Juking with Joe at Billie's Cafe

26th October

There was art on the wall, created by a local artist. The cafe offered this opportunity, to have your work displayed in view of the customers. The interior of the cafe had the type of straight-backed cosiness that you would feel in a National Trust tea room, though I was unsure whether it was the venue or the clientele. One of whom, a middle-aged gentleman with a beard, had to calmly gesture to me through the window as to where the front door was when I arrived. It was tricky to discern where the entrance was as Billie's Cafe has a front door rather like a residency on Downing Street. It is situated on the corner of Upper North Street, with wonderfully large windows which would be perfect for people watching were the thoroughfare busier. As I made detailed notes about the interior of Billie's Cafe and read about football on my phone, I wondered what time Joseph Ronan was going to arrive. It had been a heavy night the night before and he was running a bit late. In the time spent waiting for him I managed to think out another blog entry on football and boycotting (the results of which can be viewed here once it's written) after reading about the latest incident featuring racism from a set of football supporters and thinking about all of the underplayed controversies surrounding the nations who will be hosting the next three world cup tournaments. This (the football, not the waiting) annoyed me. I needed to be in the zone, the breakfast zone! In any case I had enough time to refocus my mind on breakfast before Joe arrived. I won't go into detail about how late he was, that would be impolite, but let's just say he arrived after the gentleman with the beard had gone and so I had to signal where the front door was.

So, after forty five minutes of trawling the BBC Sport website I was joined by Joe who was not in the best of shapes. The previous night had been a heavy one; not quite as heavy as an elephant playing in a Metallica covers band, but approaching it. It was heavy enough to cause Joe to sleep through three alarms. Such was his commitment to the breakfast cause though, he leaped out of bed and into a taxi. Drastic action, but as a man I had mainly experienced in the party situation before, I knew he was a man capable of such acts of dramatic spontaneous action. As well as the party side, Joe has a strong academic side. He's studying for a PhD at the mo, and so has to work hard both studying and teaching the youth of the university. Having lived with two other PhD students I am well aware that this can be a tricky thing to balance, so kudos to Mr. Ronan for being able to tackle the two sides of life with such vigour.

Following the breakfast I hoped to go on to play some badminton. Joe brought up the important fact that the sport wasn't always named thusly. Back in t' day it went by the much more impressive name of battledore. Why it changed over to badminton has been lost in the mists of time, but it remains that battledore is a far superior name. If you were given the choice between playing sport containing the word 'battle' or one containing the word 'bad', the decision would be an easy one. We pondered words for a little while, both failing when it came to knowing what the word 'juke' meant in terms of a juke-box. Careful internet research revealed that the word has a saucy past, however it also has a usage which could be applied during a good game of battledore, although this application is derived as a spelling variant of jouk. So there we go. Words change, (language) games continue.

Whilst chatting about words and battledore, another subject arose. My battledore racquets were given to me by my colleague Sharon, who had played when she was a wee lass living oop north. Inside one of the casings Wee Sharon had written several secret words, such as "Sharon loves Anthony" (disclaimer - Sharon no longer loves Anthony, that was a long time ago), and this caused us to consider the popular thing when you are at school of writing down secret messages in the back of books, like "James loves Katy Hill", or indeed scrawling the names of bands all over your pencil case. Where did this compulsion to decorate stationery with Travis and Placebo and Stereophonics and Sum 41 come from? And when did it stop? I guess in an environment where everyone was dressed (mostly) the same, writing down who you thought the best bands in the world were was one avenue where you could express individuality and create an image for yourself. I'd love to find my old pencil case and see precisely what image I had cultivated. No doubt a pretty cool one #casualtyofsociety.

Now Joe is a reader of this blog, or at least he was when it was a regular kind of thing. Hopefully he's not forgotten about it. He felt as though this particular breakfast experience was akin to going on holiday and taking photos, all the while thinking about how it feel looking back at those photographs once the holiday had ended. It was interesting thinking about that level of self-consciousness that comes when documenting your experiences. I too felt that the experience was somewhat like going on holiday, and I had played the role of stereotypical German, getting to the poolside early to lay down my towel on the best sun lounger.

And so, the breakfast:

All Day Jumbo Vegetarian Breakfast

Vegetarian sausage, home made hash browns, baked beans, fried free-range egg, braised mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, & two slices of buttered toast

All Day Jumbo Vegetarian Breakfast - £6.75

They weren't kidding about the jumbo status of the breakfast, the plate was struggling to keep it together, much as we were. Overhanging/hungover. A promising start.

The beans were my first stop on the breakfast journey. They were soft to touch, part velvety and part chalky. They were a big thick beany soup. This was a different feel to the usual fruitiness that comes with baked beans, and was an interesting change of direction. This softness continued with the tomatoes, who came across as thoughtful. The taste was subdued, allowing space to contemplate whilst eating them.

The toast, and there was quite a bit of it, was chewy in a kind way; it did not require too much effort to process and the pre-buttering meant that it was soft. And hey, this was also the case with the egg! Soft, chewy, nice. These two items can often be too soft to the point of fragility, but in this instance the levels were good. They were easy to engage with, yet remained solid enough to carry their flavours.

Duke of Juking

Now, the hash was the component I was most excited about. Whilst waiting for Joe I had perused the menu thoroughly, and Billie's Cafe take a lot of pride in their hashes. This would be their signature dish, and one or two individuals had recommended them to me. At some point I will have to return to sample one of them, but at the time I had to be content with the portion that came with my breakfast. Unfortunately it came to me just as soft as the other items I have already described. It was crumbly and delivered a starchy lesson in the ways of the potato that was akin to regular mashed potato. I was hoping for a bit of crunch to mix things up from previous softnesses, but sadly it was not forthcoming.

The fleshy components offered something different thankfully, with the mushrooms chunky and smoky, and the sausage, a Quorn banger, a firm prospect. It had a slight blandness to it which is often the case with Quorn products, but on the plate I was grateful for the change in texture.

Overall the breakfast was like a comfort blanket; it had a warming and soft gentleness to it which was lovely, but could have perhaps benefitted from a bit of maturity to give it some extra power in the taste department. It was a breakfast of thought rather than a breakfast of action. It was a breakfast that had decided to remain in bed that morning, rather than throwing itself into a taxi and speeding into taste town. As a result, there was a sense of 'missing out' on the plate. The breaking of the fast is not something that goes well with passivity; the fastbreaker is more often than not in a passive state (i.e. tired and/or hungover) and so relies on the food to provide some dynamism. As comforting as it was, it wasn't quite what breakfast Billie's Cafe had to offer, rather than my two coffees that had me buzzing as I walked off towards battle(dore).


Function: warming and gentle but not energising 3/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: tasty, but lacking in textural variety 3/5
Value: overflowing plate always nice 4/5
Presentation: pleasingly arranged 4/5
Venue: pleasant, but a little too National Trust-y 3/5

Overall: more bath than shower - 3/5 

Jump-starting the blog with Josh (later with Lou) at Cafe Motu

19th October.

After an extended half-time period over the summer it was time to kick off again in search of more exciting and tasty breakfast opportunities. It felt a bit weird at first, slipping the notebook into back pocket, making sure to put pen in the pocket without the holes, not eating too much upon waking up. It almost didn't happen; Saturday's breakfast was dependent on the cancellation of football training. Due to a lack of numbers, myself and Josh (and Lou it turned out) were bereft of morning action, and so, finally, after several aborted attempts, we finally made it to Cafe Motu for breakfast.

Josh is one of the most important players for Kemp Town FC. Not only is he (at the time going to press) the 2^nd highest goalscorer in the history of the club, as well as the winner of multiple end of season awards, he is also an important part of the club's social fabric. A club is more than just 11-14 individuals thrown together every Sunday to play football; the social aspect is also integral. Josh represents a strong side of what I would say makes KTFC a special team to be a part of. To begin with, he looks esoteric. He looks like the 60s/70s. A lot of the time, opponents shout “Fellaini!” and “David Luiz!” at him, but perhaps a more simple and (dare I say it) original label would be to shout “60s/70s!” As a keen musician playing regularlyin several bands, he is a counter-cultural icon within the Sussex Sunday Football League, opposing the brutal mundanity that is Jonesy who likes a bit of banter oi oi foootbaall who are ya you fuckin melt. That's not how we operate at KTFC. Rather than that brand of 'banter oi oi foootbaall you melt' behaviour, we take pride in learning the capital cities of the world. Jon Ablondi managed to chat up a girl one night with the successful application of the capital city of Eritrea.

Anyway, Josh was disappointed that Cafe Motu had changed hands recently. No longer were the walls furnished with pictures of Dylan and Bowie sitting around and eating sandwiches. Instead, more familiar pictures of chic locations and other brutal mundanities clad its walls. And the table was wobbly. We also spent a bit of time bemoaning the state of British culture. Josh has recently been bit by a serious reading bug and has been racing through classics such as Catcher in the Rye, Down and Out in Paris and London, and The Great Gatsby, making him outraged that drivel such as the poorly, poorly written 50 Shades of Grey (a book whose opening three pages (all I could bear reading) make my shoddy efforts at culinary journalism look like Shakespeare re-writing Ulysses) can make millions. I chipped in with a little rant about people not realising that a world of music exists outside of radio playlists, and our exasperated moaning continued. Then Kings of Convenience came on and Josh perked up.

Whilst we were worrying about what it is best to eat before a football match we were joined by Louis Browne. Lou is the captain of KTFC and another key member of the team. You could view him and Josh as the ventricles and atria of the club. Possibly. In any case, there's no denying the amount of heart they possess... Lou would go on to provide supporting analysis during the breakfast, rather like a hungover Andy Gray.

And so the breakfast:

Motu's Vegetarian Breakfast

2 eggs, full tomato, 2 hash browns, mushroom, toast, 2 vegetarian sausages (with beans or avocado)

Motu's Vegetarian Breakfast - £5.45

After being asked if we were ready to order three times without success, we finally placed our orders and were rewarded with a rich bounty. My first excitement came with seeing that I had been given both beans and avocado. This was to be an exciting first step into the world of the avocado at breakfast, and a step that I knew I should have taken years ago. We were also offered some ground pepper, from one of those grinders that are normally half the size of the waiter wielding them. Nice individual touches that made me feel special, a positive start to the breakfast experience.

Lou says: "Best ever cappuccinno."

Kemp Town FC's beating heart

There was also some secret toast, hidden beneath the eggs. This was another pleasant surprise, helping contribute towards a plate that was fuller than it first appeared. It also contributed to one of the main characteristics of the meal; an imbalance towards dry items over the moist. This meant that in the latter stages of the meal, additional condiments were required.

The abundant dry items tasted superb. Along with the toast I was served some champion sausages, emulating their meaty counterparts with great efficiency, and some lovely crispy hash browns. Three top components. Unfortunately they did not receive the back-up they deserved from their colleagues. The eggs had soft whites and syrupy yolks, but did not put out as much as others have done in the past. Whilst the tomato had a sweet and yielding soft outer layer, the core was firm and did not ally itself as much as it could have done with the rest of the dish. The beans provided support which was salty, stern and strong, but they were not plentiful enough to carry the numerous dry players. Perhaps in the absence of further beanage came the avocado, and although it offered a different and exciting texture and coolness, there was still a slight gap. Finally, the mushrooms, served drily with a pure and honest taste. Longer cooking would have provided more flavour and moisture, as would have additional seasoning. In the end they were merely a competent component.

Lou: "Unbelievable mushrooms, best in Brighton. Better than my mum makes."

The problem of the dryness could have been solved either with a larger portion of beans, or by cooking items such as the tomatoes, mushrooms, and egg differently. Sure, there's nothing wrong in needing to use the red and brown sauces in order to get maximum enjoyment from your breakfast, but I prefer it when a breakfast is self-contained and self-sufficient. The sauces detract from what makes the breakfast unique and special, covering up any idiosyncrasies with sharp homogenous flavours.  Still, it tasted good, and more importantly made me feel good. Inches away from glory. It left me thinking, what if? With some extra beans and some photos of David Bowie, how far could Cafe Motu have gone?


Function: warm jets everywhere 4/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: largely good, but dry 4/5
Value: very good amounts for the money 4/5
Presentation: bright and chirpy 4/5
Venue: warm and eager to help 4/5

Overall: a good place, but could have been great - 4/5  

Appendix 1) Useful capital cities to know:

Eritrea - Asmara
Namibia - Windhoek
Moldova - Chisinau
Guyana - Georgetown
Benin - Porto-Novo
Andorra - Andorra la Vella
South Africa - Pretoria (de facto)
Wales - Cardiff

The White Horse and the Wedding!

July 28th

Saturday the twenty-seventh of July, 2013, saw, to put it lightly, some shit go down. Shit got real. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyit. In years to come I will be able to look back at 27/07/13 as a fairly pivotal day in my life. Not because of the violent crackdown on protestors in Cairo, or for Novellist winning the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stakes, or the general election in Kuwait, although perhaps in the future these could become the cause of some form of misplaced nostalgia. No. As keen readers of this web blog may have been aware, my friends Mike and Rosie got married.

Now I've briefly described some of the stresses and worries and exciting bits that were a part of the build up to the big day. It isn't the place of this blog to go into detail chronicling precisely what happened though; such an undertaking would require a novel of some form to do an event of this magnitude justice. What I will attempt to do is summarise some of the key points:

• Mike and Rosie got married
• It rained, but only during points when most people were supposed to be inside
• Nobody got hurt
• No animals were harmed
• A tractor could have, but wasn't, the subject of joyriding
• Robbie Williams' 'Candy' was played and a minority* danced

 This blog is far more interested in what happened next, on the soon to be forgotten day, Sunday the twenty-eighth of July, 2013. Even though Francisco José Garzón Amo was charged with 79 counts of manslaughter in Spain, and the US defeated Panama to lift the CONCACAF Gold Cup, it is destined to be overshadowed by the events that preceded it. I hope that this blog post will prove to be a fitting eulogy to that day and the breakfast that saw it in.

The family table

One of the great things about the wedding was that a lot of the guests opted to camp at the farm where the reception was held afterwards. This meant that, the following morning, after we'd all done our best helping to tidy up as much as our hangovers would allow, we trudged wearily into Ditchling to the White Horse, the pub at which Mr. and Mrs. Sykes had stayed, in order to chow down on a well-deserved cooked breakfast. It was a very welcome situation; never at weddings do you get a chance to sit back, relax and contemplate in a calm, sedate atmosphere. At least, not at any of the weddings I've been to. I'm usually too busy running around drinking everything in sight, being charming**, worrying about whether areas of my body are going to be visible from beneath my kilt, and plotting to expose areas of my body from beneath my kilt.

Happy campers

Now despite several shortcomings, the White Horse was a great success. The pub seemed to house the entire fly population of West Sussex, though these insects were largely ensconced within the pub's interior (probably looking for one-armed bandits and Setanta, the backwards lot that they are). We also endured quite a long wait for succour (some tables more than others) though to look at it in a positive light this enabled more time for chat and reflection. Some of our tables wouldn't see it this way however...

The Sykes Union Breakfast

Sausages, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans

S.U.B - £8?

There was a lot to commend about the food however when it did arrive. Chloe was given a whole tray of gluten-free toast; possibly the most generous pro-coeliac provision I have witnessed. The sausages were very stodgy and in the style of a spicy beanburger - a direction I've not yet seen before and one that deserves to be repeated.

Smiles and hangovers

The rest of the dish was solid and satisfying in a routine manner. The egg, very thick, had a light, salted, juicy white, with a thin, fluid and luminous yolk. Exciting. The toms were rich, soft, and peppery. The mushrooms had solid fungal tones though not much else. The beans were room temperature, though vibrant. It was enough to render the wait worthwhile (though some of our tables again wouldn't see it this way...possibly).

Putting on a brave face

It was great to continue the feeling of mass togetherness that the wedding instilled onwards into the following day. From the beginning stages of its preparation it had felt like much more than a joining of two individuals; it was a celebratory event of our entire friendship group. Several family members from both sides of the Sykes and Williams union remarked over the weekend about the remarkable closeness of our group, and there are few better meals to be had that could fittingly end on chapter of our group's life and beginning the next one than a mass cooked breakfast.

This post marks the end of my summer hiatus. Normal breakfast blogging service should hopefully now be resumed in October.


* pretty much just me
** At the time I think I am being charming I am usually offensively intoxicated

Adam's Stag and the Albanach Bar

July 21st.

Uncle David, Father Derek, Brother Ian

Scotland; allegedly the home of the brave and definitely the home of my ancestors. Despite having never lived in Scotland I do feel Scottish, partly due to my family and partly due to an affinity with the more favourable elements of the national stereotype; the underdog spirit, stoicism, passionately windswept, perpetually hard-done by, brave. Of course, I do also have a penchant for some of the less favourable elements too; a love of unhealthy food and a lack of sporting success. These latter two elements would be keenly experienced in a trip north of the border for my cousin Adam's stag do.

Now, in a slightly contrary fashion, Adam had already been married in Las Vegas shortly before the weekend. He didn't want to miss out on a mancentric weekend of jollity however, not after the stag weekend of his brother had been so resoundingly successful, and so a belated bash was organised in his home city of Edinburgh to coincide with the Open. My father, brother, and I would travel up for the weekend to enjoy food, drink, and golf, all in large Scottish quantities.

Cousins Adam and David

As my cousins live in Edinburgh and Ayr respectively I don't get to see them particularly often. Prior to Dave's stag do it had been several years, but we're hoping to carry on an annual meet-up style event (and hopefully one not dependent on a McIntosh getting married...) It's always great catching up with my cousins and uncle, along with their respective wives and this year the newest addition to the clan, wee Blake. He's already looking like one to grow up breaking hearts and records.

Wee Blake

This year's jaunt delivered, just as predicted, the usual Scottish goods; ample portions of great food were provided by the Red Squirrel, Khushi's, and the Albanach bar; strong drink came mainly in the form of ale, lager, whisky, and the obligatory round of OVD & Irn Bru; amusing disappointment came from a disasterous final round from Martin Laird, my own unfortunate dropping of a newly bought bottle of OVD, and a 4am evacuation due to a fire alarm on the Friday night (not ideal after drinking and eating to the edge of nausea).

Now, I had to take the opportunity to slip in a cooked breakfast whilst in Edinburgh, as Scottish breakfasts often feature components not often seen on an English plate. Sadly, the Albanach Bar on Edinburgh's High Street didn't utilise the vegetarian black pudding I'd seen advertised elsewhere, but it did feature the more conventional tattie scone and the more Caledonian vegetarian haggis.

 Vegetarian Breakfast

A mixed grill of prime Quorn sausage, vegetarian haggis, mushrooms, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, fried egg, hash browns, potato scone and grilled buttered toast

Vegetarian Breakfast: £7.99

Seen by many as a paradox, or simply an aberration, the vegetarian haggis is a wonderful thing. Regularly tasty, sales of the vegetarian variety of haggis account for almost 25% of Macsween's annual haggis sales, an impressive figure. As it shares a lot of its ingredients with more readily recognisable foods like stuffing and nutroast, you can be assured that any fearful talk is solely due to people's lack of familiarity with it, rather like a Victorian's paranoia about "exotically dangerous mesmeric savages" from North Africa and the Far East. The haggis is not exotic, dangerous, or savage, and it would certainly be a stretch to describe its taste as mesmeric (at least, that which was served at the Albanach was not mesmeric), but it is definitely hearty and homely, and encapsulates those more positive Scottish stereotypes; passion and bravery. In practice here, it tasted oaty and meaty, rather like a cross between sausage and stuffing.

The Stag Party

The other less familiar item was the potato scone, essentially a potato pancake that had inevitably been fried into beauty and was slick, smooth and salty. The rest of the breakfast unfolded as it often does down south, with a reliable sense of tastiness, marked with the odd hitch here and there.

The sausages, of a vegetable variety, were akin to bubble & squeak, potatoey and herby, but possibly too mushy. The mushrooms were rich but with a subtle smokiness. The hash browns were similar to their potato cousin in sharing a light and thin crispiness with a salty edge, but this gave way to fluffy innards. The beans, initially forgotten by the waiting staff (!) were powerful and warm, yet lacking a fundamental fruitiness. The eggs had firm whites and slow yolks. As is often the case, the tomatoes had a nice, discrete tang.

On the whole this was a classic tourist's British cooked breakfast, with pleasing regional variants added to place it firmly as a Scottish piece, without plunging it into the realms of pastiche. Fortunately, despite Edinburgh's love of tartan tat tourist traps, we saw no eateries offering an entirely deep-fried breakfast. Perhaps in some of the murkier quarters of the city such things exist, but as it was, our weekend kept us entirely in the realms of the respectable. Well, apart from the frenzied panic that saw me wake up screaming at 4am, hurling my bedclothes across the room upon hearing the fire alarm. Oh, and my brother throwing up multiple times before that. And then there was the fridge filled solely with cookies, doughnuts, and Irn Bru. And my father's unfortunately malfunctioning belt. And...

Roll on next year!

Liaising with Lee at Langelees

July 13th.

Work colleagues are an interesting breed. With most acquaintances you make there is some common ground, an automatic connection to a shared interest or belief, which is the reason for you becoming acquaintances in the first place. Work colleagues largely differ in this respect, as for lots of people the primary reason for having a particular job is due to a need to make money. This means that you are thrown into close proximity with a group of people whom you may have no shared interests or beliefs at all. There is a risk that getting a job may place you in the unenviable position of being stuck in a small room for 37.5 hours a week with a bunch of racists, misogynists and X Factor fans. It's enough to put you off getting a job altogether.

Fortunately the vast majority of people I have met through working at the hospital in Lewes have been lovely people. Lee Osborne is one of these people. She is not racist or misogynistic (though I'm not entirely sure of her views on the X Factor), and she is one of the kindest people I have ever had the fortune of meeting. She has the biggest heart in Sussex, without a doubt, and if she can think of anything that she reckons might please or help one of her pals she will do it without question. In fact, just a few weekends ago she carried an office chair back support all the way down from Scarborough to Brighton for our colleague Sharon, having spotted one in a shop up there. What a hero!

She is also quite a talented individual, and likes to spend some her spare time engaging in crafts. She is adept at knitting and making jewellery, and from time to time she will bring some of her creations into work for purchase. Always handy if you've forgotten a crucial birthday/anniversary/religious observance.

It was for a crucial birthday/anniversary/religious observance that Lee first visited and then fell for Langelees; she went there for a Christmas meal and was won over when she asked if she could have some sautéed potatoes and the staff went to get some for her especially. From tales such as this, another one where they opened especially for her son's birthday, and her interactions with the staff whilst we were there, it was clear to see that this was a friendly establishment indeed.

The interior was that of a traditional cafe, but as it was a nice day we opted to sit outside at the back. It was very similar to a pub garden with a full complement of wooden benches, garnished with a some hanging baskets and some bird poo. Delightful and down to earth. Just like our conversation; we wiled away the time chatting blissfully about pet therapy and pregnancy cravings until the breakfast arrived.

And so, the breakfast:

The Brighton

2 Quorn sausages, 2 hash browns, 2 fried eggs, garlic sautéed mushrooms, tomato, Heinz baked beans & fresh cut toast

The Brighton - £5.50

Here I was presented with a very down to earth looking breakfast; everything was arranged clearly and honestly in front of me, and in good amounts. Overall the tastes were straight with me from the off as well. There were no pretensions here, just simple components prepared competently.

There were a couple of items that suffered from dryness; the hash browns were light and swirly, and could have been viewed as faint hearted compared to others, though they were enthusiastically potatoey in spite of this. The beans also had a slight dry aftertaste, which meant that additional condiments were required. Other moisture was provided well by the tomatoes, rich and well-cooked with a perfect fleshy softness, but the other moist allies, the eggs, were quite firm, with cloudy albumen and solid yolks only providing the most modest support.

Lee Osborne - an absolute star

The traditionally dry items performed very well. The sausages were well-cooked also, with a firm skin giving way to sage. The toast (on a separate plate), of which I was given a choice of type, was soft, gentle, and wholesome, triumphantly so, like a family man. Lee suggested that they made their own bread, and this represented the homely nature of the venue well. In addition to this, every hot drink there is served with a small homemade biscuit, which proved to be absolutely delightful.

The real glory on the plate though was with the mushrooms. They were garlicky with gay abandon, keeping all vampires away from Langelees for a five-mile radius. The portion size was top as well, meaning that I, the arch-garlicophile, was in seventh heaven.

The breakfast felt good. Now, I wasn't so keen on the proximity of the bird poo to my meal, but considering how vigilant the staff of Langelees were when it came to making sure we were feeling at home, I reckon this may have been a rare oversight. The meal itself was homely with enough embellishing (by embellishing I mean 'cooking in garlic') to make it stand out a little from other breakfasts and for me to overlook some of deficiencies of other elements; the home-made biscuits, the garlic, the home-made bread, the garlic, the garlic - it all added up. You got a decent amount for your dollar as well, with double helpings of the more singular components. It may not be the most obvious cafe in Brighton, hidden in plain sight just over the road from St. Peter's Church, but it is definitely worth a look if you're in that area. And ifyou like garlic sautéed mushrooms early in the day.

Function: home-made makes homely 4/5
Adherence to canon: Yes and garlic
Taste: dryness in places compensated with superb garlic (mushrooms) 3/5
Value: good ample portions for your coin 4/5
Presentation: simple, effective 4/5
Venue: staff willing to go the extra mile (although beware bird poo) 3/5

Overall: heck, I love garlic - 4/5  

60 Years of Breakfasting

5th May.

Four months ago I was back at my parents' house, visiting Ash Vale for a friend's birthday and catching up with my folks. I don't really see them often enough, so it is always lovely to be handed an opportunity to go back to Ash Vale on a plate.

On my plate during this particular visit was an incredible breakfast. Derek McIntosh, the person who is responsible for the quality of my jokes, wanted to make me a cooked breakfast to see how it would rank up against those that I had sampled for this blog. He is a keen cook and takes pride in his work. I remember one time where he was very upset when his spaghetti bolognaise, possibly his specialty, failed to win a bolognaise competition at a local pub, being beaten by an offering that was made without any degree of seriousness with some dubious ingredients thrown in. He makes a mighty fine bolognaise, and has inspired me to try and make bolognaise my signature dish also.

Now, if I was to rank my dad's breakfast creation it would inevitably receive a healthily high biased score. What can be more restorative and homely than a meal prepared by one of your parents at home, especially when they're good at cooking? As a result, I'm not going to be able to properly score the dish without it being tainted by nepotic bias. I can, however, briefly talk you through what would have been a delicious and invigorating meal even if it had been served to me on the hard shoulder of a motorway by Michael Gove.

The Derek Special

Veggie sausages, vegetarian bacon, fried egg, tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms and homemade hash browns

All the correct items, in all the correct proportions. Dad had done his research and knew his target audience. There was a great range of textures and tastes on parade, with moisture levels varying around the plate. There was saltiness, sweetness, umami-ness, mouthfeel, tang, all of the words I use most weeks and need to find new words for, all of these at very positive levels. And look at how it looks on the plate! A veritable superabundance, a festival of food, a 70s party in a Belgian library. It had it all going on.

The main talking points here, away from generic thumbs-up statements, are the hash browns and the vegetarian bacon. The former were an absolute triumph, especially exciting given that they were Dad's first ever attempt at hash brown creation. I am a massive fan of the regular shop-bought HB, but there is something just wholly more wholesome about one crafted outside of a factory environment.  The latter followed the trend that had been set by previous vegetarian bacon experiences. I swear that at some point in my life I have eaten tasty veggie bacon. What has happened to it?! It must be out there somewhere. I aim to get to the bottom of this mystery by the end of the year.

I've definitely inherited a major part of my sense of humour from my Dad. That little Belgian library joke is straight out of his playbook. Hopefully flair in the kitchen is something that passes down through the generations as well. If so, I'm onto a winner (Mum is a dab hand as well). By the time I reach the tender age of 60 as they have this year, I could well be a breakfast making master, ready to get very upset if served some substandard scran at a greasy spoon.

NB - due to a mixture of wedding preparation, housemoving and general sloth, I have become very behind with this blog. I hope to get back up to speed by the end of this upcoming fortnight, ready to get back out in the field in October.

Solely Steve at the Post and Telegraph

29th June.

Some things just have an air of inevitability about them. That an occasion will always come along to end any well-intentioned plans to give up drinking. That I would end up going to a Wetherspoons for a breakfast at some point. That Steve Kelly was going to move to Brighton. This weekend all of the above finally came to pass.

I have (very) briefly described Steve before, when we collaborated on a birthday ambush for mutual friend Ryan several months ago. As stated previously, Steve is one of my oldest, long-suffering friends; we first met back around the start of primary school and have been hanging around being white and nerdy ever since. Since January 2009, having finished his degree at Winchester Uni, Steve had been living at home in Ash Vale with his dad, gradually watching the majority of his pals fly the coop. Now it's his turn. Now he has joined us in Brighton. It's about time. He's a good guy to have around, and should make life in Brighton a good deal more fun for those who know him.

This opens up a whole new world of exciting recreational opportunities. Multiple avenues stretch out before us. We could revisit former glories; back in college the two of us spent a healthy amount of time writing lyrics of a political hip-hop nature. This collaboration was known as 2-Shay, and there is plenty more where that came from. Especially since we now have a degree of political awareness. Alternatively, we could look to the future. Steve has done a rare thing in that he's managed to get himself a job that directly relates to his degree. He's been having a great time working for a digital media distribution company and often this brings him into contact with niche market media. There are an awful lot of films and shorts that we could watch; delights such as Pinocchio 3000 which we could watch, or even re-dub, a la Whose Line Is It Anyway? The world is Steve's oyster, and its shaping up to be a pretty damn tasty oyster.

Now, there is a chance that this post may turn into a critique of Wetherspoons in general. Most towns in the UK are host to at least one of these drinking establishments, upon which one can always rely for immensely affordable drink and food. Although these by and large offer exactly the same things, you can split them into two camps; the J.D Wetherspoons camp and the 'Spoons camp. One attempts to present itself with a veneer of class and the other has no such pretensions. The Post and Telegraph was full of elderly folk and middle-aged couples, with an interior that looked like a cross between a village pub and a town house. This placed it firmly in the J.D Wetherspoons camp. There was some severe misplacement going on in the venue however. A world beer menu for some reason included Newcastle Brown Ale. The breakfast menu referenced Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking-Glass, quoting, "Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." It was as though they tried to find a literary reference that mentioned breakfast just to perpetuate what they thought was a classy image, a quotation just for the sake of having a quotation. That's some GCSE level writing, right there, and no way to sell your breakfast.

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian Breakfast

Fried eggs, vegetarian sausage, baked beans, hash browns, mushroom, tomato, slice of toast

Vegetarian Breakfast - £3.19

 

As expected, there was quite a lot of food there for the amount paid. As Steve pointed out though, you get what you pay for. It was served up like a car crash. The butter was plonked unceremoniously on top of one of the eggs, whilst the other was buried under some of the toast. This could have had dire repercussions for eggs of such a fecund nature, and is illustrative of the service you can expect at a Wetherspoons. Additional condiments were to be found at a table at the opposite end of the room, rather than being to hand as at other eateries, adding to a feeling of disregard for the poor hungry who were trying to break their fasts.

In terms of the food the breakfast was hit and miss, in quite a dramatic way. Some components, against the odds, managed to scale Olympian heights, and were juxtaposed with tastes from the torrid depths of Tartarus. A classical example of the slapdash scattershot. The overall impression I got was that this had been cooked as quickly as possible, in a bid to get it out of the kitchen and onto our table, though I've certainly been served food quicker, and with more care. This was a meal of contrasts.

Brighton will be seeing this face a lot in the future

On the negative side then. The hash browns were very crunchy, but were more crunch than flavour. The tomato had a sharp edge but was burnt; it was sooty and charred, masking real flavours. The eggs were vacant; overdone whites, brittle, creamy but flavourless yolks. The mushrooms were smoky and soft, to the point of feeling slightly gooey. All these textures and tastes were symptoms of a real scorching, when a more delicate preparation policy would yield positive results. Components such as tomatoes and eggs need a velvet glove rather than an iron fist, and whether these were prepared clumsily or rashly, either way they weren't at a high standard.

Other elements, mainly those that feel traditionally more hearty, the solid core of the breakfast, came out much better. The baked beans had a dark, rich, weighty taste, with a subtle paprika-esque edge.  The sausage was surprisingly triumphant, with a salty skin, stodgy filling, good mouthfeel. It was ebullient.  Toast was white and seeded (no choice in the matter unfortunately), with slight crunch. It fulfilled the carbohydrate role much more adequately than the hash browns, and indeed 'toast' may have been a more apt word to describe the HBs.

"You get what you pay for." Steve's words are a very apt way to sum up the Wetherspoons breakfast experience. The amount of food you get for your money cannot be faulted, and interestingly the menu informed me that this vegetarian breakfast contained more calories than the meaty equivalent. You're definitely getting a lot for your coin, but the question is whether this is enough to compensate for the lack of care and feeling that goes along with it. I guess the answer to this comes with whether you view your breakfast as a meal or an experience. Obviously I fall in the latter camp, and from the way it presents itself you would have thought that The Post and Telegraph, J.D Wetherspoon's prime establishment on North Street, Brighton, would have a similar view. Alas, no. Still, this venue would be a handy one for the undiscerning fastbreaker with a limited budget.

Function:  fills you up, a lot 3/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: it tastes like burning 2/5
Value: your wallet will remain as full as the plate 5/5
Presentation: car crash 2/5
Venue: J.D Wetherspoons 2/5

Overall: serves a purpose rather than providing an experience 2/5

Feelings with Phil and Helen at Bill's

June 30th.

Foolish me. I was so damaged from the previous weekend that I had completely forgotten that I had arranged to rendezvous with old friend Philippa Neville and her new (to me anyhow) lady, Helen Childs, for a meet and greet over cooked breakfast. As a result I double-booked myself like a fool, and had two breakfast sessions to enjoy that weekend; not a bad thing in itself but it has meant that I've had quite the backlog of write-ups to contend with (exacerbated by the fact that I drank heavily over bowling shortly after this particular breakfast).

When I first moved to Brighton it was with Philippa (along with Tim whom we have previously met) and we spent three jolly years together in a jolly wee flat next to the jolly big sea. Philippa was an ace person to live with, balancing perfectly an enjoyment of the good times and partying with an enjoyment of the sedentary and relaxation. Getting this balance right is both tricky and essential, and Philippa's bubbly friendliness is perhaps an indicator that she knows how to do it. Certainly she understands that it is important to get enough sleep, and she was pleased to hear that I had been living very healthily for the past week, getting lots of sleep, drinking lots of water, cutting back the snacks, all that shit (the bowling night put an end to this).

As I said, this was the first time I had met Helen. A friend had described her as being very similar to Philippa, and I was delighted to discover that this was the case; she had the same friendly enthusiasm that Ms. Neville has oozing out of her in bucketloads. Unsurprisingly she also shares her love of books and has the fortunate position of working in a bookshop. We had a good chat about books; at the time I was surging through an ace book called The Secret History that had been inspiring a recent spate of creativity (soon to be kiboshed by bowling), which happened to have been on Helen's 'To Read' list for a good while. From this discussion she recommended that I have a read of The Rules of Attraction as they both sounded like books that captured alienation in a very enthralling and intoxicating manner, something that I was particularly enjoying about Tartt's novel. Lo and behold, a bit of internet research showed that Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis swapped drafts of these aforementioned novels during the writing processes! So, if you are a fan of one then it seems likely that you will be a fan of the other. Helen obviously doesn't work in a book shop for no reason.

Philippa was trying to show Helen a jolly lovely time in Brighton this weekend. Breakfasts were but one aspect of this good impression creation strategy, but a key one. The previous day she had created a delicious sounding breakfast for Helen known as Bircher Muesli (or Butt Hurt Muesli), derived from a recipe of the original inventor of muesli, Maximilian Bircher-Benner. For those, like me, who had not heard of this before, it is a simple dish that sounds like a brilliant meal to break the fast with in a light and summery manner. Simply soak oats in apple juice overnight, and then in the morning mix in natural yoghurt, cinnamon, fruit, nuts and all of the good things to personal preference. Easy peasy, tasty tasty. And of course she was intent on showing Helen another avenue to easy peasy, tasty tasty breakfasting by taking us to Bills.

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian Breakfast

Poached free range eggs, tomatoes, hummus, mushrooms & guacamole, sweet chilli sauce, basil & toast

Vegetarian Breakfast - £7.95

Here was a dish with pizzazz. Pizzazz is often signified in the culinary world by a little snail trail of condiment that is usually too thin to apply to anything substantially. Fortunately for Bill's, the people in charge of putting the finishing touches to the breakfasts made sure to make these snail trails run over the food items, meaning that this delightful tang was well utilised.

And so with a knife that was more scimitar than kitchen cutlery I began to make the preliminary incisions into the breakfast. One interesting aspect of the dish was how they had used the two slices of toast to create two very different taste experiences; one slice was devoted to mushrooms and guacamole, and one exhibited a tomato and hummus combination. This acutely reduced the scope for combining components, or at least made much more difficult than it usually would be. It looked good, but eating a mushroom with some hummus without getting the guacamole involved was a nigh-on impossibility.

Was this so much of a problem though? It depended on how it all worked. Let's start as I started on the day, with the toast. This was suitably thick and crunchy in texture, strong and wholesome in flavour, making a sturdy foundation for the breakfast. The hummus and guacamole that were spread on these slices continued the theme of sturdiness, being both equally thick in consistency. The guacamole was smooth with a peppery edge, contrasting with the crunchy hummus with its rich buzz.

HP Sauce

The flesh options, the mushrooms and tomato, were both similar in feel; I would describe the mushrooms as having a subtly delicate taste with a velvety texture, whilst the tomato had a certain silkiness about it, quite becoming for its poignantly sweet taste. So far so good; there was a cohesiveness running throughout the dish, with all the separate elements working together as a team.

 The only disappointment really came with the eggs. Of the two, whilst one was decent enough and provided a good moist yolk, the other was a resounding failure. It was completely solid and its flavour was wisplike, as if a tiny plume of smoke on the breeze. It had an anonymity that did not suit its lofty place at the top of the dish. This was my only taste regret on the plate.

You can add baked beans or bubble & squeak to your dish for an additional £1 or £1.50 respectively. I sampled some of Phil's B&S and I would say it was well worth the additional outlay if you were a particular potato aficionado. As things stood with the default breakfast though, I never felt as if anything was lacking, even though it didn't adhere to my breakfast canon.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Bill's. There was something delightfully homely about the place; the space feels very much like the market warehouse that the original Bill's in Lewes grew up from, and having shelves of produce and other market goods lining the walls only adds to this feel. Tempering this warmth though was an overwhelming intensity of something being lost. The handwritten notices were difficult to decipher and conversation was easily muffled in the clamour of a frantic Sunday morning. Sunday mornings should never feel frantic! There was something happening here shared with the crisis of modernity, of alienation within close proximity of others. I could imagine Donna Tartt meeting Bret Easton Ellis for breakfast there. It's definitely personal preference, but I prefer a much more leisurely breakfast environment. The meal was executed to a very high standard, but there was something niggling away that meant that I could never feel as though I was truly at home there; I always felt that as though I was a customer. Maybe if it was a smaller venue I would enjoy it more, or indeed a less busy one. The ambience had more in common with a bowling alley than other eateries I have visited, and as the almost month-long delay in this blog post attests, the ambience of the bowling alley seems to have a negative effect on me.

Function: warmed the soul, but still hungry after 3/5
Adherence to canon: No, but it didn't feel as though it was lacking too much
Taste: one egg disappointed, everything else was spot on 4.5/5
Value: you get what you pay for, certainly 3/5
Presentation: beautifully laid out 5/5
Venue: equal parts delightful and nauseating 4/5

Overall: a delicious yet frantic breakfast 4/5 

Bonus Bubble and Squeak Picture!

Recovering with Rosie at Tutti Frutti

23rd June.

Urrrrrrrrrrrgrhrghrghhhgh. I've had many a deep existential crisis (to be referred to from this point on as either a DEC or hangover) in my time, but this one was big. This week's highest new entry. One of those heady mixtures of drinking something from each of the key alcohol groups (wine, beer, peculiar lemon liqueur) and a ridiculous lack of sleep, leaving me feeling unclean and nauseous as I rode the bus up to Seven Dials to meet up with Rosie Williams for breakfast. I had partied to a level that Andrew WK would have nodded approval at, and I was in dire need of something. A sharp dose of cooked breakfast to put me out of my misery.

It seemed to me that Rosie also needed the restorative power of the cooked breakfast, having been submerged for the weekend in an ox-bow lake of teacher assessment red-tape type drudgery, surrounded by a moat of wedding preparation. Not quite a DEC, but certainly sharing some of its headache inducing properties.

As we sat in Tutti Frutti, watching through the large windows a series of exciting wee dogs snuffling past, she explained how she'd been having some troublesome dreams about her impending wedding to Mike. The first one featured doubt, with her remarking that she "couldn't marry a man with elbows like that!" The second featured a minor catastrophe, with her mum forgetting to bring a vintage suitcase that cards would be put in. Consequently the wedding was ruined and she ended up swimming through mud. The most recent nocturnal episode was the toughest; she trod in mud, had a row with her mum in a castle/department store, and then ran off with our friend Steve into some tunnels. I dread to think what nightmares she will be plagued with in the final few days running up to the wedding. Perhaps she'll be locked in a castle/department store which is slowly filling up with mud, and her mum will be outside refusing to unlock the door, and then Steve will parachute in and have to fight his way through a horde of zombie waspiders (horrible cross between wasp and spider) but then at the last minute Jim Davidson will burst in, with Mike trapped in a rucksack, and then proceed to start shouting in a really high-pitched voice at everyone. Maybe.

The escaping thing from the most recent dream may be influenced by a discovery Rosie made. One of her colleagues had informed her of an incredible adventure activity zone (for want of a better term) in London called HintHunt, where you and your friends are placed in a room and have one hour to escape, solving various clues and challenges along the way in order to do so. Although there's not much info on their website, it sounds like an ace combination between room escape games and the sadly defunct Crystal Maze activity centres that used to exist back in t' day. Visiting this place is definitely going to be on the agenda, as it looks guaranteed to provide a good time.

Rosie likes to have a good time, but when it comes down to getting the work done she seems to thrive on intense, wine-fuelled bursts of creativity. And boy does she get it done; from all reports her results both at uni and work have been pretty impressive. This illustrates the kind of person that Rosie is; I would say she is hard-working and playful. Sure, the playful side may be in charge for quite a lot of the time, but she always seems to get the job done. Eventually.

I'm confident that with her behind the reins, this wedding is going to be a pretty ace occasion, from the build-up to what occurs the following day. The post-wedding breakfast is one of the most important aspects of the marriage. Rosie and Mike will be orchestrating a group of 36 (yes, thirty-six!) people to have breakfast in a pub in Ditchling the day after tying the knot. That's going to take some doing. I shall, obviously, be providing a full report.

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian Breakfast

2 eggs, 2 hash browns, mushrooms, beans, tomatoes, 2 toast 

Vegetarian Breakfast - £5.95

Oh baby. This was what I needed. It looked just like they'd upended a tin of beans onto my plate. Take that, DEC. It was a pretty classic veggie breakfast set-up; all the key players were there, no pretension or things trying to be what they're not. This was a purist's breakfast, and with good quantities.

Quantity is nothing without some quality however. Fortunately the baked beans had enough going for them to make the portion not seem excessive. They were soft and syrupy, meaning that I could quite comfortably eat a spoonful of them without the need for combining them with any other components, their mellow fruitiness granting them independence of the other items.

One thing that this purist breakfast did well was ensure that each component had a very distinct flavour and texture. It can sometimes be an issue when you have multiple items performing similar roles, turning areas of the breakfast plate into uninspiring homogenous masses. This is not what you want when you are feeling like an uninspiring homogenous mass yourself, thanks to a throbbing DEC. Each item here was very much doing its own thing and I was grateful for this.

Ms. Williams, for the next month anyway

The flavours were distinct yet not overwhelming. The hash browns were light and with the essence of potato at the fore of their taste. The outer skin was thin, reminding me of crisps. The mushrooms were thoroughly cooked and simply buttery in taste. The tomatoes were intriguing; compact with the outer structure rigidly intact, but with the innards loose and flowing. They lacked the rich sweetness of the beans, and carried more earthy, fleshy notes.

The only item that disappointed was the egg. I enjoyed the whites, strong and thick, close to the Platonic form of the albumen, but the yolks.... Ah man. They were pale, anaemic, cloud-like. They were quite like me I suppose; from a distance I may have looked alright, having had a shower, put on clean clothes etc, but on the inside I was feeling very vague and fluffy. Hungover eggs. Eggs in deep existential crisis.

This disappointment was made up for by the delightful way in which the toast was delivered. Both mine and Rosie's toast portions were brought to us on the same dish, charmingly side by side. This move made the whole experience infinitely more homely, making us feel less like customers and more like friends of the establishment. The toast was also a taste highlight, being good quality seeded wholemeal bread and liberally buttered (it is worth noting that I was given a choice with regards to the bread, along with the tomatoes).

On the whole, Tutti Frutti was a charming wee place.  The staff who served us seemed to care about being friendly and making sure we were comfy. In terms of the food, it was all, bar the eggs, served rather well (Rosie informed me that the bacon was particularly good also). The whole experience felt gentle and comforting, precisely what one needs following the onset of a DEC. Sure, it wasn't especially game-changing, but it's good to know that there's definitely somewhere on Seven Dials that you can go to for a pleasant breakfast that will ease you through the beginning stages of fear and trembling, or the sickness unto death. It is thanks to Tutti Frutti that I survived that morning, and made it through to the pub quiz in the evening.

Function: made me feel like the world wasn't going to end just yet 4/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: not stunning, but rather pleasant 3/5
Value: satisfactory 3/5
Presentation: the communal toast plate was a superb innovation 4/5
Venue: felt well looked after  4/5

Overall: softly uplifting, a safe bet 3.5/5

Bryony and the Bristol Scale at Mange Tout

16th June.

Cheese. The thing that prevents half of the world's vegetarians from becoming vegan. It is a delicious thing in all of its incarnations (apart from the plastic and vegan versions) and has brought me culinary joy on many an occasion. It has, unsurprisingly, found itself as an integral component to many past breakfasts. The inclusion of cheese to baked beans or scrambled egg can elevate these items to the next level of breakfast proficiency. Such is its influence that I and others have often wondered why it doesn't normally find a place on the breakfast menus of the cafes and bistros of the city. It was the reason that myself and Bryony headed to Mange Tout last week; here was an eaterie that had halloumi as part of its breakfast.

Bryony Huzar is a fan of cheese. I was tempted to buy her a wheel of Camembert for her birthday, maybe put a few candles in it, and I'm sure that if I had she would have enjoyed it quite a lot. She's also a fan of breakfasts. She and her boyfriend Ryan (whom we have previously met) take it in turns to make cheesy beans on toast for each other to eat in bed. It sounds as though they have got this relationship business down to a fine art, although Bryony did confess that sometimes she goes back to sleep after eating. That is a bit too hedonistic for my liking.

Bry is also one of the most enthusiastic people I know. Whenever her interest is piqued by a specific subject then she will take great enjoyment in letting you know about it, eager for you to find out about the things that she enjoys. She generally has quite good taste (well, a similar taste in things to me, which is good taste, ok) and so the things she has to say are often welcome. Coupled with this, she is one of the friendliest people I know, and always seems happy for a chat. The ideal person to be going for a breakfast with then; we would no doubt end up talking about dogs, Terry Pratchett, RPGs or Electric Six and it would be lovely.

Well, that would cover the walk to Mange Tout. Jonathan Swift's poem, 'The Lady's Dressing Room', would be how I would adapt the subject of our conversation into a form more fitting for that slick eaterie. For Mange Tout, a French cafe, was chic, whereas our conversation was base. Comparing the two would be like comparing the works of Will Shakespeare to the works of Will Smith.

I delight in such contrasts. There was something immensely satisfying about sitting in this well-to-do place discussing the importance of being comfortable with the bodily functions of others within relationships. Not being able to do so can lead to great anxiety (as Swift so eloquently conveyed in his poem) as well as physical discomfort. Many will be familiar with the pain that comes with the denial of certain regular and natural eructations and emissions. It is testament to the strength of Bryony and Ryan's relationship that they have developed their own version of the Bristol scale. This could be the answer to that age-old question so frequently yelped by Nestor Haddaway.

I have deliberately veiled the full content of our discussion. This is not due to embarrassment, nor due to subservience to Mange Tout. I could quite happily talk and write about shit 'til the cows come home, fresh from an afternoon of ruminating and making cow pats. Simply, the sensory conjurations I wish to make with this post are solely with regards to the breakfast, that noble cheese-filled dish.

And so, the breakfast:

Végétarien

Pan-seared halloumi cheese, roasted mushrooms, wilted spinach, tomato compote, two eggs any way, served on a tartine

Végétarien - £9

 I have to say, when I first saw this I was disappointed. I had just paid a titanic £9 and had been served with an amount of food that could fit on one slice of bread. It looked as though the breakfast was going to fall on the wrong side of swanky; all adjectives and not enough nouns. It was only after I began dismantling this ivory tower that I realised that actually there was quite a bit of food on there. If I had taken each individual component off of this pedestal, the tartine, and spread them across the plate, then it would certainly have shown just how much there was. Deliciously sneaky.

Hello, me...

I should start with the halloumi, since that was what had brought us to Mange Tout (I was surprised that Bry didn't opt for this actually). It was wonderful, as I had expected. Sometimes halloumi can be too overbearing; too salty, too chewy, or both, but this was ideal as a flesh option. The salt and strength of texture were spot on.

It was interesting how this breakfast managed to rework or emulate traditional elements of the cooked breakfast I am used to, and succeed in presenting them in a different way. The tartine for example, comprised of sourdough, had a texture similar to well-made toast, equally chewy and crunchy, but in its non-toasted state its taste retained more inner breadliness. It felt rustic in a classy way. Artisan. More fascinating for me though was the way in that the position traditionally held by baked beans was filled with a tomato compote. It had the same sweet tang and syrupy feel that beans have, providing an additional dimension of moisture to the dish. And again, it felt as though it was more classy than baked beans could ever be.

Eggs and mushrooms are more familiar territory for me, and these too were prepared with panache and aplomb. The way in which they were cooked really shone through, with the thick white of the poached eggs having a peppery edge, and the mushrooms having an easily discernible rich undercurrent of butter at work. Both were juicy, and cutting into the eggs furnished me with a yolk explosion. They were lush. The spinach too was also lush, with an almost milky aura to it. I usually scoff when adjectives are thrown about on menus, but wilted was spot on, conveying the soft and delicate nature of these greens.

It became swiftly apparent that what Mange Tout was doing was taking the cooked breakfast, using what combinations of textures and flavours work and excite best, and recreating it in a classier, or more refined, way. This is normally something that I try avoid; I find such reclaimings of humble, homely meals as pretentious. Here at Mange Tout though they have the chops to back up their project. They manage to get the balance between the functional and the aesthetic right, resulting in something that, against the odds, felt simultaneously homely and an extravagant treat. A rare thing. As a result this would probably be the perfect place to take someone if you wanted to impress them whilst suffering from the indignity of a flatulence-inspiring, soul-gnawing hangover. It also works fine if you want some cheese with your breakfast as well as a coffee with a tasty wee biscuit thing.

Function: really did the job, against the odds 4/5
Adherence to canon: No, but curiously didn't suffer for it
Taste: a beautiful triumph 5/5
Value: you're paying for quality 3/5
Presentation: most things look better in towers 5/5
Venue: felt well looked after  4/5

Overall: a tour de force in fastbreaking 4/5

Got to love a cheeky biscuit meringue thing with a coffee