fried eggs and onion gravy. It sounds plain terrifying and the name means 'crazy snot', but it's traditional so there absolutely has to be something good about it. Our waiter is delighted.
When he delivers my plate, he says, "don't be intimidated by the way it looks". Which is a fair comment: this gleaming white and brown heap is not Miss Hawaii material. I dig in. The burger is dry, thin and chewy. The gravy is the clingy kind we used to fear more than even nuclear winter back in the school dinner halls of 80s Birmingham. Competent rice and eggs are slaughtered in the crossfire.
I'm ashamed to say I make myself eat enough to avoid awkwardness, and then sit scowling at a distant palm tree. Our waiter picks it up without a word and walks off. Such a beautiful place; such an unbeautiful breakfast. London seems so far away.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Breakfasts and beds: The Shakespeare Bed and Breakfast, Lancaster
The Shakespeare Bed and Breakfast
96 St. Leonards Gate
Lancaster LA1 1NN
England
01524 841 041
by Henrietta Crumpet
Not long ago I took time out from my very busy and important life teaching homeless people to train cats to stand on their shoulders and experienced a Wedding Weekend consisting of two expressions of conjugal bliss at opposite ends of the country. Now before you ask, dear reader, if either of these were mine, I ask you to consider your positions on bigamy and Mormonism and let me know if you wouldn’t mind sharing your nether regions with a partner who shares their nether regions.
I am, of course, still unmarried.
These celebrations, being as they were in Lancaster and Dorset - the north preceding the south by twenty four hours - required myself and my erstwhile companion to travel at an un-holy hour of the morning after the one in order to get to the other. Not being familiar with all Lancaster has to offer I popped along to the Internet and had a little browse. Choosing a small, unassuming place with some marvellous reviews, I rang to book a night there. Sally, who was to be our attentive host, rang me back with a rather worried tone to her voice ‘You left a message saying you were booking because you had read all of our nice reviews, well, Fred and I don’t want you to expect too much or think that it will be as nice as they say.’ With this endorsement ringing in our ears we promptly booked, and set off.
I offer you this preamble in order to impress upon you two things: the antisocial hour of our departure at 6am in order to get to Dorset for the second ceremonial coupling of the weekend, and the demeanour of our hostess. I had already explained that despite a penchant for breakfast and a particular fondness for the B & B buffet option, I was expecting to have to forgo this pleasure in order to stumble groggily onto a train on time. Our hostess was horrified. ‘We’ll leave you a bit of Continental out,’ She said, ‘Is 5.45 alright?’ ‘Lovely,’ I said, ‘perfectly wondrous.’ Five minutes later she was back. ‘So how would you like your eggs? Scrambled, fried or boiled?’ There was a slight pause. ‘We can’t send you off without a cooked breakfast now can we?’
And so, very tired and a little worse for wear the next day we rolled ourselves into the living room for a full cooked breakfast. Sally and Fred were up, already unfeasibly cheerful, and had laid out for us everything they could possibly think of that could be called Breakfast. There were cereals in mini boxes, bowls of fruit, cheese and ham, small, pleasingly squidgy packets of butter and tiny jars of jam. Tea and coffee were proffered alongside glasses of orange juice and just as I was about to start panicking that this was too much too early and I was therefore probably still asleep and about to miss my train, turn up late to the second wedding, crash into the bride on my way in causing her to fall and chip a tooth and thus ruin the whole day, the cooked breakfast arrived.
I cannot in all honesty proclaim this as the best breakfast I have ever had. The beans were slightly too runny for my liking and the tomato sliced to such a thickness that the lovely goo on the outside does not permeate its raw interior, but the bacon was meaty and flavoursome and the eggs cooked to perfection – yolk that cascades over the shiny surface of your knife but has started to cook just a few millimetres from the white, leaving you in no doubt that the milky exterior will be fit for consumption. It was a breakfast of kings at a time when the royal head is definitely ordinarily still nuzzling into its well-fluffed pillow. If you ever find yourself in Lancaster, I can think of no better place for breakfast after bed, but don’t tell Sally and Fred I sent you, it will only make them worry.
96 St. Leonards Gate
Lancaster LA1 1NN
England
01524 841 041
by Henrietta Crumpet
Not long ago I took time out from my very busy and important life teaching homeless people to train cats to stand on their shoulders and experienced a Wedding Weekend consisting of two expressions of conjugal bliss at opposite ends of the country. Now before you ask, dear reader, if either of these were mine, I ask you to consider your positions on bigamy and Mormonism and let me know if you wouldn’t mind sharing your nether regions with a partner who shares their nether regions.
I am, of course, still unmarried.
These celebrations, being as they were in Lancaster and Dorset - the north preceding the south by twenty four hours - required myself and my erstwhile companion to travel at an un-holy hour of the morning after the one in order to get to the other. Not being familiar with all Lancaster has to offer I popped along to the Internet and had a little browse. Choosing a small, unassuming place with some marvellous reviews, I rang to book a night there. Sally, who was to be our attentive host, rang me back with a rather worried tone to her voice ‘You left a message saying you were booking because you had read all of our nice reviews, well, Fred and I don’t want you to expect too much or think that it will be as nice as they say.’ With this endorsement ringing in our ears we promptly booked, and set off.
I offer you this preamble in order to impress upon you two things: the antisocial hour of our departure at 6am in order to get to Dorset for the second ceremonial coupling of the weekend, and the demeanour of our hostess. I had already explained that despite a penchant for breakfast and a particular fondness for the B & B buffet option, I was expecting to have to forgo this pleasure in order to stumble groggily onto a train on time. Our hostess was horrified. ‘We’ll leave you a bit of Continental out,’ She said, ‘Is 5.45 alright?’ ‘Lovely,’ I said, ‘perfectly wondrous.’ Five minutes later she was back. ‘So how would you like your eggs? Scrambled, fried or boiled?’ There was a slight pause. ‘We can’t send you off without a cooked breakfast now can we?’
And so, very tired and a little worse for wear the next day we rolled ourselves into the living room for a full cooked breakfast. Sally and Fred were up, already unfeasibly cheerful, and had laid out for us everything they could possibly think of that could be called Breakfast. There were cereals in mini boxes, bowls of fruit, cheese and ham, small, pleasingly squidgy packets of butter and tiny jars of jam. Tea and coffee were proffered alongside glasses of orange juice and just as I was about to start panicking that this was too much too early and I was therefore probably still asleep and about to miss my train, turn up late to the second wedding, crash into the bride on my way in causing her to fall and chip a tooth and thus ruin the whole day, the cooked breakfast arrived.
I cannot in all honesty proclaim this as the best breakfast I have ever had. The beans were slightly too runny for my liking and the tomato sliced to such a thickness that the lovely goo on the outside does not permeate its raw interior, but the bacon was meaty and flavoursome and the eggs cooked to perfection – yolk that cascades over the shiny surface of your knife but has started to cook just a few millimetres from the white, leaving you in no doubt that the milky exterior will be fit for consumption. It was a breakfast of kings at a time when the royal head is definitely ordinarily still nuzzling into its well-fluffed pillow. If you ever find yourself in Lancaster, I can think of no better place for breakfast after bed, but don’t tell Sally and Fred I sent you, it will only make them worry.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Workers Cafe, Islington
Workers Cafe
172 Upper Street
Islington
N1 1RG
020 7226 3973
by Henrietta Crumpet
Ah, The Workers Cafe, bastion of socialist Islington, beacon of light for the Marx-reading, poll tax rioting, Labour voting reds from the time when builders were builders, new developments with loft living were factories, and all local primary schools were run by women who read Germaine Greer whilst chain smoking outside the school gates. Those were the days.
I have been a local at The Workers since that fateful day in 1987 when, on a lightly hazy summer morning, Thatcher was re-elected for the third time and I arrived at school to find mothers silently weeping in the playground. I was a local when my father ruined my own mother’s favourite red lipstick by writing ‘WE WON!’ in giant, jubilant capitals on the bathroom mirror on May Day ten years later. And I’m still a local now, when Edward’s Machinery has long gone, Bella’s and Smokes have disappeared from the high street, and the cafe’s interior is no longer concealed in a haze of cigarette smoke.
My breakfast habits have broadened a little since I was six and would only order fried tomatoes on two white toasts (the tomatoes to be served separately) accompanied by a Snapple iced tea. I even eat mushrooms now. The Worker’s horizons have broadened too. Gone are the faded yellow Formica tables with round red seats affixed, the bad instant coffee and the lakes of grease gently pooling around your chosen morning fare. Worried about the impending doom the smoking ban could have wreaked on their loyal clientele, they’ve installed a coffee machine, seats that move, and at-seat ordering, making it the best place to grab a quick cup of reasonably priced coffee on Upper St. It’s still run by the same extended family, a variation on the socialist worker’s collective that the name suggests, and is delightfully devoid of pretension (and music).
And so to breakfast. For a small number of English Pounds (£4.95) there are breakfast selections including a traditional English, a Vegetarian and a Turkish, all with toast and tea or coffee. For that price I’m not expecting hand-selected sausages from Borough Market or Portobello mushrooms, and I don’t get them. What I do get is a really good greasy spoon breakfast at any time of the day or night. This is breakfast with sliced white or brown bread covered with lashings of margarine, pork sausages with a high bread content and unsmoked bacon. But it does exactly what you want it to. No more, no less. The thinly sliced mushrooms are nicely sizzled without being over-greasy, the tomatoes are browned and caramelised, the hash browns crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and the eggs – served any way you want them – are cooked through: no sloppy white but a soldier-ready yolk. So put on your Vote Labour badge; grab a paper from the newsagent’s next door; smile at the local characters, the builders on their tea breaks, the council workers, and most importantly, the charming family busily shouting at each other in the open kitchen; and bed down. I can think of no better place for a no nonsense fry-up. And they still have a fridge full of Snapple iced tea.
172 Upper Street
Islington
N1 1RG
020 7226 3973
by Henrietta Crumpet
Ah, The Workers Cafe, bastion of socialist Islington, beacon of light for the Marx-reading, poll tax rioting, Labour voting reds from the time when builders were builders, new developments with loft living were factories, and all local primary schools were run by women who read Germaine Greer whilst chain smoking outside the school gates. Those were the days.
I have been a local at The Workers since that fateful day in 1987 when, on a lightly hazy summer morning, Thatcher was re-elected for the third time and I arrived at school to find mothers silently weeping in the playground. I was a local when my father ruined my own mother’s favourite red lipstick by writing ‘WE WON!’ in giant, jubilant capitals on the bathroom mirror on May Day ten years later. And I’m still a local now, when Edward’s Machinery has long gone, Bella’s and Smokes have disappeared from the high street, and the cafe’s interior is no longer concealed in a haze of cigarette smoke.
My breakfast habits have broadened a little since I was six and would only order fried tomatoes on two white toasts (the tomatoes to be served separately) accompanied by a Snapple iced tea. I even eat mushrooms now. The Worker’s horizons have broadened too. Gone are the faded yellow Formica tables with round red seats affixed, the bad instant coffee and the lakes of grease gently pooling around your chosen morning fare. Worried about the impending doom the smoking ban could have wreaked on their loyal clientele, they’ve installed a coffee machine, seats that move, and at-seat ordering, making it the best place to grab a quick cup of reasonably priced coffee on Upper St. It’s still run by the same extended family, a variation on the socialist worker’s collective that the name suggests, and is delightfully devoid of pretension (and music).
And so to breakfast. For a small number of English Pounds (£4.95) there are breakfast selections including a traditional English, a Vegetarian and a Turkish, all with toast and tea or coffee. For that price I’m not expecting hand-selected sausages from Borough Market or Portobello mushrooms, and I don’t get them. What I do get is a really good greasy spoon breakfast at any time of the day or night. This is breakfast with sliced white or brown bread covered with lashings of margarine, pork sausages with a high bread content and unsmoked bacon. But it does exactly what you want it to. No more, no less. The thinly sliced mushrooms are nicely sizzled without being over-greasy, the tomatoes are browned and caramelised, the hash browns crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and the eggs – served any way you want them – are cooked through: no sloppy white but a soldier-ready yolk. So put on your Vote Labour badge; grab a paper from the newsagent’s next door; smile at the local characters, the builders on their tea breaks, the council workers, and most importantly, the charming family busily shouting at each other in the open kitchen; and bed down. I can think of no better place for a no nonsense fry-up. And they still have a fridge full of Snapple iced tea.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Special Dispatch: Urban Angel, Edinburgh
Urban Angel
121 Hanover St
121 Hanover St
New Town
by Emma Ricano
Since hearing that dear, damnable Yvette had hit the big time starring in an NBC cop drama, I’d been raising my game like a poker player jacked up on 94 espressos. I wanted my own pool of light, the colour of a thousand limes, which was how I found myself at this year’s Edinburgh Festival trying my hand at stand-up comedy.
But I soon discovered that pithy one-liners about Dungeons & Dragons weren’t going to cut it with The Common People. I needed new material if I was going to be a self-proclaimed Prophet of Laughter, so I did what I always do when I need an inspiration injection. I breakfasted.
I chose Urban Angel in New Town which I’d visited once before when Edinburgh’s rain damn nearly drowned me. I recalled its sourdough – large and tasty portions with not nearly enough unsalted butter and preserve to cover a single slice; cappuccino that tasted like Nescafe but with a healthy foam hairpiece made from the creamiest of organic milk. In short, it had potential - exactly like me and my future as a stand-up comedian.
I sought out this warm and innocuous looking deli plus restaurant, again. It was much busier than I recalled but had the same range of choices I knew would keep me busy.
On the first of several inspiration missions, I spied some game looking twins dressed in kimonos and platforms who looked like they might have a story or two. I pulled up a chair and we breakfasted on Eggs Florentine. They talked animatedly about their careers in fashion and analysed my own choice of tartan slacks, as I bit down onto a springy mattress of muffin, spinach and oozing poached egg. Alas, I soon noticed the hollandaise was as vinagery as a party in a Sarson's factory and it unbalanced the whole. I swiftly ordered an antidote in the form of a chocolate double whammy - a quite outstanding chocolate muffin which was more choc chip than sponge, twinned with a hot chocolate with chocolate on top. I ate with slapping chops and gusto as the twins declared me a Fashion No-Fly Zone.
The next day I joined a lady in sensible shoes tucking into a pedestrian looking bowl of porridge. But by jiminy what those oats lacked in looks they certainly made up for in taste – I was transported to the clover, salty air, heather and fresh breezes of my otherwise turbulent family holidays in the Scottish highlands. But the portion was small and I was left both physiologically and conversationally starved as the woman in sensible shoes chose not to answer any of my questions.
By the weekend I was feeling desperate and honed in on a man with a face as sad as a clown. He said he wanted to be alone but I insisted. We both ordered the pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. I took some of his bacon. He spooned some of the syrup off my plate. I slapped his wrists. I took his napkin. He took my fork. Then we enjoyed our heavenly meal with its pancakes like pillows and all the excitement and drama that the combination of maple syrup and good quality bacon bring to a person’s life. By the end of breakfast he was bitch-slapping the table in glee as I recounted my days as a young buck in marketing. Who knew a story about a Sandra from accounts and a piece of Brie could be so entertaining? I’d say Live At The Apollo is just around the corner for a girl like me.
But I soon discovered that pithy one-liners about Dungeons & Dragons weren’t going to cut it with The Common People. I needed new material if I was going to be a self-proclaimed Prophet of Laughter, so I did what I always do when I need an inspiration injection. I breakfasted.
I chose Urban Angel in New Town which I’d visited once before when Edinburgh’s rain damn nearly drowned me. I recalled its sourdough – large and tasty portions with not nearly enough unsalted butter and preserve to cover a single slice; cappuccino that tasted like Nescafe but with a healthy foam hairpiece made from the creamiest of organic milk. In short, it had potential - exactly like me and my future as a stand-up comedian.
I sought out this warm and innocuous looking deli plus restaurant, again. It was much busier than I recalled but had the same range of choices I knew would keep me busy.
On the first of several inspiration missions, I spied some game looking twins dressed in kimonos and platforms who looked like they might have a story or two. I pulled up a chair and we breakfasted on Eggs Florentine. They talked animatedly about their careers in fashion and analysed my own choice of tartan slacks, as I bit down onto a springy mattress of muffin, spinach and oozing poached egg. Alas, I soon noticed the hollandaise was as vinagery as a party in a Sarson's factory and it unbalanced the whole. I swiftly ordered an antidote in the form of a chocolate double whammy - a quite outstanding chocolate muffin which was more choc chip than sponge, twinned with a hot chocolate with chocolate on top. I ate with slapping chops and gusto as the twins declared me a Fashion No-Fly Zone.
The next day I joined a lady in sensible shoes tucking into a pedestrian looking bowl of porridge. But by jiminy what those oats lacked in looks they certainly made up for in taste – I was transported to the clover, salty air, heather and fresh breezes of my otherwise turbulent family holidays in the Scottish highlands. But the portion was small and I was left both physiologically and conversationally starved as the woman in sensible shoes chose not to answer any of my questions.
By the weekend I was feeling desperate and honed in on a man with a face as sad as a clown. He said he wanted to be alone but I insisted. We both ordered the pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. I took some of his bacon. He spooned some of the syrup off my plate. I slapped his wrists. I took his napkin. He took my fork. Then we enjoyed our heavenly meal with its pancakes like pillows and all the excitement and drama that the combination of maple syrup and good quality bacon bring to a person’s life. By the end of breakfast he was bitch-slapping the table in glee as I recounted my days as a young buck in marketing. Who knew a story about a Sandra from accounts and a piece of Brie could be so entertaining? I’d say Live At The Apollo is just around the corner for a girl like me.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Guy Fawkes Inn, York
Guy Fawkes Inn
25 High Petergate
York YO1 7HP
www.gfyork.com
01904 623 716
by OJ Simpson
Why must we remember the 5th of November
For gunpowder treason and plot?
It’s much more pleasing to order two teas and
Sit down to eat something hot.
Guy Fawkes in York
Was where we went,
To see where Guy was born, and then,
To break our fast and ease the woe,
With slices of hot toasted dough.
By God's providence this she match'd,
With egg and haddock freshly catch’d.
Holloa Boys, Holloa boys, I chose fried things,
Holloa Boys, Holloa Boys, fit for a King!
Hip Hip Hoorah!
Hip Hip Hoorah!
Tomatoes, mushroom, two eggs poached,
Black pudding, beans and bacon,
A pot of tea to rinse it down,
Until you’re filled to bursting.
Much tastier this way by far,
To celebrate a blazing star.
Don’t burn his body, toast your bread.
Then we'll say: ol' hunger’s dead.
25 High Petergate
York YO1 7HP
www.gfyork.com
01904 623 716
by OJ Simpson
Why must we remember the 5th of November
For gunpowder treason and plot?
It’s much more pleasing to order two teas and
Sit down to eat something hot.
Guy Fawkes in York
Was where we went,
To see where Guy was born, and then,
To break our fast and ease the woe,
With slices of hot toasted dough.
By God's providence this she match'd,
With egg and haddock freshly catch’d.
Holloa Boys, Holloa boys, I chose fried things,
Holloa Boys, Holloa Boys, fit for a King!
Hip Hip Hoorah!
Hip Hip Hoorah!
Tomatoes, mushroom, two eggs poached,
Black pudding, beans and bacon,
A pot of tea to rinse it down,
Until you’re filled to bursting.
Much tastier this way by far,
To celebrate a blazing star.
Don’t burn his body, toast your bread.
Then we'll say: ol' hunger’s dead.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Roast, Borough
Roast
The Floral Hall
Stoney Street
Borough
SE1 1TL
0845 034 7300
www.roast-restaurant.com
by T.N. Toost
Malcolm recognized me from my pictures online, shouting “Mr. Toost!” when I passed the London Bridge newsstand. We embraced and walked through Borough Market to Roast. Its cathedral-like dining room was populated with businesspeople and dealmakers and one other guy who looked out of place, like us.
“I’m glad someone else is wearing a t-shirt,” I whispered, and Malcolm grinned.
It was somewhat awkward to peruse the menu and try to keep a conversation going at the same time, but we managed, making small talk about the options. Ten-year-old tea what? That sounds Chinese and I thought this is a purely English establishment. It either makes no sense orrrr there’s 10-year-old tea on the menu and it’s not a purely English establishment... There was no point, really, as there was no question as to what we would be ordering.
“Full English, please.” £15.00. He wasn’t a cheap date.
“And one for myself as well, thanks.” Neither was I.
It’s a distinct feature of this generation that people can correspond for years without ever meeting face-to-face and, when it finally happens, real conversation can be awkward. There were at least two points at which I wished we’d had computers; emailing would have felt more normal. Proper conversation over proper coffee is a precious commodity, though, and soon everything started to feel more normal.
Besides, we didn’t have much time for awkwardness; the food came out before we’d had time to take three sips of coffee.
“Fantastic,” I said as I saw the waitress approaching.
“Shit,” Malcolm said after she’d left.
What he had immediately realized was that serving speed is not a virtue here as it is in the States, where we want things fast and damn the consequences. Speed means that the food was reheated rather than cooked to order. If you shell out £15 for a full English, you should be served just-picked tomatoes and mushrooms, homemade sausage, beans hand-selected and matched for aesthetic consistency, bacon cut from a live pig and eggs still smelling like a hen’s hooha.
Which is not what we got. The eggs were warm, bordering on hot. The bacon yielded flaccidly to my teeth. In a £15 breakfast, the mushroom should make you hallucinate; we got a non-descript portobello. The sausage had a crisp outer shell but the inside cloyed to our gums and cheeks. The blood sausage was admittedly delicious, but knowing that Roast is widely considered to serve the best breakfast in London, this was a consolation as lukewarm as the food.
We left; I think Malcolm felt a bit embarrassed at having taken me there. He had said that he needed a special occasion to go to Roast, and that my visit was it. I hope he doesn't invite me there next time, as that would be an elaborate insult of the kind that email can never convey.
The Floral Hall
Stoney Street
Borough
SE1 1TL
0845 034 7300
www.roast-restaurant.com
by T.N. Toost
Malcolm recognized me from my pictures online, shouting “Mr. Toost!” when I passed the London Bridge newsstand. We embraced and walked through Borough Market to Roast. Its cathedral-like dining room was populated with businesspeople and dealmakers and one other guy who looked out of place, like us.
“I’m glad someone else is wearing a t-shirt,” I whispered, and Malcolm grinned.
It was somewhat awkward to peruse the menu and try to keep a conversation going at the same time, but we managed, making small talk about the options. Ten-year-old tea what? That sounds Chinese and I thought this is a purely English establishment. It either makes no sense orrrr there’s 10-year-old tea on the menu and it’s not a purely English establishment... There was no point, really, as there was no question as to what we would be ordering.
“Full English, please.” £15.00. He wasn’t a cheap date.
“And one for myself as well, thanks.” Neither was I.
It’s a distinct feature of this generation that people can correspond for years without ever meeting face-to-face and, when it finally happens, real conversation can be awkward. There were at least two points at which I wished we’d had computers; emailing would have felt more normal. Proper conversation over proper coffee is a precious commodity, though, and soon everything started to feel more normal.
Besides, we didn’t have much time for awkwardness; the food came out before we’d had time to take three sips of coffee.
“Fantastic,” I said as I saw the waitress approaching.
“Shit,” Malcolm said after she’d left.
What he had immediately realized was that serving speed is not a virtue here as it is in the States, where we want things fast and damn the consequences. Speed means that the food was reheated rather than cooked to order. If you shell out £15 for a full English, you should be served just-picked tomatoes and mushrooms, homemade sausage, beans hand-selected and matched for aesthetic consistency, bacon cut from a live pig and eggs still smelling like a hen’s hooha.
Which is not what we got. The eggs were warm, bordering on hot. The bacon yielded flaccidly to my teeth. In a £15 breakfast, the mushroom should make you hallucinate; we got a non-descript portobello. The sausage had a crisp outer shell but the inside cloyed to our gums and cheeks. The blood sausage was admittedly delicious, but knowing that Roast is widely considered to serve the best breakfast in London, this was a consolation as lukewarm as the food.
We left; I think Malcolm felt a bit embarrassed at having taken me there. He had said that he needed a special occasion to go to Roast, and that my visit was it. I hope he doesn't invite me there next time, as that would be an elaborate insult of the kind that email can never convey.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
The Counter Cafe, Hackney Wick
The Counter Cafe
4a Roach Rd
Hackney Wick
E3 2PA
07952 696 388
www.thecountercafe.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
I had never really spent any time in Hackney Wick, at least not deliberately. Based on its reputation I was imagining an outland of free expression, a place where creativity could run untethered and naked. Monkeys playing accordions on the streets, men in berets judging my scale with gnawed thumbs. But deep down I knew I’d find a handful of timber depots plus the occasional person in a sleeveless flannel top.
When we finally glimpsed our target, alarm bells rang – those internal alerts we each install when we realise hipsters don’t run or frequent good food businesses.
For here they were both sides of the counter: girls with short bleached hair and billowing ethnic-print trousers; men with long hair, longer beards, NHS glasses, orange gingham shirts. A waiter’s cartoon-bear T-shirt, tucked into his tiny polyester shorts. Another’s braces hand-made from an unravelled length of blue packaging rope. Shouty folk music on the speakers and psychedelic art on the walls. Guardian newspapers everywhere. Hardly were those sights met when I closed my eyes and was troubled by a vast image: a stoned chef and a passive aggressive owner, pissing away a trust fund. In the background flashed mood-words such as ‘screenplay’, ‘site-specific theatre’ and ‘guerrilla gardening’. I braced myself for a bad breakfast.
Then my Big Breakfast (£8) arrived and it was really, really good. As good as the breakfast in Bistrotheque or Caravan, perhaps better for the genuine shock. The yolk of my fried egg? As golden as the voice of St Gregory of Nazianzus, mingling harmoniously with the baritone carbs - the jolly potato cake and ebullient buttered Vogel toast. Bacon and sausages were fit for a duke, and the beans, oh my, they were a rarity - homemade yet worth the effort: butter beans in a salacious sauce of tomato, rosemary, garlic and lemon. A large, succulent mushroom, a ramekin of tangy inhouse relish and good coffee completed the picture.
As if by magic a canal bridge made itself visible, enabling us to leave without retracing our steps. The Olympic Stadium loomed over us as if it wanted to say – there, now you know the truth about 2012. It’s whatever’s important to you. Follow your dream, my dear Malcolm. Yeah whatevs, I replied.
4a Roach Rd
Hackney Wick
E3 2PA
07952 696 388
www.thecountercafe.co.uk
by Malcolm Eggs
I had never really spent any time in Hackney Wick, at least not deliberately. Based on its reputation I was imagining an outland of free expression, a place where creativity could run untethered and naked. Monkeys playing accordions on the streets, men in berets judging my scale with gnawed thumbs. But deep down I knew I’d find a handful of timber depots plus the occasional person in a sleeveless flannel top.
When we finally glimpsed our target, alarm bells rang – those internal alerts we each install when we realise hipsters don’t run or frequent good food businesses.
For here they were both sides of the counter: girls with short bleached hair and billowing ethnic-print trousers; men with long hair, longer beards, NHS glasses, orange gingham shirts. A waiter’s cartoon-bear T-shirt, tucked into his tiny polyester shorts. Another’s braces hand-made from an unravelled length of blue packaging rope. Shouty folk music on the speakers and psychedelic art on the walls. Guardian newspapers everywhere. Hardly were those sights met when I closed my eyes and was troubled by a vast image: a stoned chef and a passive aggressive owner, pissing away a trust fund. In the background flashed mood-words such as ‘screenplay’, ‘site-specific theatre’ and ‘guerrilla gardening’. I braced myself for a bad breakfast.
Then my Big Breakfast (£8) arrived and it was really, really good. As good as the breakfast in Bistrotheque or Caravan, perhaps better for the genuine shock. The yolk of my fried egg? As golden as the voice of St Gregory of Nazianzus, mingling harmoniously with the baritone carbs - the jolly potato cake and ebullient buttered Vogel toast. Bacon and sausages were fit for a duke, and the beans, oh my, they were a rarity - homemade yet worth the effort: butter beans in a salacious sauce of tomato, rosemary, garlic and lemon. A large, succulent mushroom, a ramekin of tangy inhouse relish and good coffee completed the picture.
As if by magic a canal bridge made itself visible, enabling us to leave without retracing our steps. The Olympic Stadium loomed over us as if it wanted to say – there, now you know the truth about 2012. It’s whatever’s important to you. Follow your dream, my dear Malcolm. Yeah whatevs, I replied.
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