Benjys Restaurant
157 Earls Court Road
Earl's Court
London
SW5 9RQ
020 7373 0245
by Terry Teagleton
A fried English breakfast has to my mind one of two essential purposes - to line the stomach in preparation for a day's drinking; or to bring the comforts of stodgy, chewy grease to a body which has spent a yesterday drinking. We are here today for the first of these reasons and this caff - the first we came across on leaving Earl's Court tube - performs its task more than adequately.
Benjys gives the impression of a proper no-nonsense London establishment. The laminated menu supplies just three main breakfast options, a terse list of extras confined only to the absolute essentials (no fancy-schmancy hash browns here and even, to my great disappointment, no black pudding) plus tea, coffee and orange juice. In view of the profligate ingurgitations ahead of me, I opt for the builder's breakfast with extra fried mushrooms. Steve foolishly just has chips - a decision which is ill advised not for the lack of substance (Steve is a better drinker than me and anyway has already eaten) but because of the penny-filching minimum food cost of £3.90 per person in the menu's smallprint which will now catch him out.
Our food arrives in short order. The sausages are close to perfection - neither soggy nor dry, their unidentifiable contents pleasantly coating the mouth in greasy goodness and sliding effortlessly down the gullet. The same sadly cannot be said about the bacon, which has been incinerated almost into nonexistence and then, bizarrely, hidden *in between* the egg (on top) and the beans (underneath) as though the chef was rightly ashamed of his endeavour. The egg itself is uninspiring - not badly cooked, but one presumes produced by a chicken with little interest in life; and the beans are as beans are as beans always are - the great ubiquitous invariant of the breakfast plate.
Most of the other components are proficiently delivered but require little comment - there are chips, mushrooms and toast. The one remaining piece of the assembly is however noteworthy; it is the tomato. Benjys have eschewed the standard fried vegetable for an uncooked plum tomato forked out of a tin. I love the effrontery, the sheer chutzpah, of places which do this - we all know how cheap it is to buy a value tin of plum tomatoes from Tesco and how little effort is invoked in the opening of said tin and fishing out of said tomatoes, and yet it is a solution which Just Works, often better than a fried tomato which is frankly difficult for even the best of breakfasteers to make exciting. As I bite into my raw plum tomato a jet of bright red juice is sent spurting out right onto Steve’s shirt, adding to my general sense of satisfaction with the world.
The place is certainly popular, with intrepid tourists out of Earl's Court hotels rubbing shoulders with standard greasy spoon denizens - drifting urban wastrels and labouring men - to almost fill the place. But despite this the lone waitress manages to take orders and deliver plates of food and free refills of tea and coffee promptly and with a breezy professionalism. As we slowly finish our final coffees and get ready to pay and leave, I reflect that in spite of its several quirks Benjys has succeeded - it has produced a solid, ample, unashamedly physical fry up; a fry up to engage oneself with, to take one's time over - in other words, the very breakfast I needed.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
The brekkies: 10 of the best breakfasts available to humanity
by Malcolm Eggs
Exactly five years have passed since a morning when – in no small part to stave off the need to get up, have a shower and do something useful – I logged onto a blogging website and wrote something rousing about how a semi-invented ‘we’ was incredibly passionate about breakfast. It was surprising that the ‘we’ became a self-fulfilling overblown claim: no less than 80 individuals have joined my mission to cut out the gristle of lazy and disdainful breakfast-serving with the simple fork of truth and the trusty knife of literary pretension.
Five years in seems like a fitting moment to do something new, and compile a list of some of the best breakfasts we’ve sampled along the way. For the sake of usefulness I’m only including places that (a) are still open and (b) I’m reasonably confident have maintained their standards. A big apology goes to Konstam, recently closed in what is a tragedy both personal and regional – they consistently served some of the finest breakfasts we’d encountered and we miss them very much.
Here is the list, in alphabetical order. As always, we apologise for the East London bias.
Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson St, Bethnal Green E2
"It is, without doubt, the mark of a quality establishment, when you are offered the wine list at 11 in the morning."
(Full review here)
Caravan, 11-13 Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell EC1R
"The chorizo and eggs (£11 for two) were delivered chicken madras-style in a handled silver pot"
(Full review here)
Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial St, Spitalfields E1
"The very definition of an event breakfast."
(Full review here)
Mess, 38 Amhurst Rd, Hackney E8
"Breakfast for two for just shy of a tenner - full marks for both, and happy tummies all round."
(Full review here)
Muratori, 162 Farringdon Rd, Clerkenwell EC1R
[Closed in early 2012] "I'd learnt no more about the postal strike, but for less than £4 had had a lovely breakfast."
(Full review here)
Regency Cafe, 17-19 Regency St, Pimlico SW1P
"Explosively flavourful tomatoes gently frosted with char, a perfectly-fried egg slithering on brown toast of the exact right thickness."
(Full review here)
The Uplands Cafe, 21 Upland Rd, East Dulwich SE22
"The kids in the cafe restored my faith in human kindness after the previous night’s unnecessary violence. And what more could you want from a breakfast outing than that?"
(Full review here)
The Walpole, 35 St Mary's Rd, Ealing W5
"A hearty, old-fashioned Full English."
(Full review here)
The Wapping Project, Wapping Wall, Wapping E1
"It was a good breakfast."
(Full review here)
York & Albany, 127-129 Parkway, Camden Town NW1
"A single artisanal Lincolnshire sausage, a slice of Old Spot bacon, a perfectly presented free-range poached egg…"
(Full review here)
Exactly five years have passed since a morning when – in no small part to stave off the need to get up, have a shower and do something useful – I logged onto a blogging website and wrote something rousing about how a semi-invented ‘we’ was incredibly passionate about breakfast. It was surprising that the ‘we’ became a self-fulfilling overblown claim: no less than 80 individuals have joined my mission to cut out the gristle of lazy and disdainful breakfast-serving with the simple fork of truth and the trusty knife of literary pretension.
Five years in seems like a fitting moment to do something new, and compile a list of some of the best breakfasts we’ve sampled along the way. For the sake of usefulness I’m only including places that (a) are still open and (b) I’m reasonably confident have maintained their standards. A big apology goes to Konstam, recently closed in what is a tragedy both personal and regional – they consistently served some of the finest breakfasts we’d encountered and we miss them very much.
Here is the list, in alphabetical order. As always, we apologise for the East London bias.
Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson St, Bethnal Green E2
"It is, without doubt, the mark of a quality establishment, when you are offered the wine list at 11 in the morning."
(Full review here)
Caravan, 11-13 Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell EC1R
"The chorizo and eggs (£11 for two) were delivered chicken madras-style in a handled silver pot"
(Full review here)
Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial St, Spitalfields E1
"The very definition of an event breakfast."
(Full review here)
Mess, 38 Amhurst Rd, Hackney E8
"Breakfast for two for just shy of a tenner - full marks for both, and happy tummies all round."
(Full review here)
Muratori, 162 Farringdon Rd, Clerkenwell EC1R
[Closed in early 2012] "I'd learnt no more about the postal strike, but for less than £4 had had a lovely breakfast."
(Full review here)
Regency Cafe, 17-19 Regency St, Pimlico SW1P
"Explosively flavourful tomatoes gently frosted with char, a perfectly-fried egg slithering on brown toast of the exact right thickness."
(Full review here)
The Uplands Cafe, 21 Upland Rd, East Dulwich SE22
"The kids in the cafe restored my faith in human kindness after the previous night’s unnecessary violence. And what more could you want from a breakfast outing than that?"
(Full review here)
The Walpole, 35 St Mary's Rd, Ealing W5
"A hearty, old-fashioned Full English."
(Full review here)
The Wapping Project, Wapping Wall, Wapping E1
"It was a good breakfast."
(Full review here)
York & Albany, 127-129 Parkway, Camden Town NW1
"A single artisanal Lincolnshire sausage, a slice of Old Spot bacon, a perfectly presented free-range poached egg…"
(Full review here)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Table, Southwark
The Table
83 Southwark Street
London
Southwark
SE1 0HX
020 7401 2760
www.thetablecafe.com
by Sadie Frosties
The menu at The Table states confidently that they serve ‘the best hollandaise on Southwark Street’. And I believe it, if not partly because I know nowhere else on Southwark Street that serves anything with hollandaise on or near it. I ordered the buttermilk pancakes with streaky bacon, organic maple syrup and caramelised banana, and settled down for my weekly blank stare at the Guardian Cryptic Crossword.
Crossword abandoned in record time, and immersed in an informative article about Dizzee Rascal, I'd barely noticed the time passing when the waiter appeared with my breakfast challenge. You may have noticed, as I had, the plural in my breakfast descriptor. But there were no 'pancakes' here. This was one, single, giant, humungoid, super pancake, easily twice the size of my face (maybe) and an accomplished centimetre in thickness. Also absent was the expected ceramic pot of maple syrup – in its place a free-pour of the continental bar variety, a syrupy ocean lapping at the shore of my pancake island. And it was delectable - the pancake fluffy, the syrup plentiful, the bananas soft and sticky. Actually everything was sticky. And delicious. Granted, it is likely that a shoe, or a copy of Grazia, would also be delicious slathered in enough maple syrup.
The bacon however, highlighted an error in my menu reading skills, which has occurred more than once in my breakfasting career, namely the subconscious reading of the word ‘streaky’ to mean ‘crispy’. Streaky it was, crispy it was not. A frightful shame considering the bacon was otherwise smoky and salty in all the correct proportions.
My advice to you? Visit The Table - the menu is great. My advice to The Table? Cook your bacon a little longer – I never finish the cryptic.
83 Southwark Street
London
Southwark
SE1 0HX
020 7401 2760
www.thetablecafe.com
by Sadie Frosties
The menu at The Table states confidently that they serve ‘the best hollandaise on Southwark Street’. And I believe it, if not partly because I know nowhere else on Southwark Street that serves anything with hollandaise on or near it. I ordered the buttermilk pancakes with streaky bacon, organic maple syrup and caramelised banana, and settled down for my weekly blank stare at the Guardian Cryptic Crossword.
Crossword abandoned in record time, and immersed in an informative article about Dizzee Rascal, I'd barely noticed the time passing when the waiter appeared with my breakfast challenge. You may have noticed, as I had, the plural in my breakfast descriptor. But there were no 'pancakes' here. This was one, single, giant, humungoid, super pancake, easily twice the size of my face (maybe) and an accomplished centimetre in thickness. Also absent was the expected ceramic pot of maple syrup – in its place a free-pour of the continental bar variety, a syrupy ocean lapping at the shore of my pancake island. And it was delectable - the pancake fluffy, the syrup plentiful, the bananas soft and sticky. Actually everything was sticky. And delicious. Granted, it is likely that a shoe, or a copy of Grazia, would also be delicious slathered in enough maple syrup.
The bacon however, highlighted an error in my menu reading skills, which has occurred more than once in my breakfasting career, namely the subconscious reading of the word ‘streaky’ to mean ‘crispy’. Streaky it was, crispy it was not. A frightful shame considering the bacon was otherwise smoky and salty in all the correct proportions.
My advice to you? Visit The Table - the menu is great. My advice to The Table? Cook your bacon a little longer – I never finish the cryptic.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Special Dispatch: St Giles Café, Oxford
St Giles Café
52 St. Giles
City Centre
Oxford
OX1 3LU
01865 552 110
by Brian Sauce
I descend upon the city of dreaming spires, scene of a gilded, mis-spent youth, to witness the marriage of an old friend with my wife in tow. My alma mater, which pretends to teach students for a few weeks out of the year, is actually a glorified conference centre and bed and breakfast, and it is to this august establishment that we repair once totally drunk in order to pass out.
There is, however, no question of having breakfast there. In fact, as I stumble along the park railings pointing out local attractions to my long suffering bride in the dead of night, I beg her to eschew our all-included college slops and to visit the St Giles Café with me the following day.
Entering the next morning, slightly the worse for wear but wreathed in smiles of nostalgia and anticipation, I am aghast to see that the place has had an ‘American Diner’ style makeover. However, this must have been a while ago because it is thankfully now as grubby as ever it was. Happy to report also, that the staff are the same, and consistently rude.
My wife is fixating on the beautiful setting of my idle youth, the medieval splendour, the lavish rooms, the Quidditch hoop… but I am gripped by breakfast. Political Correctness has gone mad to the extent that chips are not now served before noon. Or perhaps I never visited this early in days of yore. However a splendid platter of bacon, sausage, eggs, beans and toast arrives in minutes. Or rather, I am shouted at to come and get it.
Beans: firm. Eggs: perfectly runny. Toast: white sliced, pre-larded with salty butter. Sausage: superior supermarket variety. Bacon: the best bit, all crispy fat and wide, thick flavour. By God, Health and Safety have also been at the sachets, warning me not to eat too much salt, shut up. A liberal spray of ketchup is all I wanted anyway.
Are you going to finish that, dear? If there’s one thing better than a big breakfast it’s having one with my wife i.e. a bonus rasher at the end. Love her!
The St Giles Café has enjoyed many continuous years salving the hangovers of stupid children and corpulent construction workers and does one of the better five pound breakfasts you will eat – certainly the best in this provincial setting.
52 St. Giles
City Centre
Oxford
OX1 3LU
01865 552 110
by Brian Sauce
I descend upon the city of dreaming spires, scene of a gilded, mis-spent youth, to witness the marriage of an old friend with my wife in tow. My alma mater, which pretends to teach students for a few weeks out of the year, is actually a glorified conference centre and bed and breakfast, and it is to this august establishment that we repair once totally drunk in order to pass out.
There is, however, no question of having breakfast there. In fact, as I stumble along the park railings pointing out local attractions to my long suffering bride in the dead of night, I beg her to eschew our all-included college slops and to visit the St Giles Café with me the following day.
Entering the next morning, slightly the worse for wear but wreathed in smiles of nostalgia and anticipation, I am aghast to see that the place has had an ‘American Diner’ style makeover. However, this must have been a while ago because it is thankfully now as grubby as ever it was. Happy to report also, that the staff are the same, and consistently rude.
My wife is fixating on the beautiful setting of my idle youth, the medieval splendour, the lavish rooms, the Quidditch hoop… but I am gripped by breakfast. Political Correctness has gone mad to the extent that chips are not now served before noon. Or perhaps I never visited this early in days of yore. However a splendid platter of bacon, sausage, eggs, beans and toast arrives in minutes. Or rather, I am shouted at to come and get it.
Beans: firm. Eggs: perfectly runny. Toast: white sliced, pre-larded with salty butter. Sausage: superior supermarket variety. Bacon: the best bit, all crispy fat and wide, thick flavour. By God, Health and Safety have also been at the sachets, warning me not to eat too much salt, shut up. A liberal spray of ketchup is all I wanted anyway.
Are you going to finish that, dear? If there’s one thing better than a big breakfast it’s having one with my wife i.e. a bonus rasher at the end. Love her!
The St Giles Café has enjoyed many continuous years salving the hangovers of stupid children and corpulent construction workers and does one of the better five pound breakfasts you will eat – certainly the best in this provincial setting.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Special Dispatch: Not Manic Organic, Glastonbury Festival
Not Manic Organic
Glastonbury Festival
Worthy Farm
Somerset
by Cher E. Jamm
This is an apology where a review should be. I'm filing it to my editor, Malcolm Eggs, and it will be up to him whether he runs it or not [I think the public needs to hear this - Ed]. All I can say is that with the the clarity that only comes with hindsight, I now realise that perhaps Manic Organic and I will never be united in breakfasting glory. For the third year running, I have tried, and failed, to review their vegan breakfast. This year, I made the mistake of promising myself a Manic breakfast on the last day, the Sunday. In the preceding days I would sample other delights, or cook my own breakfasts to save money. Manic Organic would be a treat, I had told myself. I passed the stall every day and beamed at it, giving it a little knowing nod. I even took a photo and sent it to the LRB's esteemed editor when he got in touch to see how I was getting on. It was all in hand, he had nothing to worry about: 2010 would be the year it happened. I had no reason to doubt that it would.
Now that I'm home, I've had the time to meditate on the facts. I even discussed it with my Breakfast Spiritual Advisor - she who puts a bowl of muesli and a jug of milk on her bedside table the night before in order to take her first course the minute she wakes. BSA suspects that perhaps Manic Organic and I have some kind of mutual karmic block. Bad blood. Unresolved issues from past lives. She says I need to make peace with the place before the universe will allow me to get there. She's suggested I go to their Cafe in Birmingham with an offering before Glastonbury 2011.
And so, to the facts, dear reader:
- I awoke on Sunday at 11am.
- I had a shower, got changed and shook off my hangover with a cup of tea and a slice of orange and walnut cake from Queen Deliah's veggie cafe two doors over from Manic. The cake was delicious and orangey - somewhere between cake and an undercooked brownie. The tea was a little watery for my liking.
- Afterwards, I decided to go and see a friend I had kept missing all weekend, about a 25 minute walk away. I was full from the cake and tea and thought I would leave it an hour or so and come back for my Manic feast with a clear head.
- At about 4pm, I was called by Mr Jamm in a state of panic. He sent me on a mission collecting much needed footage for a video that was being shot and edited on-site. I had to find famous people and interview them for it.
- My assignment meant that I had to spend the next hours sweet-talking musicians' weedy managers into letting me chat to them after they came off stage. All the while, I was very aware that Manic Organic is getting further and further away from me.
- By the time I finished said assignment, I dropped the camera off at the production office and ran (RAN!) to catch Stevie Wonder at the Pyramid stage.
- The rest, in all honesty, is a hazy mixture of rum, friends, joy and laughter. No Manic breakfast.
- Monday morning was spent packing up. I had breakfast made for me. I made the foolish assumption that Manic Organic would be packing up, too. We passed it as we drove away, a small queue of die-hard fans stood waiting for their last breakfast of the festival. I shed a tear, and pawed at the window as we passed. Sad times.
And that is what happened. I now know that I should have been brave and taken breakfast at Manic Organic, instead of tea and cake at Queen Delilah's. I now know that I need to make a pilgrimage to Birmingham to make peace. Then and only then will I get that review to you all next year. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm sorry I failed you.
Glastonbury Festival
Worthy Farm
Somerset
by Cher E. Jamm
This is an apology where a review should be. I'm filing it to my editor, Malcolm Eggs, and it will be up to him whether he runs it or not [I think the public needs to hear this - Ed]. All I can say is that with the the clarity that only comes with hindsight, I now realise that perhaps Manic Organic and I will never be united in breakfasting glory. For the third year running, I have tried, and failed, to review their vegan breakfast. This year, I made the mistake of promising myself a Manic breakfast on the last day, the Sunday. In the preceding days I would sample other delights, or cook my own breakfasts to save money. Manic Organic would be a treat, I had told myself. I passed the stall every day and beamed at it, giving it a little knowing nod. I even took a photo and sent it to the LRB's esteemed editor when he got in touch to see how I was getting on. It was all in hand, he had nothing to worry about: 2010 would be the year it happened. I had no reason to doubt that it would.
Now that I'm home, I've had the time to meditate on the facts. I even discussed it with my Breakfast Spiritual Advisor - she who puts a bowl of muesli and a jug of milk on her bedside table the night before in order to take her first course the minute she wakes. BSA suspects that perhaps Manic Organic and I have some kind of mutual karmic block. Bad blood. Unresolved issues from past lives. She says I need to make peace with the place before the universe will allow me to get there. She's suggested I go to their Cafe in Birmingham with an offering before Glastonbury 2011.
And so, to the facts, dear reader:
- I awoke on Sunday at 11am.
- I had a shower, got changed and shook off my hangover with a cup of tea and a slice of orange and walnut cake from Queen Deliah's veggie cafe two doors over from Manic. The cake was delicious and orangey - somewhere between cake and an undercooked brownie. The tea was a little watery for my liking.
- Afterwards, I decided to go and see a friend I had kept missing all weekend, about a 25 minute walk away. I was full from the cake and tea and thought I would leave it an hour or so and come back for my Manic feast with a clear head.
- At about 4pm, I was called by Mr Jamm in a state of panic. He sent me on a mission collecting much needed footage for a video that was being shot and edited on-site. I had to find famous people and interview them for it.
- My assignment meant that I had to spend the next hours sweet-talking musicians' weedy managers into letting me chat to them after they came off stage. All the while, I was very aware that Manic Organic is getting further and further away from me.
- By the time I finished said assignment, I dropped the camera off at the production office and ran (RAN!) to catch Stevie Wonder at the Pyramid stage.
- The rest, in all honesty, is a hazy mixture of rum, friends, joy and laughter. No Manic breakfast.
- Monday morning was spent packing up. I had breakfast made for me. I made the foolish assumption that Manic Organic would be packing up, too. We passed it as we drove away, a small queue of die-hard fans stood waiting for their last breakfast of the festival. I shed a tear, and pawed at the window as we passed. Sad times.
And that is what happened. I now know that I should have been brave and taken breakfast at Manic Organic, instead of tea and cake at Queen Delilah's. I now know that I need to make a pilgrimage to Birmingham to make peace. Then and only then will I get that review to you all next year. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm sorry I failed you.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Andrews Café, Clerkenwell
Andrews Café
160 Gray's Inn Road
Clerkenwell
WC1X 8ED
020 7837 1630
by Gregg. E. Bread
As a lad I didn’t blink at the thought of a bowl of frosted shreddies or some such with hot milk for lunch. ‘Yes please Mother, that would be splendid, I love you’. Nor did I talk like that, but the truth of a half-hearted ungrateful shrug of ‘okay whatever mum I’m busy with all these micro machines yeah’ is so much tougher on my bubble-wrap memory of good-son utopia.
As a man such casual freedom has tensed into restraint; breakfast like a personal Von Trier ego trip.
Thou shalt not have the choice of both baked beans and tomatoes.
Thou shalt segregate baked beans from all egg on pain of making a face.
Thou shalt not eat chips with breakfast.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's egg (out loud).
Above all, breakfast can extend into lunch only when breakfast has not first been consumed or: you can’t eat breakfast twice.
Okay so there is brunch. I know. Brunch is like getting the glad eye from a cutie; a shared suggestive toying with what COULD BE. But what could (but may never) be is a weekend pursuit. I’m talking about weekdays and WHAT IS. You know, the stuff Mummy dearest wants to hear about when she phones.
Well, I recently got a new mum-pleasing career. My head finally removed from the warm belly of part-time study to the rigid posture of the second career that I thought I wanted. Thankfully colleague acceptance came early in the form of initiation rite; an invitation to eat Set Menu No.3 at the local brekkie merchants on Friday lunchtime. Grease is the new booze.
And so I took my seat amongst the off-colour Seurat décor and had little to do but wait, my choice made for me in the grand tradition of tradition. So came Set 3 - Fried Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Beans, Chips, Toast and Tea.
Frankly, the chips got my ticker edgy from the get go. Surely they only gain entry to festival of fry-up via the ‘belly-buster’ back door? A calming wave broke as these chips turned out to be more frites than doorstop. A classic cup of builders, thin and crisp bacon and the complete fried egg – aka ‘The Inbetweener’ (a yolk of runny yet sticky gloop) – suggested a happy welcome.
Then the smiles abated – time for the paddled ass of the rite of passage – as I took a keenly chomped mouthful of sausage and beans. Oh but how low these good friends had fallen. The sausage - internally caked in a faux-pink rouge – was sickeningly scented with knock-off pork musk. The beans appeared hot with their jackets on but once stripped they lay lifeless between my teeth - old, bitter haricots. I sought salvation in trusty toast. But what was this? Like some Englishman lain asleep in the midday sun, I marvelled at a crisp back and a white squidgy top. Praise be then for brown sauce – making iffy breakfast palatable since my Mother started cooking.
So there, I made it Mum, I can afford to spend £5.30 on lunch again. I’d still take the micro machines and shreddies over this any day.
160 Gray's Inn Road
Clerkenwell
WC1X 8ED
020 7837 1630
by Gregg. E. Bread
As a lad I didn’t blink at the thought of a bowl of frosted shreddies or some such with hot milk for lunch. ‘Yes please Mother, that would be splendid, I love you’. Nor did I talk like that, but the truth of a half-hearted ungrateful shrug of ‘okay whatever mum I’m busy with all these micro machines yeah’ is so much tougher on my bubble-wrap memory of good-son utopia.
As a man such casual freedom has tensed into restraint; breakfast like a personal Von Trier ego trip.
Thou shalt not have the choice of both baked beans and tomatoes.
Thou shalt segregate baked beans from all egg on pain of making a face.
Thou shalt not eat chips with breakfast.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's egg (out loud).
Above all, breakfast can extend into lunch only when breakfast has not first been consumed or: you can’t eat breakfast twice.
Okay so there is brunch. I know. Brunch is like getting the glad eye from a cutie; a shared suggestive toying with what COULD BE. But what could (but may never) be is a weekend pursuit. I’m talking about weekdays and WHAT IS. You know, the stuff Mummy dearest wants to hear about when she phones.
Well, I recently got a new mum-pleasing career. My head finally removed from the warm belly of part-time study to the rigid posture of the second career that I thought I wanted. Thankfully colleague acceptance came early in the form of initiation rite; an invitation to eat Set Menu No.3 at the local brekkie merchants on Friday lunchtime. Grease is the new booze.
And so I took my seat amongst the off-colour Seurat décor and had little to do but wait, my choice made for me in the grand tradition of tradition. So came Set 3 - Fried Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Beans, Chips, Toast and Tea.
Frankly, the chips got my ticker edgy from the get go. Surely they only gain entry to festival of fry-up via the ‘belly-buster’ back door? A calming wave broke as these chips turned out to be more frites than doorstop. A classic cup of builders, thin and crisp bacon and the complete fried egg – aka ‘The Inbetweener’ (a yolk of runny yet sticky gloop) – suggested a happy welcome.
Then the smiles abated – time for the paddled ass of the rite of passage – as I took a keenly chomped mouthful of sausage and beans. Oh but how low these good friends had fallen. The sausage - internally caked in a faux-pink rouge – was sickeningly scented with knock-off pork musk. The beans appeared hot with their jackets on but once stripped they lay lifeless between my teeth - old, bitter haricots. I sought salvation in trusty toast. But what was this? Like some Englishman lain asleep in the midday sun, I marvelled at a crisp back and a white squidgy top. Praise be then for brown sauce – making iffy breakfast palatable since my Mother started cooking.
So there, I made it Mum, I can afford to spend £5.30 on lunch again. I’d still take the micro machines and shreddies over this any day.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Cafe Aion, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Cafe Aion
1235 Pennsylvania Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302-7095
United States
(303) 993-8131
www.cafeaion.com
by Shreddie Kruger
Boulder is one of America’s most interesting cities: like an experimental new age version of America. It’s nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a 40 minute drive from Denver which is known as Mile High City because of a stratospheric altitude that makes everything just a little bit tiring. Outdoor sports zealots mix with Colorado University students and hippies by the hemp sack-load. Walking around the immaculately clean streets meanwhile it’s not hard to imagine what it was like back in the days of real horsepower and saloon bars. Locals have to be careful of the wildlife that roams around town: dogs frequently get snatched by mountain lions and it’s very common to see deer stretching their legs around the leafier areas of town.
Whilst Boulder feels so different from mainstream America, thankfully it still excels at brunch. Only in America could you get away with eating braised short ribs first thing in the morning. At newly opened Café Aion, near Boulder’s University of Colorado campus, they serve them with shoe string fries and poached eggs on their sunny terrace. You eat and you watch a view of the Flat Iron Mountains, changing colour like a chameleon snoozing in front of a disco light. It makes you want to do a Paddington Bear and bottle the combination in a jam jar.
The short ribs were braised until tender and then grilled to add some charry flavour. The succulent meat was a perfect foil for the flawlessly poached eggs. But the shoe string fries were so thin and crispy that they were impossible to grapple with. Each time you tried to spear them with your fork they splintered into tinier and tinier pieces of carbo-shrapnel. Forget about any yolk absorbtion.
A bowl of granola, yoghurt and Moroccan stewed fruit made us feel more healthy whilst a Bellini cocktail seemed rude to refuse and let us linger for longer as we watched the natives of Boulder go about their lives: students tried to break into a car that had been abandoned in the middle of a main road; runners eased down the hill and struggled on the way back up; Enormous SUVs with tyres the size of Denver rumbled past like earthquakes on wheels; and sprinklings of aspiring writers tapped away at laptops no doubt watching us watching them in a seemingly infinite regression of observation.
Café Aion’s brunch was first class. It’s rare to find such an interesting menu, graced with a range of dishes you hardly ever see at breakfast time. And it’s worth a visit for the short ribs alone.
1235 Pennsylvania Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302-7095
United States
(303) 993-8131
www.cafeaion.com
by Shreddie Kruger
Boulder is one of America’s most interesting cities: like an experimental new age version of America. It’s nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a 40 minute drive from Denver which is known as Mile High City because of a stratospheric altitude that makes everything just a little bit tiring. Outdoor sports zealots mix with Colorado University students and hippies by the hemp sack-load. Walking around the immaculately clean streets meanwhile it’s not hard to imagine what it was like back in the days of real horsepower and saloon bars. Locals have to be careful of the wildlife that roams around town: dogs frequently get snatched by mountain lions and it’s very common to see deer stretching their legs around the leafier areas of town.
Whilst Boulder feels so different from mainstream America, thankfully it still excels at brunch. Only in America could you get away with eating braised short ribs first thing in the morning. At newly opened Café Aion, near Boulder’s University of Colorado campus, they serve them with shoe string fries and poached eggs on their sunny terrace. You eat and you watch a view of the Flat Iron Mountains, changing colour like a chameleon snoozing in front of a disco light. It makes you want to do a Paddington Bear and bottle the combination in a jam jar.
The short ribs were braised until tender and then grilled to add some charry flavour. The succulent meat was a perfect foil for the flawlessly poached eggs. But the shoe string fries were so thin and crispy that they were impossible to grapple with. Each time you tried to spear them with your fork they splintered into tinier and tinier pieces of carbo-shrapnel. Forget about any yolk absorbtion.
A bowl of granola, yoghurt and Moroccan stewed fruit made us feel more healthy whilst a Bellini cocktail seemed rude to refuse and let us linger for longer as we watched the natives of Boulder go about their lives: students tried to break into a car that had been abandoned in the middle of a main road; runners eased down the hill and struggled on the way back up; Enormous SUVs with tyres the size of Denver rumbled past like earthquakes on wheels; and sprinklings of aspiring writers tapped away at laptops no doubt watching us watching them in a seemingly infinite regression of observation.
Café Aion’s brunch was first class. It’s rare to find such an interesting menu, graced with a range of dishes you hardly ever see at breakfast time. And it’s worth a visit for the short ribs alone.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Campania Gastronomia, Shoreditch
Campania Gastronomia
95 Columbia Rd
Shoreditch
E2 7RG
020 7613 0015
by Malcolm Eggs
Campania is as authentic a rustic Italian café deli as it's humanly possible to be when you're based at the Shoreditch end of Hackney. There is ramshackle wooden furniture, a tall rack of sepia-tinted bottles and a tiny kitchen manned by a proud-looking cook. In a large, wide fridge sit hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and cans of amusingly named continental fizzy drinks.
But the breakfast menu is about as Italian as Castlemaine XXXX is Australian. Take my 'benerica': fried eggs in olive oil, Neopolitan sausages, pancetta, rocket. A British fry-up, basically, viewed through Rossini-tinted glasses - the chicken tikka masala of fare colazione.
But is this a terrible thing? As we've pointed out before, Italy is known for many things, and many of these are culinary, but none of them are breakfast. It has always been thus: evidence from Pompeii suggests mornings powered merely by bread and water, but at least there was food. Barring remarkable luck, today's breakfasting tourist must learn to get by on dense espresso washed down with strong cigarette.
Give me a Campania breakfast any day of the week - unctuous, dense sausages and tasty pancetta satisfyingly laced with ovals of unyielding fat. My faultless eggs had a healthy - virtually Deep South - olive oil glow. You'll be wondering about the rocket, because rocket on a breakfast plate is always weird: it was true here too, but given that proviso it played its role strangely well - a deft junior partner in an oddball coalition.
Looking around smugly after an excellent double macchiato I noticed an even more telling East London tic: a chandelier. But hey, I reflected, if the breakfasts are this good, I wouldn't care if the whole place turned out to be run by Vice magazine, who it transpired had been bought by Café Rouge, who in turn were a subsidiary of Nestlé. That would be fine, I realised cheerily.
95 Columbia Rd
Shoreditch
E2 7RG
020 7613 0015
by Malcolm Eggs
Campania is as authentic a rustic Italian café deli as it's humanly possible to be when you're based at the Shoreditch end of Hackney. There is ramshackle wooden furniture, a tall rack of sepia-tinted bottles and a tiny kitchen manned by a proud-looking cook. In a large, wide fridge sit hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and cans of amusingly named continental fizzy drinks.
But the breakfast menu is about as Italian as Castlemaine XXXX is Australian. Take my 'benerica': fried eggs in olive oil, Neopolitan sausages, pancetta, rocket. A British fry-up, basically, viewed through Rossini-tinted glasses - the chicken tikka masala of fare colazione.
But is this a terrible thing? As we've pointed out before, Italy is known for many things, and many of these are culinary, but none of them are breakfast. It has always been thus: evidence from Pompeii suggests mornings powered merely by bread and water, but at least there was food. Barring remarkable luck, today's breakfasting tourist must learn to get by on dense espresso washed down with strong cigarette.
Give me a Campania breakfast any day of the week - unctuous, dense sausages and tasty pancetta satisfyingly laced with ovals of unyielding fat. My faultless eggs had a healthy - virtually Deep South - olive oil glow. You'll be wondering about the rocket, because rocket on a breakfast plate is always weird: it was true here too, but given that proviso it played its role strangely well - a deft junior partner in an oddball coalition.
Looking around smugly after an excellent double macchiato I noticed an even more telling East London tic: a chandelier. But hey, I reflected, if the breakfasts are this good, I wouldn't care if the whole place turned out to be run by Vice magazine, who it transpired had been bought by Café Rouge, who in turn were a subsidiary of Nestlé. That would be fine, I realised cheerily.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Lucile's, Boulder, USA
Lucile's
2124 14th Street
Boulder, CO 80302-4804
United States
001 (303) 442-4743
www.luciles.com
by Shreddie Kruger
Gaunt and be-shorted men, women and children loitered around the wooden creole house like addicts gagging for a shot of methadone to sooth them through the sticky morning. Names were called out and faces blossomed as their turn was announced. Being British, the sight of a queue got us hooked and within a skipped heartbeat we were jostling for position wondering what all the fuss was about.
Once invited inside it became clear that the emaciated people around us weren’t druggies. They were just far leaner than their normal American compatriots, which isn’t surprising seeing as most of Boulder lives off lentils, hemp and a healthy intake of medicinal marijuana.
Lucile’s is a creole restaurant housed inside a New Orleans style weatherboard building with a brunch menu that is enough to give you jaw ache just from looking at it. Whilst sipping grapefruit juice we gawped at the food being devoured around us and ordered the most unusual things we could see.
My “Eggs Pontchartrain” arrived with a thud: Colorado mountain trout and two poached eggs slathered in béarnaise sauce and flanked by both grits and sautéed potatoes. The eggs were so perfectly soft that they ran all over the trout like a flash flood, while the béarnaise sauce was so naughty that it had probably just put drawing pins on its teacher’s chair whilst giving its brother a Chinese burn. The white trout flesh flaked sensuously under the weight of the eggs to create a flavour combination not a million miles away from that British summer lunchtime treat of poached salmon with hollandaise sauce garnished with dill.
Washed down with some bitter chicory coffee, it was as delicious as it was filling and unusual. Next door a creole breakfast with stewed beans, spicy sausage, poached eggs and sautéed potatoes was every bit as gut busting – so much so that we were unforgivably unable to order their famous beignets, watching sadly as the sugar dusted square doughnuts wafted past on trays.
Lucile’s is rightly revered as one of Colorado’s leading breakfast institutions and deserves a visit if you are near Mile High City. After just one hit I am gagging for more.
2124 14th Street
Boulder, CO 80302-4804
United States
001 (303) 442-4743
www.luciles.com
by Shreddie Kruger
Gaunt and be-shorted men, women and children loitered around the wooden creole house like addicts gagging for a shot of methadone to sooth them through the sticky morning. Names were called out and faces blossomed as their turn was announced. Being British, the sight of a queue got us hooked and within a skipped heartbeat we were jostling for position wondering what all the fuss was about.
Once invited inside it became clear that the emaciated people around us weren’t druggies. They were just far leaner than their normal American compatriots, which isn’t surprising seeing as most of Boulder lives off lentils, hemp and a healthy intake of medicinal marijuana.
Lucile’s is a creole restaurant housed inside a New Orleans style weatherboard building with a brunch menu that is enough to give you jaw ache just from looking at it. Whilst sipping grapefruit juice we gawped at the food being devoured around us and ordered the most unusual things we could see.
My “Eggs Pontchartrain” arrived with a thud: Colorado mountain trout and two poached eggs slathered in béarnaise sauce and flanked by both grits and sautéed potatoes. The eggs were so perfectly soft that they ran all over the trout like a flash flood, while the béarnaise sauce was so naughty that it had probably just put drawing pins on its teacher’s chair whilst giving its brother a Chinese burn. The white trout flesh flaked sensuously under the weight of the eggs to create a flavour combination not a million miles away from that British summer lunchtime treat of poached salmon with hollandaise sauce garnished with dill.
Washed down with some bitter chicory coffee, it was as delicious as it was filling and unusual. Next door a creole breakfast with stewed beans, spicy sausage, poached eggs and sautéed potatoes was every bit as gut busting – so much so that we were unforgivably unable to order their famous beignets, watching sadly as the sugar dusted square doughnuts wafted past on trays.
Lucile’s is rightly revered as one of Colorado’s leading breakfast institutions and deserves a visit if you are near Mile High City. After just one hit I am gagging for more.
Monday, May 17, 2010
British Airways breakfast, somewhere over northern Portugal
British Airways breakfast
(somewhere over northern Portugal)
by hAshley Brown
Altitude: 32000 feet, Speed: 532 mph, Outside temp: -55 C.
It's 5.32am (time at destination) and somewhere between an ashcloud and an impending strike, flight BA246 hopes to land at Heathrow sooner rather than later. Rumour has it that whilst we've been in the air (en route from Buenos Aires via Sao Paolo) Heathrow has closed and may well reopen again. But right now, in the cycle of false dusks and dawns regulated by the steely yet good-humoured will of the air stewardesses, the fitful mid night slumbers of my cabin compadres has been forcefully truncated by cabin lights and an offer of breakfast.
It's full English breakfasts, or cheese croissants, that are hidden alluringly below the foil lids and have been tucked up warm since we left Brazil. My stewardess assures me that all the cheese croissants will go, as Brazilians don't really 'get' the bacon and eggs. It's a heavy responsibility for our national carrier: for many, their first taste of our national dish may come on a little tray and be eaten with branded plastic cutlery. (The irony being of course that this pivotal meal is never assembled on home shores. I imagine they have good reason for not calling this one the full Brazilian.)
Considering the challenges faced by anyone trying to keep a breakfast warm and decent-tasting for 12 hours, this meal certainly tries. A fattier cut of streaky bacon, once grilled, now taking on a braised demeanour, is full of flavour if somewhat oversalted. A little sausage lurks behind a pile of baked tomato slices, the tomato prone to blandness, the sausage coarse cut and lightly spiced. But there is a blot on the horizon, like the belching Eyjafjallajökull - a pile of scrambled eggs, ruining everything for everyone. With a granularity not dissimilar to that of looming ashcloud, these eggs are not of this world and certainly not from any chicken i've ever met.
Elsewhere on the tray - a fruit medley of papaya, pineapple and over-eager melon join some brazillian orange juice, the ubiquitous plain muffin (prizes to whoever can get it out of the plastic wrapper with glazed muffin top intact), and some perfunctory coffee.
It's not the greatest breakfast, yet the novelty of its arrival, and the lucky-break in airspace restrictions that followed, makes it taste all the better.
(somewhere over northern Portugal)
by hAshley Brown
Altitude: 32000 feet, Speed: 532 mph, Outside temp: -55 C.
It's 5.32am (time at destination) and somewhere between an ashcloud and an impending strike, flight BA246 hopes to land at Heathrow sooner rather than later. Rumour has it that whilst we've been in the air (en route from Buenos Aires via Sao Paolo) Heathrow has closed and may well reopen again. But right now, in the cycle of false dusks and dawns regulated by the steely yet good-humoured will of the air stewardesses, the fitful mid night slumbers of my cabin compadres has been forcefully truncated by cabin lights and an offer of breakfast.
It's full English breakfasts, or cheese croissants, that are hidden alluringly below the foil lids and have been tucked up warm since we left Brazil. My stewardess assures me that all the cheese croissants will go, as Brazilians don't really 'get' the bacon and eggs. It's a heavy responsibility for our national carrier: for many, their first taste of our national dish may come on a little tray and be eaten with branded plastic cutlery. (The irony being of course that this pivotal meal is never assembled on home shores. I imagine they have good reason for not calling this one the full Brazilian.)
Considering the challenges faced by anyone trying to keep a breakfast warm and decent-tasting for 12 hours, this meal certainly tries. A fattier cut of streaky bacon, once grilled, now taking on a braised demeanour, is full of flavour if somewhat oversalted. A little sausage lurks behind a pile of baked tomato slices, the tomato prone to blandness, the sausage coarse cut and lightly spiced. But there is a blot on the horizon, like the belching Eyjafjallajökull - a pile of scrambled eggs, ruining everything for everyone. With a granularity not dissimilar to that of looming ashcloud, these eggs are not of this world and certainly not from any chicken i've ever met.
Elsewhere on the tray - a fruit medley of papaya, pineapple and over-eager melon join some brazillian orange juice, the ubiquitous plain muffin (prizes to whoever can get it out of the plastic wrapper with glazed muffin top intact), and some perfunctory coffee.
It's not the greatest breakfast, yet the novelty of its arrival, and the lucky-break in airspace restrictions that followed, makes it taste all the better.
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