Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Best Cooked Breakfast
Heading to the smoke week after next and won't be paying for a Travel Lodge Breakfast. There's a great little cafe in Soho where I normally head for a good fry up, can't remember the name of the place. Any other good greasy spoon cafes worth paying a visit to in the Capital?
And when it come to cooked breakfasts, do the Word Parish prefer their eggs Scrambled, Fried or Poached and are you hash brown or fried bread lovers? Do you prefer baked beans or tomatoes?
I'm all for a cheap breakfast, but the sausages have to be of a reasonable standard don't they?
And so often you find your baked beans are just luke warm, never hot. I've nothing against black pudding either, but I know it's not to everyones taste and the best is from Lanchashire.
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achtung Minen!
Maria's Cafe in Borough Market do excellent bubble and squeak.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/restaurants/info/415/marias-market-cafe
as far constitution of an ideal breakfast say no to chips! Not a egg fan so I get treated like weirdo. Think i would go for sausage, bacon, grilled toms, beans, mushrooms, black pudding (from Barnsley of course) bubble. red sauce for the sausage and bubble brown for the bacon. large tea and a rack of mixed toast.
Ta
Thanks for the recommendation, may pop in there to try their breakfasts. Totally agree re chips, add them to the cooked breakfast and your meal just becomes a brunch or dinner fry up!
A Bomb In Wardour Street
Or more precisely, Bruno's Caff (Italian owned and run spoon) can be found at No.101. Last time we went in for a nosebag Tom Baker was sat in the window nursing a brew.
Baker Bacon
Is Wardour Street off Soho? Great to see Tom frequents these establishments!
Wardour Street
It's slap-bang in the middle of Soho. Sadly Bruno's is almost the last of the old-school caffs to be found round here. But for an amazing 1950s timewarp you could also try the Lorelei on Bateman St for cheap lunchtime Italian fare (pasta/pizza etc).
As something of a connosss...conos....coeunossei...
...expert in these matters, I would suggest:
Bacon. Unsmoked, best back you can find.
Sausage. Cumberland, natch.
Eggs. Two. Both fried. Anything else is wrong.
Bread. Fried.
Sauce should be brown. And liberal.
The above is inviolate.
To the above, you may add the following:
Beans. Heinz. Hot.
Black Pudding. Sliced and fried.
Mushrooms. Fried in the fat from the bacon.
Hash browns. Sadly American in origin, but the only acceptable way of adding potato to the dish. Chips or other fried variant are totally unacceptable.
Tomatos are wrong, I'm afraid. Too runny and juicy and insufficient cholesterol.
cumberland sausage ,cumberland sausage
why not go the whole hog and have chorizo, they far too spicey for breakfast. Also a well grilled tomato adds sweet note to the whole affair. Mash browns are always a bit greasy for me.
Re potatoes
Chips have no place in a fry up. However, a fried potato scone is the finest thing to mop up the yolk from your fried egg. A square lorne sausage is a fine thing also!
Yes, I'm from Scotland!
(However, I do like a spoonful of beans with my fry up)
This blog may help you
The London Review Of Breakfasts :
http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/
Except the last 3 entries are abroad!
You can browse by area
http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2005/08/reviews-by-area.htm...
No baked beans
Back bacon, good quality sausage, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, a grilled tomato (optional). No hash browns or fried bread, use the brown toast to mop it up.
And loads of brown sauce.
for some unknown reason
i can't stand grilled tomatoes. But I always have a lovely cup of tea, white, one sugar please.
Frank's Cafe
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/restaurants/info/165/franks-cafe
And just a two minute walk from the Tate Modern.
Judging a greasy spoon is easy. How many high-vis vests are in there at breakfast time - the more the better.
Brown sauce??
You people disgust me.
I would go for bacon, sausage, fried egg, beans, mushrooms, fried bread. Black pudding as an occasional extra. And red - yes, red - sauce.
Actually, the best fried breakfast I ever had was in a B&B in Scotland, where the breakfast included white pudding and those square potato pancake-y things.
That'll be the classic Full Scottish
which omits the rather slethery likes of baked beans and tomatoes in favour of black pudding, fruit pudding, tattie scone and possibly a fried pancake (scottish variety-startchy and as thick as a finger).
That, my northenly challenged friends, is a breakfast.
I scoff at your beans.
Don't you eat deep-fried Mars bars with your breakfasts?
Or is that delicacy only taken at lunchtimes or dinner?
I think you forgot..
...the sliced sausage. And the grilled haggis.
The traditional English breakfast
is sadly no match for the Ulster Fry. The normal suspects of Sausage, bacon and fried egg complemented by soda and potato bread. Unbeatable.
Everyone goes on about an Ulster Fry
but the main difference seems to be undigestable bread!
ulster fry wins
i agree. a bit of fadge and sausage dripping with egg and grease. unbeatable on a rainy morning after night in Belfast on the Guinness. the english breakfast, as described above, a close second.
Best combo I ever had
was decent kippers, poached eggs and black pudding. Followed by toast, butter and marmalade. With loads of tea. Never bettered.
i recall what Mamet says...
the best phrase in the english language is
"Breakfast,served all day"
Layer Cake
I can recommend the Regency Cafe in Pimlico (just down the road from the Ch4 building). The build is pretty much untouched on both the inside & out - looks exactly how you would imagine an old London caf. The food is very good - had a good breakfast every time. The owner is also a character - shouting out the orders ready for collection.
It is also the cafe that appeared in Layer Cake.
http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2006/06/regency-caf-pimlico...
The bubble is good at Maria's in Borough Market - but she is on hols at the moment & not due back for a few weeks, so the place is shut.
If you want to splash out then I recommend the breakfasts at Roast in Borough Market.
Enjoy.
The Regency
Paid a visit to this caff on Saturday, and it's a thing of rare beauty. The bubble had sold out, sadly, but everything else was spot-on.
It's slightly out of the way, but Rodi's, near Blackhorse Rd tube, is another gem.
The Star Cafe in Soho
is where I go for fry-up action or Diana's Diner in Endell St, Covent Garden
Another favourite is Picasso on King's Rd - where Sir Bob hangs out when not saving the world
One more breakfast of champions is at a place on Lamb's Conduit St (Gt Ormond St end) - can't remember name
Incidentally, Lambs Conduit St is a wonderful little street with lots of quirky, independent shops - including one selling Vinyl. Praise the Lord.
Little video clip of the street below
http://www.monocle.com/sections/edits/Web-Articles/Lambs-Conduit-Street/
Back to question - lots of caffs and similar gaffs to be found here
http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/
if posh breakfasting
as suggested above Roast in Borough Market is excellent or The Wolseley in Piccadilly
Lamb's Conduit Street
Also home to the fabulous Lamb pub (with modesty screens still intact in case you're out for a drink with someone you don't want to be seen with)
breakfast joke
cant remember who cracked this one, though it might have been Peter Kay, but he talked about a little place he once found that "serves breakfast at any time"
so he ordered "French toast during the Renaissance"
I'm pretty sure
it was Stephen Wright, the tres drole laconic US standup.
Swingers
In the movie Swingers, one of the guys tells his waitress "I will have the pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment."
Afterwards he says he should have said the Renaissance, as the waitress was probably too stupid to get the joke. Of course she calls him Voltaire when the food is served.
Back to the topic: Whenever I am in London, I try to make it to the cafe Caramel in Pimlico to get breakfast.
Smoked Salmon & Scrambled Egg and Krug at the Savoy
don'tcha know :-)
Seriously though, if I'm going to London, I like the Full English Breakfast in the restaurant car on Great Western.
Eggs
For twenty odd years I've liked them fried with a hard yolk. I tried Eggs Benedict for the first time in March and now they have to be poached and runny, on a muffin with some ham.
Cock Tavern...
...underneath Smithfield Market, and you can have a pint of Guinness with it if you are so inclined. If you have money to burn, then the Sirloin restaurant above the Hope pub on the junction of Cowcross/St John St. is the place to go.
I'm off to Lords for the
I'm off to Lords for the test match next weekend.
Can anyone recommend a good cafe in the Euston/Marylebone/Regent's Park/St Johns Wood area for a cooked breakfast?
Funny you should ask
My lovely wife and I overnighted in Manchester last night to celebrate my Birthday. We stayed at the Abode Hotel which this morning presented me with the most wonderful, freshly cooked breakfast I have had in a long time. Cooked to perfection and whilst my egg of choice is normally poached - I had fried today. Sauce was most definitely brown.
I ought to add that the restaurant is headed up by one Michael Caine - not he who blows bloody doors off, but rather, the chap with stars by Michelin. We ate in the restaurant last night which was tres expensive but delightful and were awoken by the singing of Huddersfield Town fans on their way to Old Trafford and a drubbing in the play-offs.