The London Review of Breakfasts

Breakfasts and Beds: The White Bar, Chic and Basic, Barcelona

2009-07-11T10:51:00.003+01:00

The White Bar
Chic and Basic Hotel, Born
Princesa, 50
08003 Barcelona,
España

by Kiwi Herman

Music festivals and breakfast don’t mix.

That’s unless well into your 30s like me, you prefer to couple spontaneous hedonism with premeditated comfort (ie. sack off camping in mudbaths for boutique hotels in the Med).

Commissioned to write a review of Barcelona’s Sonar Festival, I decided to lord it up at the Chic and Basic Hotel in my favourite district, Born - and made damn sure I got up for breakfast (after all who knew when I might eat again?).

Sonar: let’s just say if Glastonbury is medieval, like people going to war, then Sonar is more tribal, like people going to dance, make love… and then eat.

Ever seen a 61 year old Amazonian, once muse to Andy Warhol, hula-hoop in a thong swimsuit? Thanks to Spain’s 3 day electronic music mecca and the scariest lady on the planet - Grace Jones, I have.

But that’s actually all I saw (or remember seeing) because Barcelona has too much else to get involved in – like tapas. Apparently there’s an art to eating them, ‘tapeo’. Well, if it’s artistic to stuff your face at every given opportunity – little and often – then give me a montadito and call me El Gordo.

The hotel: Literally one of the most bizarre places I’ve ever stayed in – like living in an iPod. I now affectionately refer to it as the ‘disco spunk’ hotel.

You enter the century-old building under what looks like a giant jellyfish-slash-womb. Then there’s the corridors – massive plastic tentacles come down from the ceiling and change colour via LEDs every few minutes. It’s all a bit “beam me up, Scottie”. Oh, the photo opportunities that can be had after indulging in too much cava (andthentherest).

As if that’s not psychedelic enough, you can change the colour of your very white room via remote control (and make it flash like a disco – ‘chromo-therapy’ apparently), the glass shower is in the middle of the bedroom (my researcher and I now have no secrets), and the manager knows the perving hotspots on the beach to check out fit Spaniards (what a shame I’m not really their type on these particular beaches).

The breakfast: At the hotel’s ‘White Bar’. Imagine all the above, then add a disco buffet bar made of mirrored tiles (surpassed in kitsch only by the disco boat I’ve spotted on Regent’s Canal by Broadway Market), ‘Streetlife’ coming through the speakers, Guinness bottles lining the walls and another jellyfish thingumejig on the ceiling.

For 8.50E you get all that, plus an all-you-can-eat Catalan buffet of croissants (er, aren’t they French?), cheese and meats. Weirdly there were also Coco Pops (or Spanish equivalent, er… Caca Poopoos?).

Screw cereal, I’d eat gazpacho for breakfast every day if I could (might as well start the day stinking of garlic as you mean to carry on). The White Bar offered the next best thing - a big bowl of fresh tomato pulp mixed with olive oil, garlic and sea salt – ready and waiting to be added to rustic bread to make ‘pan con tomate’, the ubiquitous 19th Century Catalan dish. Simple - but also the best thing that's ever been done to bread. Or to a tomato for that matter. Thanks again Spain for bringing the veg, damnit, fruit, to Europe.

Chic and Basic’s ‘White Bar’ had me at the pan con tomate.

It’s chic. It’s basic. It’s camp - and I’m never camping at a festival again.

Car Park and Cafe, Bethnal Green

2009-07-01T13:54:00.003+01:00

Car Park and Cafe
Malcolm Rd
Bethnal Green
E1 something or other

by Joyce Carol Oats

You walk past Car Park and Cafe every morning: it’s the halfway point on your way to the Tube, after the council estate and the railroad bridge, before the drunks sitting on the park benches. Sometimes you walk past it when it is raining; sometimes you walk past it in the sunshine; sometimes you walk past it when you are looking forward to getting to your office and sometimes you walk past it when you are feeling very grumpy and not looking forward to work at all. You are, in general, a moody girl, but Car Park and Cafe has never evoked any emotion from you. You decide to investigate.

You take your flatmate Ben. You and Ben crunch over the gravel in Car Park and you see Cafe: it’s in a corrugated industrial caravan. As you walk towards the entrance, a giant black Doberman leaps at you in a hungry way. It’s fenced in a pen, with a dog house and a lot of large tins of Chum. You feel worried about the dog.

Inside Cafe, a pallid man stands behind a counter. The wall is festooned with pieces of fluorescent card with menu items. The room is full of acrid smoke from the grill. You think about asking for something vegetarian. You think better of it. You and Ben sit at a table as far away from the smoke as possible, which happens to be next to a one-armed bandit, which happens to not be very far from the grill, not really, because it is, after all, an industrial caravan. Ben hands you a tabloid newspaper. You find out what a topless model thinks about the MP expenses scandal (she disapproves).

You drink instant coffee. The food arrives. Fried eggs, fried bacon, fried tomatoes. Fried baked beans. Fried bread which is something you have not eaten since you were a much younger moody girl, on holiday with your parents at a B&B in the North of England: by the fourth day of fried bread, you cried and refused to eat any more. But here, at Car Park and Cafe, it is devilishly good. You are not sure if it is actually good, though, or just better than the sausages, which are two perfectly smooth extruded tubes of phallic meat product.

The man who is charge of the frying is now playing with the one armed bandit. He pumps coins into it from the cash register; he loses; he goes back to the cash register; he pumps in more coins. He loses some more. The one-armed bandit makes cha-ching noises. You finish your fried bread. You look at Ben. He looks at you. The acrid smoke in the room is thicker. Your eyes are watering, or maybe you are just crying. You and Ben agree to leave. He pays because you cannot see in to your wallet. You walk past the hungry dog. It barks. Your stomach churns. You see your reflection in a window: your tears have carved a thick black line down your cheek. You cannot, you realise, endorse Car Park and Cafe under any circumstance, not even an ironic one. You also realise that you are wearing too much makeup.

Covenant Community Church, Cleveland, USA

2009-06-21T19:08:00.004+01:00

Prayer Breakfast
Covenant Community Church
3342 East 119th St.
Cleveland
Ohio
USA

by T.N. Toost

The morning started badly. I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep and, in my grogginess, I had trouble choosing clothes. On the one hand, I wanted to show respect and not under-dress, but on the other I wanted to be comfortable. What if I was in jeans and a t-shirt? Would they turn me away? I half wanted to tempt them to do so, to then ask, What Would Jesus Wear?

When I did get there, my clothes didn’t really matter; it was my skin above the collar and below the cuffs that stood out. As I’d suspected, the congregation was entirely black. Well, aside from two middle-aged white women sitting in the front. I immediately thought of Fight Club, of Jack branding Marla a “tourist.” These women weren’t there for the right reasons. They were there to observe, then go back to their middle-class white suburb feeling like they’d been adventurous, intercultural; like they’d gotten something out of it. My motives, of course, were pure.

We were called to breakfast, where women served small portions of eggs, grits, hash browns, bacon, sausage and a half-Danish. I took my plate, got some orange juice and suddenly realized that women surrounded me. One carried my juice three steps to a table and introduced me around to the women already eating, telling everyone my name and saying that we were family. They referred to me as “brother,” and I thought of a third way, one Derek Zoolander had not anticipated: not as an actual brother, or the way that black people mean it, but as siblings to Jesus, and God’s children. I’m not sure which is more meaningful.

The eggs were astounding – rich, buttery, creamy. A woman found me to put a slice of American cheese on my grits, which was something not everyone got, apparently. The cheese was rubbery and gave some resistance to my teeth, in contrast to the otherwise mushy grits. The Danish was average, the sausage small and dry, the bacon gristly and the orange juice reconstituted.

It was good that there wasn’t much food, as there wasn’t much time to eat before we were called to the central hall. We flooded in, almost choreographed, and I was seated by the organizer in the front. The row of girls across from me started dabbing their eyes daintily just as the program started. It was as if they were pretending to be so moved by what was happening and what was said that they had to make a big deal of it. I thought back to Mark Twain’s descriptions of congregations and imagined them at a tent revival, feeding on the spirit – that is, if the white folk would have let them join in.

The talk was abbreviated. Aaron Hopson, the speaker, only quoted a few verses: Genesis 3:8-9, Peter 5:8, 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23. He mostly talked about drinking, doing drugs and chasing tail. Then, when he was in Daytona Beach, Florida for spring break, drunk and stoned, a man walking down the beach stopped and prayed for him. Hopson started hearing sounds and voices, and had visions of angels and demons. Even in my fatigue it sounded ludicrous.

At first, every time I saw someone stand up to applaud, I did the same, assuming the whole church would join us. That’s what would happen in a white churchgoing audience – like sheep, a critical mass would force everyone to stand and applaud. At this church, though, one person standing meant nothing, nor did fifteen. Some people didn’t even applaud when others wept in jubilation. My girlfriend later told me she always assumed that when a black audience didn’t applaud, they were being rude; I thought they were being honest. Standing ovations are a dime a dozen – I read an op-ed once that called for fewer standing ovations at symphonies, saying they were too cheaply granted. Here, applause had to be earned.

Hopson went through some of the common sins to be guarded against – sins on television, pornography on the internet, smoking, drinking, drugs. Then he said, “Some of you are sleeping with other peoples’ husbands. Some are sleeping with other peoples’ wives." “What?” I thought, glancing around. Some people were nodding, while some had blank looks, as if trying to avoid detection. I was in a den of sinners, and, really, I was far from innocent myself. Suddenly I realised that the problems in my life were not based in the outside world – they were part of me, the result of my own actions and weaknesses. And suddenly, salvation was within reach, provided that I changed my ways. When, normally do we recognize our own faults? It’s human, I think, to believe that we’re perfect and others are full of flaws; isn’t that what Jesus was talking about, with the beam and motes in eyes?

Is this why people go to church?

The organizer said that the breakfast was “not about eggs and grits; it’s about souls.” The food, certainly, was not worth $10; the servings were tiny and, except for the eggs, mediocre. However, I was shaken. The experiences of others were my own. They had their own secrets and shortcomings, and I had mine – shortcomings which, no matter how prominent, I always manage to overlook or excuse. For a brief moment, I had to face them, to realize that we’re all guilty, all tainted, all fallible.

At the end, Hopson held up two copies of his books to show the audience that they were for sale, then came down off the pedestal, handing one to the organizer and one to me. I thought they were to be passed around, so I handed it to the woman behind me and headed off, shaking hands, patting backs and praising my way out.

I was halfway down the block when a man’s voice called out. “Hey! You left your book!” I ran back to him and took it. As he stretched out his hand, I thought of the Sistine Chapel.

Then I thanked him, turned around and was gone.

Mon P'tit Chou, East Dulwich

2009-06-15T22:39:00.020+01:00

Mon P'tit Chou
53 Lordship Lane
East Dulwich
SE22 8EP
020 7564 3800

by Malcolm Eggs

Hello, my little cabbage. Sit down for a moment: I want to tell you a story. Well, alright it’s not exactly a story - it’s a breakfast review, and is lacking much in the way of plot and character.

Ten years ago I found myself at the opening event for Mon P’tit Chou. We stood on a small raised area, drinking champagne and crunching on bruschetta and it all seemed very exciting, this suave chamber of Gallicism wedged between the optician and the kebab shop.

These days it’s still out of place, but that’s because the bread basket contains mere baguettes, which is plain retro on a high street that offers so many £3 artisan sourdoughs that if you bought them all and placed them end to end they’d stretch from here to the Moon. By Moon I mean the Half Moon pub in Herne Hill, but you see my point. The tabletops are all embedded with black and white photographs of New York reminiscent of the 'arty' section of a Hallmark outlet, which also feels retro but in a way that harks back to a past that, when you think about it, never actually existed.

My old friend Martha and I each ordered the smaller version of Mon P’tit Chou’s full English. It exemplified the “one of each” or “all the talents” approach and was £5.95. The sausage – compact, hot, vivid - was best; the rasher of bacon and ample beans were no-fuss but cooked with, well, decency; the eggs were available any way we liked as long as we liked them scrambled and overdone.

It was a nice, normal breakfast, substantial yet completely ephemeral - like a Sebastian Faulks novel. We ordered some smoothies and then nothing else interesting happened, which is where we feel glad that I said very early on that this isn't a story.

Prime Burger, New York

2009-06-08T23:37:00.003+01:00

Prime Burger
5 E. 51st. Street
(Between Madison & 5th)
New York, NY 10022
+1 212-759-4730
www.primeburger.com

by Dee Caff

If you ever find yourself wandering the streets of Manhattan in need of a breakfast fix, go to Prime Burger. As the name might suggest, it’s pretty unassuming from the outside (in a Baker’s Oven rather than a Fat Duck kind of a way), but the array of somewhat faded press clippings plastered to its glass doors give an inkling of the greatness lurking within.

We found it by chance. It wasn’t in our guide books, and we’d have walked straight past it, had it not been for the beady glare of my travelling companion, whose penchant for French toast saw her eyeing every potential eatery with an air of crazed expectancy. I wasn’t convinced – frankly it looked a little shabby – until we got closer and I peeked inside at what can only be described as a quintessential American diner.

On entering we found it not to be the sort of twee, contrived affair I despise, but more of a mystical time warp, a portal into early 60s New York - complete with beige leather seating, deco light fittings and shining wood chip walls. We took a seat at the long bar and fawned over the laminate menu which revealed that Prime Burger is the proud owner of a prestigious James Beard award for ‘Classic American Restaurant’.

Living the American service dream, we waited mere seconds before the Peruvian waiter glided up to us in his starched white waiter suit and dickie bow. It wasn’t long before we were swigging on coffee and OJ, looking like we were in the middle of an Edward Hopper, tummies rumbling in wait for our first, and most important meal of the day.

And then came the main event. Two plates piled high with glistening, golden French toast – dusted lightly with icing sugar and accompanied by some of the saltiest, crispiest, crumbliest bacon I’ve ever tasted. I must have poured about a quarter of a jug of maple syrup on mine too, savouring the novelty of drenching my food in runny sugar. I’m not normally one for sweet things in the morning (give me a full English over a continental any day of the week) but, somehow, this was an almost obscenely delicious exception to the rule.

So next time you’re swanning it on the other side of the pond, don’t bother with the Lexington Grill (as recommended by ‘local experts’ in the Time Out guide), its nonchalant ‘we’re in all the guidebooks’ service and overpriced pancakes. Go and talk to the boys from Queens and eat French toast. Or do as I did, and have a burger for breakfast. A Prime Burger.

Breakfasts and Beds: Aaron House, Port St Mary, Isle of Man

2009-05-29T12:35:00.003+01:00

Aaron House
The Promenade
Port St Mary
Isle of Man IM9 5DE
+44 (0)1624 835702
www.aaronhouse.co.uk

by Kiwi Herman

For the London-centric of you, a quick geography lesson... the Isle of Man is nowhere near the Isle of Bestival. You’ll find it smack bang in the middle of the Irish Sea (left at Liverpool or right at Belfast). And the Manx folk? They’re white, 4-horned-sheep-eating, tailless-cat-owning, tax-avoiding, Martin Clunes-haters. Oh, and their 3-leg-logo looks somewhat like a Swastika.

But they sure know how to smoke a kipper.

I found myself in the Wild West of the windy Isle last week – alone in the honeymoon suite of a seaside guesthouse advertising an organic breakfast with a ‘Victoriana ethos’.

Welcome to the living museum that is Aaron House – all decor is period. Patterned wallpaper? Check. Bone china tea sets? Check. Chequered black and white floor? Cheque. What’s more, the relentlessly jolly proprietors Reggie & Kath dress in Victorian attire at all times. It’s Upstairs Downstairs fetishism by day and lordknowswhat by night.

Kath knows her place – pummelling away her homemade breads. I’m not entirely convinced of the Victorian historical authenticity of a full fry-up inclusive of Buck Rarebit and kippers, but she stews her own fruit and makes her own jam… what a woman! (What is it well-known philosopher/ feminist Jerry Hall said about being a maid in the living room, cook in the kitchen and…’?).

Well, if the Victorians were Opium-smoking sex-mad hippies, then there were only 2 things missing from my dish. Or were they? The lure of the grub and Kath’s mumsy, large apron-ed breasts proved addictive. I never get up at 7am, but managed 5 days in a row. Plus, I wonder if you ding that little bell with a certain rhythm you could get more than just a fruit tart.

Oh, and did I mention Reg loves showing visitors his telescope? The puns write themselves.

Portorais Hotel, Palermo, Sicily

2009-05-12T12:51:00.002+01:00

Portorais Hotel
Via Piraineto, 125
Palermo, 90044
Sicily
Italy
+39 091 8693481
www.hotelportorais.com

by Blake Pudding

We were somewhere around Corleone on the edge of the mountains when the Prosecco began to take hold. I had been commissioned by Oligarch magazine (incorporating Toff Monthly) to write an article on a classic car rally. Girls, Alfa Romeos and louche antics, the piece would practically write itself and I would get a free holiday. It was not to be. When the rally organisers found out about my intentions they threatened to run over my legs with a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado. I was skint and commissionless in Sicily so I patched a call through to Malcolm Eggs to ask whether he would take a special breakfast dispatch. He said yes and generously agreed to pay my expenses out of the LRB budget. I was back in the game but rapidly running out of words without having touched on what I had for breakfast.

We had eaten that morning at the Hotel Portorais. Everyone looked a little peaky after the night before though not as peaky as the hotel itself with its air of faded grandeur and thwarted ambition. The staff’s uniforms looked like something from an Am Dram production of HMS Pinafore. They laid on a top breakfast though. Excellent coffee of course - it is very hard to get bad coffee in Sicily - but also cakes, tarts, croissants, yoghurt and best of all a kind of flat calzone thing stuffed with ham and cheese. Not knowing when, where or with whom I would be having lunch, I made a bit of a pig of myself. I need not have worried, as after getting slightly lost, we ran into the rest of the group just outside Monreale. The Cadillac was groaning with food and wine. I necked the best part of a bottle of Prosecco, ate more pizza and then shouted “follow me to Corleone, I know the way,” though of course I didn’t and was just drunk and showing off.

Wild Cherry, Bethnal Green

2009-05-08T16:14:00.004+01:00

Wild Cherry
241 Globe Rd
Bethnal Green
E2 0JD
020 8980 6678
www.wildcherrycafe.com

by Joyce Carol Oats

I am meant to be in Chicago this Bank Holiday weekend, eating spongey pancakes drowned in sticky brown syrup that tastes of twenty different E-numbers, accompanied by my nice ex-boyfriend and the faint hope that Ira Glass might turn up in the diner. But alas! A twist of fate has left me in Bethnal Green - usually my favourite place on the planet, but not when I'm meant to be in Chicago. To simulate the experience I crave, I decide to breakfast at Wild Cherry: they do a passable American-style pancake, albeit with a maple syrup that doesn't require quotation marks.

Wild Cherry is a not-for-profit operation, run by the London Buddhist Centre, which is next door. And maybe this is why the service is so appalling. The staff members get orders wrong, fail to bring food altogether, or sometimes just blink and smile beatifically. It's the kind of behaviour that would make me very short-tempered anywhere else, but here it makes me sigh affectionately and think, 'Oh, you guys' in a way not dissimilar to how I regard my untrainable but lovable border collie.

The breakfast menu - only served on Saturdays – has two things worth eating. There are pancakes with fruit, maple syrup and mascarpone (and variations thereof), or a vegetarian full English affair which includes by far the best scrambled eggs I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with: fluffy and not greasy and decorated with chopped fresh chives. I assume they are the product of zen hens. There is also some kind of muesli, but I have never seen anyone order it (what kind of person orders muesli in a restaurant?) and a choice of wraps that look less than delightful.

The garden outside is non-smoking, which pleases me, since I am an asthmatic square. When the pancakes arrive they are a little thinner than usual, like someone forgot to add the leavening agent because he was thinking about more spiritual things. But they are still whole wheat-y and delicious, topped what must be more than £6.25 worth of chopped seasonal fresh fruit alone, a generous blob of thick mascarpone, and a glistening pool of syrup that was once actually part of a tree. I am sad that the café upgraded its old drip coffee maker (free refills) to an espresso machine (non free refills, and tastes burnt). But munching my way through the pancakes and reading an interesting essay on Beckett in the New York Review of Books, I think: OK, no Ira Glass, or E-numbers, or ex-boyfriend. But almost.

Breakfasts and Beds: Escape, Llandudno

2009-05-01T11:43:00.003+01:00

Escape Boutique B&B
48 Church Walks
Landudno
LL30 2HL
01492 877 776
www.escapebandb.co.uk

by Cher E. Jamm

I don't know about you, but when I go away to a bed & breakfast, I'm usually disproportionately excited about the prospect of breakfast the next morning. I don't care for soft furnishings, and I certainly don't give two hoots about where we dine on the day of arrival, but I'll drool and fantasise and lose sleep over the morning to come. And I'm usually disappointed and left fuming and tearful at the piddly excuse of what lay before my eyes.

At the Escape Boutique B&B, from the moment we swanned into the ornate dining room, with its parquet floors, high ceilings and fancy table settings, I got the feeling that past experiences could potentially wash away. Linen napkins and neat little menus greeted us, as did the extraordinarily gorgeous, smiling waitress who would not look out of place in a Californian beauty contest. I had to ask Mr Jamm to retrieve his jaw from the floor.

And with that, a flurry of ordering took place. Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and a cafetiere of Columbia's finest arrived with a flourish. Deliciously fresh fruit salad with natural yoghurt served in classy tumblers were gobbled up within seconds. A glance at the Sunday papers and then it was then time for the Grand Poobah, the real test of metal. The Escape was about to show its true colours.

And what colours they were. Two neat, finely fried eggs lay in the middle of this handsome plate, surrounded by the holy hexagon of all that makes a Full English. Two sausages of rare and fine pedigree (and still sizzling!); crisp bacon that is a reminder to all of why we should only eat animals that have led happy lives; a grilled field mushroom that could have doubled as a parasol; a grilled tomato that was actually cooked (I can't recall the last time that happened); a few spoonfuls of beans that didn't swamp the plate and finally, the piece de resistance: black pudding as I never knew or liked before. It was about the shape and size of a cocktail sausage and perfectly cooked on the outside, and full of bloody, oatey goodness on the inside.

I implore you all to go. Go to Llandudno, that rusty and charming old seaside resort. Go stay at the Escape B&B with it's fine soft furnishings and lovely staff. Go and find salvation in a breakfast fit for gods. And then go tell all your friends to do the same.

Op-Egg: Advertisers, please just let bacon be bacon

2009-04-25T12:12:00.010+01:00

by Hashley Brown
Walking to work the other morning I was assaulted by two wildly contrasting adverts for breakfast products. The first amazed me by how flawed it was; the other tantalized with its genius.

First off, for Weight Watchers bacon - "putting bacon back on the table" (or something) it screamed. I had to go back and check. It looked like a scene from ER, some sort of cauterized flesh, or healing scar tissue. This was bacon that had received a surgical procedure, precision engineered to remove every morsel of delicious flavourful fat. Probably with a laser. This isn't bacon in my book, it's bastardized pig flesh.

It troubled me deeply. If you shouldn't eat bacon because you're a bit chubby then hold off and eat it rarely, but eat good bacon, thick cut with all its flavour intact.

I couldn't shake this image until when rising up the escalator at Euston, like some pre-raphaelite vision of beauty a series of pictures flashed before me on one of those little TV advert things. "Saturday is breakfast day" it said as a flurry of close up, almost pornographic images flickered - an oozing poached egg, glistening almost weeping bacon - and then a big pack of Lurpak butter. This is more like it. Proper breakfasting should be sexy, indulgent and full of delicious fatty stuff, not some ascetic self-flaggelation. That's what muesli's for.

Paris Cafe & Sandwich Bar, Hoxton

2009-04-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

Paris Cafe & Sandwich Bar
140 Hoxton Street
Hoxton
N1 6SH
020 7684 7407

by Paddy Hashbrown

What is Paris? Croissants on the banks of the Seine. A cafe noisette in Le Marais. Reposing in the Shakespeare bookshop near the Notre Dame. It can safely be said that enduring breakfast at "Paris Cafe" in Hoxton Street on a drizzly Sunday morning is not redolent of the dear French capital.

I am hoodwinked into visiting this emporium of grease 'n' mediocrity by a combination of a growling stomach, an out-of-bounds kitchen and sheer undiluted desperation for sustenance. I enter, relieved after trundling for twenty minutes round the grey roads of Hoxton. The smell of fried bacon entices and like Pavlov's dog I curl up at a window seat. I flirt with the idea of beans on toast, toy with the idea of a mushroom sandwich (despite a horrifying experience the week before at the Sheperdess on City Road) and salaciously eye up the Cafe Paris fry-up.

"Breakfast number 2" I mutter, eyes matted with sleep, stomach empty of last night's thimble of tomato soup.

I glance around at the clientele. A family nearby decked in noisy Le Coq Sportif apparel square up over the missing contents of The People. "Hooz got the sports sekshun? I don't want the telly guide. Where's the flippin' racing guide? Where's me flippin' breakfast? Oi! Waitress!"

I decide that I'd happily wait 30,000 years for my breakfast but to my horror it arrives within mere hours. I didn't order hash browns. I hate hash browns. What's going on? I didn't order sausage either, and certainly not three glistening cylinders of microwaved ersatz pig. Ah, rejoice, beans. If Britain was built on beans I can surely erect a tarpaulin of beans over the rest of my order. Where's my mug of tea gone? Ah yes, I drank it in one hours ago.

I leave a few minutes later, five pounds poorer and three mouthfuls fuller.

Never before in the history of greasy spoon documenting has so much food been wasted by so hungry a critic.

Blandford's, Marylebone

2009-04-07T19:52:00.003+01:00

Blandford’s
65 Chiltern Street
Marylebone
W1U 6NH
020 7486 4117

by Shreddie Kruger

A trip to Blandford’s is not an undertaking one must, erm, undertake lightly. It requires days of planning and a clear schedule. A typical breakfast will take around 349 days to arrive. It’s the Guinness of the breakfast world – good things come to those who wait.

You must be prepared for the sort of surly service that makes you wonder how they stay in business. The guy in charge tends to wear faded jeans so tight you wonder whether he sprays them on in the morning. Or whether he put them on when he was 12, realised they were irremovable and was therefore doomed to wear them for the rest of his life. The look is topped off with an equally hugging, and no less fetching, white t-shirt. My hypothesis is that tightness of clothes is directly proportional to grumpiness.

As you order you get the feeling that he’s wondering whether he can be bothered to serve you. Maybe it’s all a bit too much effort. Or he doesn’t agree with your choices. It’s the sort of aloof charm that I love.

On a quiet weekday morning we were in the company of a very mixed crowd – two chaps in hi-vis vests pored over the financial column in the Daily Sport and a charming, bohemian girl was penning the finishing touches to her debut novel. Meanwhile we were admiring the tea coloured wallpaper and a faded mural from a Swedish naval battle that typifies the offbeat-retro-nostalgia this joint exudes.

Having had our request for a refill of tea dismissed, our breakfasts arrived. My “Blandford’s Special” consisted of an expertly fried egg, 2 rashers of sublime bacon that had been basted with extra grease (bravo), some oily mushrooms, some unwanted and wooly tomatoes and a disappointing sausage. I’ve only just twigged that it was the same components as Little Chef at Popham and had exactly the same flaws. The sausage was cheap and nasty, but without the Pot Noodle factor that would have redeemed its filthiness and the tomatoes were big and fluffy like car dice. It pains me to write this because normally everything is perfect. I wimped out and chose toast over fried bread, which, redeemingly, came cut at a jaunty angle.

Whilst my breakfast was uncharacteristically mixed, Ed’s scrambled eggs, bacon and beans could be held up to the rest of the class and an example for others to copy. Textbook stuff.

We emerged with the best part of a year taken off our lives, but full of beans to take on the rest of the day. Just remember, if you’re going to go to Blandford’s, make sure you’ve told your next of kin first. Otherwise, you’ll be gone so long they will send out a search party and report you to missing persons.

Cafe SO, Tower 42, Broadgate

2009-04-03T14:14:00.003+01:00

Cafe SO
Tower 42
25 Old Broad Street
London EC2N 1HQ
www.tower42.co.uk

by Bloody Mary

Today, I breakfasted where I work - a security threat called Tower 42. It is my favourite skyscraper in London, a scored metal behemoth shaped in the celtic bud of the Nat West symbol, with a proud glowing blue head. Tower 42 used to be the tallest building in London but whilst it now stoops limply beneath Canary Wharf, its style keeps it firmly entrenched in Londoners' affections. Eerily, floor 13 of the tower does not exist - or rather, it is physically there, but in permanent darkness. No lifts stop there and the fire escapes block it off. Rumours of CIA/MI5/FSB headquarters abound.

The new Cafe SO at the bottom of the Tower is a "deli cafe". A deli cafe is a US freemarket invention, minus any nod to US customer service. A purchase involves pointing and grunting at someone dressed in plastic who probably hates you, in order to make up "sandwiches" from filmy, multicoloured filling variations plus mayonnaise, a choice of iceberg or a tomato slice, served on any of a choice of breads (all of which seemed to be bagels). Pre-coffee, it’s an imposing assault course. I know how to point at things, as I am a brilliant shopper. However, I am a terrible cook. I don’t know how foods like to be combined. This is why I go to restaurants.

Big steel army vats of “fried breakfast” were a nice addition to the sparse sandwich “bar”. The sausages looked sizzlingly hot and everything was sparklingly clean. It is difficult to miscombine a fryup, but I only knew everything was clean because most of the vats seemed to be empty. This at 8.30, their busiest time.

Though the staff were friendlier than anticipated, it’s unavoidably claustrophobic to breakfast at the bottom of a skyscraper. The heaviness of the floors above you, suits around you and hours before you weigh on your choices. I panicked. I chose anything that looked pretty. I pointed at prawns, then at an inoffensive bagel, then at cheese. This didn't taste as good as I had hoped. Thankfully the coffee - hot, strong and foamy - washed away the taste.

Café SO is challenging. Some people like challenges, but I’m afraid I need more help with breakfast. I might have to leave the plotting to the spies on the thirteenth floor.

Fortess Cafe Restaurant, Tufnell Park

2009-03-31T22:09:00.005+01:00

Fortess Cafe Restaurant
122 Fortess Road
Tufnell Park
NW5 2HL
[Street view]

by Nelson Griddle

Greasy spoons, in my experience, come in two varieties: there are Harolds and there are Alberts.

These two categories derive, of course, from the two Steptoes of the TV sitcom. Harold, the son, is undoubtedly on the rough and ready side, but possesses a certain debonair charm, a puppyish enthusiasm. Greasy spoons of the Harold variety try to make you feel comfortable. They have aspirations - like serving cappuccinos or sandwiches made on ciabatta.

Alberts, meanwhile, are determined to stay as they are, however grim and impoverished that might be. Echoing some innate stubbornness in the British character, they almost seem to revel in their status at the bottom of the pile.

Such cafes are the gathering places of the dispossessed and unhinged of the earth. The semi-legendary Rock Steady Eddie’s in Camberwell is a good example - containing on an average morning more loonies than a scene of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Alberts nurse the misfortunes of their customers. They offer no consolation but the consolation of despair. In short, they are depressing, and often not terribly clean.

Fortess is one of the London’s Alberts. The food is average greasy-spoon fare. Nothing about the set breakfast I order is particularly bad (or good). But what marks the place out as an Albert is the unmistakable atmosphere. Despite walls painted heavy red and actually quite friendly service, there’s something comfortless and vaguely Soviet about the place. You feel as though you could be in hospital or prison.

Maybe it’s the insufficient lighting, which makes the main eating area feel gloomy and cavernous. Or perhaps it’s the long, cold, peeling corridor that leads to the none-too-clean toilet. Then again, it could be the condensation, which mists the plate-glass frontage of the café and trickles down endlessly, seeming to whisper to each and every passerby: “I am an Albert... All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

Pastis, New York

2009-03-27T15:09:00.002Z

Pastis
9 9th Ave
New York, NY 10014
USA
+1 212-929-4844

by Emma Ricano

Three months trawling LA casting circuit (see Dottie's True Blue Cafe) and no work to show for it. Agent says economy is hindering chances for young actresses but that I should update my Michael Bolton haircut first. No dice, I say, has taken me ages to foster that look. Occurs to me that maybe I was put on God’s Green Earth to procreate rather than earn a dime; read in Grazia that Angelina Jolie is looking for pad in NYC's Meatpacking District so I head over to the East Coast to mine her for information on How to Create the Perfect Family, Step 1.

Collar an undernourished Manhattanite dressed in hip acid colours and beg to be told where people like Angie and the SATC girls hang. He points me in the direction of Pastis, whose plain yet stylish exterior plus cobbles are matchy-matchy with Grazia article. Bingo.

Staff friendly and helpful, particularly when seating me in far corner after I decline their offer to stow my high-vis jerkin and hat. Notice that clientele are all dressed in slim black cigarette pants and worry that Angie might not be let in wearing pregnancy kaftan.

Drink huge bowl of excellent, strong milky coffee to remain alert for her arrival. Disregard light dishes clearly designed for celebs e.g. omelette aux fines herbes and head straight for a carbo rocket: brioche French toast with maple syrup. Knock back a freshly squeezed orange juice (essential to dose up on the vitamins necessary to prepare body for birth and/or adoption) then remove high vis gloves to applaud arrival of breakfast plate, a gravy boat of colourful seasonal fruits and two pieces of brioche so large and angular I worry how anyone without a gob the size of a truck will manage. Feel sure Angie would help me out if she were here but in her absence I carve off hefty chunks of what turns out to be light and eggy heaven dosed liberally with maple syrup and powdered sugar. The accompanying fresh fruits take the edge off the sweetness and I relax back to enjoy food high.

Half an hour later I come crashing down and start searching menu desperately for further fix, like side of bacon, pastry or house specialty, tartine. In the end I plump for a glass of champagne which emboldens me for some crucial groundwork ahead; must attract mate if I am to procreate so suggestively wink at likely looking gents. Ten minutes later kindly waiter approaches with eye drops and the bill. Engage him in conversation over excellent quality of breakfast and discover he is big fan of Michael Bolton.

The Brill Restaurant and Cellar Bar, King's Cross

2009-03-19T09:38:00.004Z

The Brill Restaurant and Cellar Bar
Omega Place
6-8 Caledonian Road
King's Cross
N1 9DT

by Salmon de Beauvoir

On my left there’s the psychotically painted façade of Tony’s Hemp Corner. On my right, the boarded-up windows and doors of The Flying Scotsman: strip-pub. This is the unlikely location of The Brill, a sophisticated-looking British eatery on Cally road, close to King’s Cross.

Everything’s beige and demure – and clean, which is ultimately why I go in (they also boast a dedicated breakfast/brunch menu). As the nervously smiling eastern European waitress shows me to a table (quelle elegance!), I approvingly note the artwork: watercolours of fish on plates. It’s not worth writing home about in any way, but it nicely counteracts the rather stiff atmosphere. Everywhere, couples sit quietly and obediently and wait for their food, which, let me tell you, is quite a wait. My companion comments that this bodes well, that a full English should take time to prepare.

Just as I start contemplating the disparity between this place’s deçor and its low prices (£4.50 for salmon and scrambled, £5.50 for full English) the food arrives. Aha! The Brill have aped the formula of the nearby St Pancras Champagne Bar: tiny bits of chopped-up smoked salmon nearly disappearing in a nightmare of overcooked scrambled eggs. Nothing stays together on my plate and the low price is suddenly explained. My companion's full English is “reasonable” – for the price, and for what you ordinarily get in London, but I feel like I was led to believe there’d be at least ‘Taste the Difference’-standard sausages, or slices of dense, “it’s-my-Polish-gran’s-recipe” bread. The absence of the advertised fried bread only makes matters worse. I wish I could tell you that their chrome espresso machine delivers something to savour, but alas, the cappuccino is some kind of mini Lait Russe.

It seems as if the owners spent all their money on the bohemian yellowy glass jars containing candles so could only afford to offer an uninteresting breakfast. I feel quite let down. From the waitress’ smile, the watermarked menu paper and the splendid name, I’d simply expected more. The old proverb has been proved right yet again; don’t judge a brekkie joint by the decorative mini trees flanking its entrance.

Oh, and they didn’t have any pastries... Scandal.

Cafe & Grill, Camden Town

2009-03-09T18:18:00.004Z

Café & Grill
19 Kentish Town Road
Camden Town
NW1 8NH

by Nelson Griddle

Quite what made me decide on a full English breakfast baguette, I’m not quite sure, but almost immediately I came to regret the decision.

The meal started well enough. Café & Grill, a little eaterie that has sprung up like a daffodil between the British Boot Company and the United Reformed Church on Kentish Town Road, was bright and clean and smart - well, for Camden, anyway.

Décor-wise, it sported a couple of those mystifying photographs of central London with absolutely no one around (At what time of the day or night, I wonder, is Piccadilly Circus completely deserted? How do they do it - photoshop?) The waitress was certainly very pretty even if her command of English didn’t extend to being able to explain the ingredients of the breakfast baguette.

Not that she was concealing any wonderful secrets. The baguette, it turned out, contained that breakfast Holy Trinity of bacon, egg and sausage. But the bacon was under-done, the egg rubbery, the sausage bland. Even the bread was under-par: like all English attempts at baguettes, it failed to attain the crisp, celestial lightness of true French bread.

But ultimately I cannot just blame poor ingredients or execution. At the best of times the breakfast sandwich is a dubious institution. There’s something about stuffing the manifold ingredients of an English breakfast (all of which should be savoured alone or in carefully considered conjunction) into a bready bun that’s unnatural, uncalled for; strange and depraved.

Yet no one had forced this upon me. It was a calamity I had brought upon myself. I had tempted the gods, and got my come-uppance: a breakfasting tragedy of Sophoclean proportions.

Acorn House, King's Cross

2009-03-04T23:28:00.004Z

Acorn House
69 Swinton Street
King's Cross
WC1X 9NT
0207 812 1842
www.acornhouserestaurant.com

by Blake Pudding

“You’re not going to bore us about organic food this year are you?” Stephen Fry-Up asked me over late night sherrys. “It’s just a bit dull you banging your anti-organic, anti- ethical drum. It makes you sound like James Delingpole.*”

This drunken, nearly-forgotten conversation jumped into my consciousness as I waited for Ian Tucker from the Observer for I was sitting in the non plus ultra of ethical restaurants, Acorn House. It would be too easy and, yes Stephen, dull to take pot shots at the worthiness of this place so I am going to review it on the food, service and general ambience alone.

The place was nearly empty but the food was not forward in coming forwards. This hiatus was quickly explained by the presence of a camera and lighting crew in the kitchen filming near-celebrity head chef Arthur Potts-Dawson going about his morning routine. At one point APD himself came over and tried very forcefully to give us the wrong breakfasts before scuttling back to his media career. When the right breakfasts did appear they were lovely. The scrambled egg was impossibly rich and, well, eggy. They tasted like they had been laid by the happiest, most attractive hens in Hackney and then rushed to King’s Cross by bicycle courier. The bacon was meaty but very salty. The bread was unremarkable.

Ian was a bit disappointed by the blandness of the interior. He was hoping for something a bit more wattle and daub but I suppose you don’t want to scare away the non-environmentalists. Having had lunch here a few times, I can vouch for the deliciousness of the ingredients and the generally high standards in the kitchen. It isn’t cheap but considering all the hand-wringing and head-scratching that goes into every morsel, neither is it very expensive.

*James Delingpole is a novelist and columnist for the Spectator. Despite being youngish and into rock n’ roll he is also quite right wing.

Little Chef, Popham, Hampshire

2009-02-18T09:52:00.006Z

Little Chef
A303 Popham Services
Micheldever
Winchester
Hampshire
SO21 3LP
01256 398490
www.littlechef.co.uk
Open from 7am

by Shreddie Kruger

What better way to start Valentine’s Day than to wake up at 5.30am and drive for two hours before dawn to a service station, where two other couples are meeting you for breakfast?

We arrived giddy with childish enthusiasm. Insanely charming Little Chef artwork in each of the parking bays had us smitten before we even got out of the car park.

When we got inside, things went from good to great. In an homage to Michelangelo on the one hand, and as a piss take of the prat in charge of Little Chef on the other, the ceiling tiles are painted to look like the sky. Other strokes of ingenuity include singing toilets, with tiles that offer up nuggets of cooking advice such as “use salt to take away bitterness, not sugar”. Who needs cookbooks when you’ve got... tiles?

With our team of 6 we divided and conquered. Girls gave thumbs up to omelettes, porridge, yoghurt, bacon sandwiches and scrambled eggs, even if they were a bit rubbery.

Boys manfully tackled the Olympic breakfast. We’d all opted for beans over tomatoes so when our heaving plates arrived with tomatoes balanced on the side we felt miffed. We politely murmured a complaint but were told we were wrong. Oddly this matronly service was brilliantly comforting.

Bacon was the perfect thickness and crispiness. We nodded approval at the thyme-infused mushrooms and sherry vinegar-anointed fried eggs, which poured out their yolky hearts like a kiss and tell whore having dinner with Max Clifford. Crisp toast, sliced from a fresh bloomer, mopped up their filthy stories with aplomb. Black pudding was a triumph. All was going so well.

Until sausagegate. Anaemic and grey, they tasted of the manufacturing rather than the pork. And we soon discovered the ketchup wasn’t from Heinz. Some raving psychopath had switched it for something with the acidic burn of battery acid and sweet kick of treacle. Predictably, our unwanted tomato was a let down too.

Putting sausage, tomato and ketchup mishaps to one side, however, this was a fine start to a great day. Because this was always more than just about breakfast. This was about hope. This is a new dawn for both Little Chef and - hopefully - the country as a whole. If somewhere as bad as Little Chef can turn itself around… then surely we can get Mighty Blighty back on track. All we need is a bad brief, some “blue sky thinking” and Heston Blumenthal’s genius. Who’s in?

Morrisons Café, Scunthorpe

2009-02-13T12:27:00.001Z

Morrisons Café
Lakeside Parkway
Scunthorpe
DN16 3UA
01724 289212
www.morrisons.co.uk

by Hamish Pastry

A breakfast review, after Hardy and then Welsh.

The Knaptons are a noble pea farming family from the fertile fields of North Lincolnshire. The Munnerys made their name as the finest greengrocers in West Wittering. And so the fortuitous match of the only Knapton daughter and Munnery son was destined to bear wonderful fruit. And veg.

The wedding breakfast was an uproarious affair. Wine and ale flowed freely. And the guests dined on the very best local beef.

Two guests in particular – one Hamish Pastry and his flaxen-haired companion – made especially merry. As the next morning’s fierce winter sun awoke the two revellers in their modest lodgings, thoughts of breakfast and painkillers crept into their sodden brains.

We drive around deserted streets, looking for a greasy spoon. A pub. Anything. But there’s nothing. Until Scunthorpe.

“We can’t have breakfast in Morrisons. Scunthorpe f*cking Morrisons,” she says.

“There’s nowhere else,” I say. “Get out of the f*cking car.”

Inside, dismal pensioners eat sludgy Sunday roasts. At 11.30 in the morning. There are shell suits everywhere. Shell suits in 2009. WTF? We order full English. It’s cheap. We soon see why.

Slimy mushrooms rub flabby shoulders with sallow bacon. Fried bread oozes deathly yellow oil. I eat. She eats. She retches. Like a cat with a hairball. I fetch a paper cup. She spews bile and grease into it.

“Sh*t,” I say.

Albion, Shoreditch

2009-02-10T10:06:00.002Z

Albion
2-4 Boundary St
Shoreditch
E1 7JE
020 7729 1051
www.albioncaff.co.uk

by Moose Lee

The front half of Albion is a deli and bakery – the walls are stacked with iconic brands – Heinz, Colman’s, Yorkshire Tea – and there’s bread boards covered with Chelsea buns, pork pies and sausage rolls. This area – which you walk through to get seated – acts as a kind of portal of nostalgia into an idealised version of the British cafe.

It’s a place where tea comes in big brown pots, each with a knitted tea-cosy. There’s bread and butter on every table. There’s white-tiled walls, an open kitchen and canteen-style seating.

I ordered the Albion Breakfast which, at just under a tenner, is not a bad deal. I got to choose how I’d like my egg. I thought I’d challenge them and ask for scrambled – not an easy thing to get right, on the quick – but they did a fantastic job, walking the runny/firm tightrope with aplomb. The sausages – although not brilliant – were a world away from the terrifying Frankensnags that come with the average fry up. The black pudding was perfectly oaty and crumbly, though it could have been twice as big. The only thing that really burst my bubble was the bubble and squeak. It tasted like baby food, little squidgy bits of carrot in the potato.

The atmosphere is lovely and the staff are relaxed and chatty; our friendly Aussie waiter sat at the table to take our order. It does get very busy on weekends, so best to try and get in there midweek. Albion (and Boundary – the restaurant downstairs) are owned by Terence Conran, which explains why the café has a Maitre D’. He seemed a little out of place, snooping around among the hungover trendies. That’s one thing that separates this place from your traditional greasy spoon: the clientele. One customer’s black glasses were so thick-rimmed and his moustache so prominent, that I thought at first he was wearing a rudimentary disguise.

Op-Egg: How to Be a Vegan at Breakfast

2009-01-28T14:17:00.000Z

by La Soya Jackson

A lone organism navigates a hostile world, every circumstance threatens its survival... trust none but yourself, act fast, think faster... 'Eat me' reads the label on the bran and blueberry muffin... what harm can one small bite do?

Don't make the mistake of thinking that a vegetarian and a vegan are in any way alike. They are as different as black pudding and marmalade. A vegan demands to read the box the vegetarian sausage came in, needs you to remember not to spread flora on their toast, requires their mushrooms to be fried in a different pan from the other mushrooms (which you're lovingly sautéing in butter and fresh parsley). A vegan cannot be fobbed off with an extra egg. But the most important and crucial thing is that a vegan will not under any circumstances be satisfied with fruit (or muesli).

A vegan has been through an extreme and sometimes violent reprogramming process, has been unplugged from the matrix of breakfast enjoyment. The temptation and magic they used to feel is a distant memory (with unpleasant connotations). A piece of over-processed tofu impregnated with natural beetroot colouring and cut into the shape of a 'bacon rasher' is not what they seek. They aren't trying to simulate a meat/dairy experience: they are creating their own new universe. Above all of the vegan's survival skills the most crucial is the ability to read beyond the menu.

That and communication.

At first communication will be a highly traumatic experience for the vegan and all those who have the misfortune to breakfast with them. Embarrassing stand offs over soya milk, politically offensive claims to debilitating allergies, over-complicated descriptions about the rainforests, animal liberation and offsetting your carbon emissions, tears, apologies, regrets. Singularly any of these will curdle good porridge and an inexperienced breakfasting vegan may face all in the one sitting.

Fortunately this phase doesn't last for long. A vegan soon learns to stand on their own wobbly gelatine-free jelly legs and embark on the experimental delights which lie between choices three and four on the specials board. The dining car is serving breakfast, the train is ready for boarding, please go to platform 9¾.

Vegan breakfast ordering is an art. It requires subtle but firm precision, gentle manipulation, and incredible foresight. A Vegan requires an expert insight into the mind of the chef, the ability to freeze time, telepathic powers, conflict resolution training, practice, perseverance and commitment.

So begin by drawing a circle around your table. Use ground pepper if it's available - ketchup will do otherwise. Summon the five sacred animal friends, the spirit guides which will accompany you through the choices you will face, carefully arrange your cutlery in the shape of a five pointed star and form the likeness of your spirit companions in salt at each magical tip.

When the waiter approaches don't ever declare yourself as a vegan. They won't understand, they will try to give you fish or refuse to give you toast. Begin as if everything is going to be very straightforward... order the vegetarian breakfast then take a deep breath. State clearly that you don't want an egg. If this goes well you can move on to tell them casually that you don't eat dairy products, inquisitively ask if they cook the mushrooms in butter, oil or dry fry, and if the answer is butter ask cautiously if they could possibly cook them in oil for you. All good? Now go for the big ask... They most certainly won't know if the vegetarian sausages contain eggs or dairy, but approach the question as if they will. When they look at you as if you'd just asked them to lay the egg, remain centred, repeat some deep breaths and return the exact same gaze. Normally this works but if nothing happens, ask if they could go and check with the chef.

When they return you're on the home straight. Firmly tell them you don't want any butter on your toast (avoid any conversation about margarine, they rarely have a tub of omega 3 linseed spread out back). Now just before they walk away, if you're feeling really lucky, go for it! Smiling appreciatively ask if they could possibly provide you with a little olive oil on the side.

A job well done, treat yourself to a decaf soya latte. Go on, be a devil and have a brown sugar in that. Now sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour. The new world order is about to arrive.

McDonald's, Painesville, Ohio, USA

2009-01-19T17:06:00.002Z

McDonald’s
95 Richmond St
Painesville
OH 44077
USA
www.mcdonalds.com

by T.N. Toost

I wept. It started when McCain gave his concession speech, far more gracious and mature than Hillary had been. Then, Barack strode to the podium, with the strong set behind him, Leni’s spotlights rising above the perfect flags, his words of victory passionate and portioned and pure, raucous, crazed crowds chanting the same words over and over again. My girlfriend, who is not a citizen and could not vote, held my hand while her sister, who is a citizen and did not vote, sat across the table and watched. The bar broke out in cheers at certain points; it was pseudo-revolutionary, after eight years of oppression by the Republicans, to suddenly find ourselves so totally in control of the government. There were tears, passionate embraces between absolute strangers and gangs of youth running down the street cheering.

I wondered if the rest of the world felt the same way.

The next morning I drove to Painesville, an economically depressed area in northeast Ohio, and parked between two massive trucks – a Chevy and a Ford, both loaded with some manner of construction gear and both beds higher than the roof of my car. Small groups of old people clustered around, but then it seemed they always did that out here. I walked in and was clearly the youngest person in the room and the only one in slacks and a button-up shirt. There was camouflage, there were grease-stained jeans and paint-stained boots, there was a tiny girl just learning to walk and smile at strangers. I walked to the counter and waited in line – waited for the voices to rise, for indignation, for violent political denouncements and vows of revenge, for my chance to order.

The menu was the same. Number Two had one sausage McMuffin, one hash brown and a small coffee. I’d been craving a McMuffin since the previous Friday, when I had actually driven to Chicago and stood near Grant Park; it was perfect. The English muffin was chewy, the sausage spiced and the egg actually tasted real and substantial. The hash brown was still way too salty; the coffee, with two creams and two sugars, was still coffee with two creams and two sugars. Low, indecipherable music hummed in the background and voices were subdued.

When I got into the office, the manager was haranguing a secretary about how Obama would raise the estate tax at the first opportunity, and a paralegal was talking to the only Muslim employee about how a Muslim was elected because of the “backward hillbilly” vote. (She didn’t know he was Muslim.) Then I looked at my McDonald’s receipt; a notice at the top said that they’re hiring for all shifts. It seems that the poor, and the ignorant, will always be with us – and that they will also always have jobs, and opinions, and the same right to vote as every other citizen. In short, despite all of the challenges of our time, our democracy will continue.

Half Moon Café, Hammersmith

2009-01-16T13:55:00.002Z

Half Moon Café
125 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
W6 8JA

by Brian Sauce

Exiting via Accident and Emergency I shuffle onto the Fulham Palace Road. Commuter vehicles clog an unpromising strip of shut pubs and kebab shops, slightly reeking in the crisp morning air. Sunlight hurts my head, I’m hungry as hell.

A hundred feet from the hospital, a sandwich board outside the Half Moon Café proffers breakfast, hot meals and 60p tea. I glance at the grey faced old men and Sun-reading builders inside before crossing to get cash and buy a paper. Nearly buying a tabloid to fit in, I decide instead on a broadsheet. Tests and X-rays take time.

Front of house at Half Moon is a dismal looking fat-faced Spurs fan who turns out to be quite nice when she flirts with the builders. Bacon, sausage, fried eggs, hash browns, beans, black pudding, toast, and coffee costs £6.

Service is as quick as thought. God, it’s nice not being at work, even if I’m exhausted and Dad is trying to kill himself. Oh look, coffee. The Guardian is boring; I wish I had a Sun now. Heavens, here comes my two-plate breakfast.

Fussily, I tuck toasts under eggs and beans before slicing perfect runny yolks. Brown sauce, ketchup and mayo on tables is good, but even better is the food. Bacon well done, baked beans briefly cooked and fantastic black puddings are particular highlights. Real butter on the toast makes me forget my troubles. Hash browns are from a packet but I secretly love them.

A brilliant meal – just think, if he really dies I can stop coming to work altogether and eat breakfasts like this every day. I linger over coffee but The Guardian really is boring.

Kako, Camden Town

2009-01-14T13:21:00.004Z

Kako
7 Camden High St
Camden Town
NW1
020 7383 7707

by Nelson Griddle

London can be a bleak, unforgiving place. Especially at the onset of the worst financial crisis in living memory. And when the temperature’s below freezing. And when you haven’t had any breakfast yet.

It was under these testing conditions that I thought I’d give Kako a whirl. I was ushered in by a very charming waitress. There was no hint of the awfulness to come as I ordered eggs, bacon, tomatoes, sausage, toast and coffee.

Yet disaster whispers its imminent arrival in the little things, such Kako’s rack of out-of-date papers. Who wants to read a four-day-old copy of the Star, after all? But then again, who wants to sit and wait 25 minutes for their breakfast?

Not that I knew it would be 25 minutes. You know how it is in this situation. You wait patiently. You wait a bit more. After ten minutes or so, you think “Well, they’re a bit busy. Let’s give them another five minutes. Then, being British, you give them another five minutes, because the waitress was very sweet, after all.

Yet finally I went to complain. What was going on? I asked the charming waitress. How long was this going to take? Where, after twenty-odd minutes, was my breakfast? Another five minutes, said the waitress, a little less charmingly, after a discussion in the kitchen.

Well, five minutes sounds fair enough, doesn’t it? But how long does it take to cook breakfast in the first place? Frying an egg, grilling bacon and making toast is accomplished in my kitchen in three minutes flat. So although I’d been sitting there for the best part of half an hour, they hadn’t even started on my order yet.

Enough! I walked out, unbreakfasted, to find sustenance in another café over the road.

One final puzzle: Where does Kako get its name? It’s opposite Koko, but is Koko really such a brilliant name that it deserves this homage? Possibly they’re inspired by the service at Koko: the last time I went there I had to queue up for 15 minutes to buy a bottle of St Miguel.

Never mind. If the “o” falls off, the name will fit perfectly.