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

Breakfast with Bryin at Galleria

9th June.

Cotton buds are dangerous. Once there was an absent-minded man who used to clean his ears out with them. One day he was giving those auditory orifices a thorough cleaning when he decided he would have a shave as well. Leaving the buds in his ears he began to shave, until his face was once again smooth and fresh-looking. To finish the job he opened his aftershave, poured a hearty amount onto his hands and...WHAM! He slammed his hands to his face in an exuberant manner and promptly fell to the floor dead, the two cotton buds having being inadvertently driven through his ears and into his brain.

I couldn't think of any other way to begin this post. Nothing crazy happened in the run-up to this week's breakfast, I just went for a breakfast with Bryin Teeny-Blackburn Lindoe (BArch). This was a story he told me, after I had mentioned that my hearing wasn't so good this week, probably due to me running out of cotton buds a day or so ago. Still, it's served to break the ice, so to speak.

Bryin is a top chap whom I have known for the last few years. During this time he has been conquering a degree in architecture; a degree that had proved tricky to begin with, but after a couple of false starts and a lot of hard graft Bryin has come through and completed it with aplomb, rather like a long-distance runner ducking for the finish line. So much so that he was selected as one of only ten people to have their dissertation appear in the Brighton University degree show book. Promising stuff, and something that hopefully indicates that Bryin is well on the way to become an arch-architect.

That's his plan now. Once his tenancy runs out in a few months Bryin will sadly be returning to Essex to start the next stage of his assault on the world of architecture. He's got his eye on a paid internship in master-planning, which hopefully involves working for an evil maverick mastermind in a bunker under the Thames (but probably doesn't). At the end of the summer he will be contributing to a furniture exhibition with a friend. There's more than just buildings to architecture, you see. Not so long ago he was involved in a folklore project in Portland, where his friend made a pub game based on the legend of the Veasta; Portland's oft-forgotten sea monster. There's much more than just buildings to architecture.

Let's think for a moment about graveyards. They're the only thing I can think of at present that cannot simply be demolished in order for a newer, better replacement to be built. Bryin explained that one reason why burial places are such sacred and hallowed places is because the bodies interred within take such a long time to break down and as such are in a recognisable state for quite a while. Burying a dead body is bad for the soil as well. Bodies rot rather than decompose, they do it slowly, deep in the earth and produce methane. All in all, it's not ideal. In 2007, a new method of body disposal was developed called promession, which basically involves freezing a body with liquid nitrogen and reducing it to a powder. Any impurities (fillings, prosthetics etc.) are filtered out and the remains can be buried in a biodegradable container in a shallow plot, composting rather than rotting. What this means is that the ground is kept healthy and ripe for growing plants. In death, new life. A much healthier way to go about things I would think, both physically and psychologically.

As well as contemplating deathstyles, Bryin is worried that since finishing his degree he has been neglecting a healthy lifestyle. For him, cooked breakfasts have become de rigueur. I tried to argue that there was no real reason that the cooked breakfast need be unhealthy. If you take each individual component and examine them then on paper they could quite easily be the components of a healthy meal. Usually it's the manner of the cooking that makes them unhealthy, but anyway, who's to begrudge a hard-working future arch-architect a week or two of fried glory?

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian Breakfast

Mushrooms, grilled tomato, fried egg, beans, hash brown, vegetarian sausage, slice of toast

Vegetarian Breakfast - £3.50

This was a welcome return to the realm of the familiar. Here we had all the elements of a classic cooked breakfast. All boxes ticked. No nonsense. No jiggery pokery. No alarms and no surprises. The question was, would it be done in a way that made it stand out from all the other venues that produced breakfasts cut from the same cloth, using the same time-honoured template?

Ultimately, the answer is that the breakfast had a template of its own to follow; a template of restraint. As ever, the mushrooms proved to be a weather vane of taste. Here on this plate they were fried, enough to have been soft and juicy, but not with any other flavourings with which to take them away from residing on an avenue of plainness. Similarly, the crsipy hash brown was not as salty as others I have experienced, and in terms of flavour it felt as though it was holding back. The sausage too, firm of body and thick in consistency, yet despite a promising sagey smell there was a slight hole in its taste-web. They were all lacking a certain edgy mouthfeel.

BTBL - Arch-Architect in the making

That seemed to be the crux of it; every item was superb in the texture department, yet most were lacking a little something when it came to taste. The hash brown was probably the component most guilty of this, but the beans also flattered to deceive. They were lushly creamy, but their sweetness lacked punch. Some more acerbic acidity would have been gratefully received.

It wasn't a completely one-sided story, however. The tomato was grilled marvellously, with its skin having a delicious smokey edge to supplement the fruity innards. The toast, pre-buttered for a creamy finish, had its softly-softly crunchy-crunchy ratio down perfectly, as well as tasting fine. The real triumph of the dish though was the egg. It looked like the sun floating in a snowfield. It was a pregnant egg, the yolk bursting with rich superabundance. They certainly knew what they were doing with this egg, that's for sure.

In terms of a venue, Galleria was fine. It had everything you would look for in a cafe; friendly service, table service, all the condiments and seasonings within arms reach, non-wobbly tables, coffee. Everything was in the right place, yet everything was just missing that...that...je ne sais quoi. Psychological salt, perhaps. It was akin to building a cabin in the woods with all of the things you would think a cabin in the woods would have. Walls, a roof, windows, furniture, heck, even a fireplace. But still, the cabin didn't feel like home to its owner, 'til at long last he put down a nice rug in the living room. The rug was the difference maker. So too, here. Galleria was missing a metaphorical rug, both in breakfast and in general.

Ergo, architecturally speaking Galleria is structurally sound. It is, however, missing something on an psycho-ergonomic level (if this isn't a real term it should be). Bryin strikes me as the kind of chap who is unlikely to overlook the importance of psycho-ergonomics, as his knowledge of cutting edge body disposal techniques displays. And if anyone is going to know when and where a rug is necessary, it's a chap whose written a concept album about dinosaurs. There's a psycho-ergonomically sound creative project right there. There's much, much more than just buildings to architecture.

Function: did the job 3/5
Adherence to canon: Yes! Sweet relief!
Taste: did the job 3/5
Value: everything you look for, for minimal monies 4/5
Presentation: did the job 3/5
Venue: did the job 3/5

Overall: needs one of those psycho-rugs draped over it 3/5

Mittagessen mit Michael an der Wild Cherry

2nd June.

May was a bit of a sporadic month for breakfasts. There was a financial crisis at the beginning of the month, a trip back to my parents in the middle of the month (featuring a masterly crafted breakfast by Derek McIntosh, to be proudly displayed here soon), and then a stag weekend at the end of it. Very busy stuff. Still, now that all the debauchery (well, karaoke) is out of the way, I can concentrate on other important matters. Obviously there were several cooked breakfasts consumed over the past fortnight, it's just that these visits were purely in the name of debauchery, rather than the more noble aims of this breakfast project. I visited Buddies three times in the space of a week, for example, and that is an institution that one can only really venture into after 1am.

You can read this lack of action as an excuse for any shoddy writing that may occur in this post. I feel that I need to get some excuses in early, as this week's breakfast was shared with Michael Neu, a German, who has quite the following in Germany. The pressure is on. I need my writing to be at its very best, in order to do justice to a great man and to impress my continental cousins. Never has there been more at stake!

I've come to know Michael through my housemate Tim. Tim is currently working towards his PhD at Brighton University, and around a year ago Michael Neu came to Brighton to start teaching at the University. It turned out that Michael is one of the nicest people in the world, with a warmth and friendliness that few can match. He is also keen to point out that he is German, so I should probably do so whenever I get a chance. To recap then, Michael is German, a thoroughly nice man, a teacher and a German.

For our breakfast we journeyed to the Wild Cherry cafe, situated near Queens Park; a small, deli-style cafe with a decidedly Mediterranean feel. The weather was beautiful and so we sat outside to discuss the various projects that we had been working on and thinking about. As I've said, Michael is German, a thoroughly nice man, a teacher and a German, and one of these projects is a short speech he is going to give at the old school he worked at back in Deutschland. It is to feature a charming allegory, entitled 'Freddy and the Fishes', and although I'd best not go into details for fear of a student reading this and having it spoiled, it will be illustrative of two things; his ideas about living (which I shall come on to shortly) and the high esteem at which he holds all of his students. Michael is a major advocate of friendly teaching, and making his lectures and seminars places where a dialogue can occur, rather than a one-sided exchange. With a friendly approach, the learning can be a two-way thing, with the designated teacher able to learn from the students, as well as creating an environment that is enjoyable to be in, thus making students more receptive. Michael has taken this approach outside the classroom recently, setting up 'Walk and Talk' trips; an excursion in the countryside often ending up at a drinking establishment, all the while offering an occasion for thought and debate to occur. These sound like a great way to be productive whilst having a jolly good time. I should probably do stuff like this with other writers, rather than spending afternoons with fingers poised over the keyboard with YouTube taking centre stage.

As well as teaching (or should that be 'as part of his interests'?) Michael is keen to write, and has been working on a number of projects which all sound terribly interesting. He is currently nearing the completion of a satire on Greece's current economic situation, along with Germany's role in how it is playing out. Michael is German after all. Once he has finished this he will then look to start writing about 'the Bad Life', about people living badly or living worse than they could. Once he has finished this then he will finally be able to embark on his major goal; writing about 'the Good Life'. He is concerned with how friendship, what he considers to be one of the most important things of all, can be destroyed by the way we live, and how the importance of outcomes, money, and work, rule us. This leads to people being treated as a means to an end, with the end being profit. This is not conducive to 'the Good Life'. He is also keen to challenge the nature of the concept of 'the best', which works as a part of this. By thinking of 'the best' - having a best friend, finding the best breakfast(!) - we are quantifying something that cannot, or should not, be quantified. This is a dangerous thing to do, and could lead to us living badly or worse than we could. This sounds like an exciting project, and I have no doubt that if Michael sets about it with the same degree of fun and friendliness that he sets about most things, he could be on to a good thing. This certainly got me thinking about the dangers of searching for 'the best'. Perhaps I should just be searching for damn good breakfasts instead.

And so, the breakfast:

Mount of Olives Breakfast

Humous, lábána, tomatoes, olives, bread, olive oil and goat cheese

Mount of Olives Breakfast - £6.49

Well now, this was something a little different to the norm. There were a few things on the menu that were more cooked and more like the breakfasts I am used to, but this meal was the only thing that was labelled as a breakfast, and so by process of elimination this was the one. The weather was feeling comfortably Mediterranean, and I hoped that this good feeling would rub off on the breakfast. Sure, I've eaten this sort of thing before, but never to start my day off.

One of the best things about mezze is how many opportunities you get to combine different flavours and textures within one dish. The way that the breakfast was laid out was ideal for this purpose; each component having its own receptacle or area of the plate meant that the items were easily accessible, but also that spaces were created in between in which the combining could take place. For me, the combination of flavours and textures is one of the great and important things about the cooked breakfast, and so ideologically this Mediterranean dish was suited to what I was looking for, despite not adhering to my canon in the slightest.

There were a couple of things on the plate that I had never seen before. One was written as 'lábána' on the menu, which I have only been able to find written elsewhere as 'labna' and 'labneh'. In the photo it is the white creamy mound in the left-hand triangle dish. On paper it is yoghurt that has been strained through a cloth or paper bag to remove the whey, and in practice here it was very light, creamy and milky. Like a fluffier, more cloud-like version of Philadelphia cheese. It shared a similar taste with the goats cheese but managed to restrain the flavour somewhat, meaning that it was able to be combined with items with great ease.

Der Lehrer des Lebens

The other thing on the plate that I had never seen before was a powdery form of seasoning, seen in the photo on the left-hand side of the plate in another little receptacle. Unfortunately I didn't get round to asking precisely what it was, but it was tasty. It was subtle, with a slight tang and a woody after taste. There something of the paprika about it, only leafy. It was an intrigue, and when applied to the various components of the breakfast via the adhesive oil it easily added another dimension. It was crucial that this form of seasoning was given a position of importance, being a part of the dish itself rather than a side elsewhere on the table, given the similarity of textures that were at work. The humous, lábána and goats cheese were all very similar, but with the addition of this mystery seasoning they would be transformed into something quite different, roughening the edges and sharpening the flavour.

The other components that I was more familiar with seemed to operate on one of two flavour settings; intensely sharp and salty, or light, soft and mild. In the former group were the juicy and plump olives, and the solid goats cheese, smooth and tangy. These were counter-balanced by the latter group, consisting of a placid hummous, some great home-baked bread that was crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside, and the tomatoes. Although freshly cut, their taste was subdued as is often the way with supermarket tomatoes. Some locally grown toms would have gone down a treat in this breakfast, but alas, as it was they tumbled into the 'light flavour' category in spite of their potential.

This analogue flavouring coupled with largely homogenous textures (despite the mystery powder) meant that the breakfast felt a bit two-dimensional. Sure, there were exciting and powerful flavours (with mixing things up strongly encouraged) but there wasn't really enough variety for this to be the vivacious and engrossing experience that it could have been. Some of the more intensely sharp items were too abundant, such as the goats cheese which was a bit of a struggle to finish. We could have requested more bread to go with this, but this wouldn't have lended any further depth to the meal.

It also lacked a certain heartiness that I look for with my breakfast. Perhaps this was down to a lack of carbs, which could have been remedied by requesting more bread, but this wouldn't have added enough in the flavour stakes. The components that brought the flavour to the meal were mainly all of a similar texture; soft, and sitting somewhere between liquid and solid. It could have done with more firm items. With a breakfast I look for something that is able to provide a solid foundation upon which to build my day. This dish would serve better as a lunch (ein Mittagessen), as building a day upon this would be akin to building a house upon sand.

Function: does different things to what I look for 1/5
Adherence to canon: nononononononono
Taste: good strong flavours, but needed more depth 3/5
Value: quite expensive for what it was, I feel 2/5
Presentation: spaces, segregation and beautiful colours 5/5
Venue: another benefiting with good weather. Not as warm as other delis 3/5

Overall: probably not one for fastbreaking. Lunchmaking would be a different story 2/5

Meeting Mike at the Dumb Waiter

19th May.

It seemed apt that I was going to the Dumb Waiter with Mike Sykes.

We had met at the University of Exeter in our first year during the first week. It was probably the second or third night when I encountered Mike in our halls of residence bar, the Welly. Here he was, thoroughly inebriated, flanked by two very apologetic friends as he slurred his way through pleasant conversation. This became modus operandi for a good deal of university socialising out of hours. It transpired that not only was Mike studying for the same degree as me but he was also staying in the room directly above mine. It also turned out that he hailed from Farnham, a town a few miles away from my home village of Ash. Coincidence? Destiny? Who can say. Seven years later and I'm gearing up to be his best man in July.

In any case, the aptness stems from our degree, where we both spent a week or two studying the theatre of the absurd, including some lovely little pieces by the likes of Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. We both enjoyed reading their theatrical works, and have long aspired to film ourselves performing Endgame (as well as Shakespeare's The Tempest in a kitchen). It's one of several projects we have discussed but never gotten round to, along with a sketch show, the second SmoothGay album, and a cop show. But yes, we did spend a lot of time at the Dumb Waiter chortling about having a Pinter or Beckett themed cafe. There are certainly several places in the world where Godot turns up quicker than your order.

Besides from this, we spent a lot of time discussing the impending wedding. It turns out that these weddings take quite a lot of organising. So much so that my carefully scribed notes from this breakfast encounter mainly consist of instructions and lists of things to sort out for the wedding. PAs, gate supervisors, playlist supervisors, booking time off, first dances, music - if this is the stuff that I have to be thinking about then I dread to think how much stuff Mike and Rosie have to be getting on with. Poor guys. I wouldn't wish a wedding on anyone.

I jest. They're a great couple and it's going to be ace seeing how happy Mike will be when the big day comes around (it'll be great seeing Rosie happy too obviously, but she ain't the subject of this breakfast!). I'm going to have to cease writing about their relationship though, otherwise I'll use up all of my sentimentality and wit ahead of the best man's speech.

As well as similar tastes in literature and music, Mike also shares my enjoyment of what a friend recently labelled 'dork games'. He was a major force in Exeter at instigating dice-based role-playing games within our friendship group, and he has got the academic chops to put forward a strong argument for them. Games such as this, exemplified by the most popular example of the type, Dungeons and Dragons, offer a story-telling experience superior to books and films (for example) because you, the player, are the character. Mike's MA dissertation was concerned with the processes of consciousness within literature, and how the only way for the reader to feel the character is to put themselves in the characters' positions. With games the 'middle-man', as it were, is removed. I wrote a blog post a wee while ago about why this made video games great, this agency the reader is given, but as Mike suggested to me, in role-playing games this agency is much greater. There are potentially infinite possibilities for action, whereas video games still have a lot of inbuilt parameters that limit what you can and can't do. As our friend Bryony succinctly put it:

"Because as geeky as everyone thinks it is, I don't think there's anyone that hasn't read a book they can't put down, and wished they could be in the story. Well now you can! So bloody well get on it!"

Obviously it helps if the person running the game is a master storyteller, capable of weaving intricate plots and setting them down atop enchanting and engrossing worlds. Mike is definitely a master storyteller, and it would be a crying shame if he didn't translate one of his game stories into a written format, so that all those who don't want to "get on it" can experience his craft. It would be akin to reading about these breakfasts and never eating one.

And so, with that tenuous link, the breakfast:

Veggie Breakfast

 2 sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and beans

Veggie Breakfast - £3.95

We sat upstairs awaiting our breakfast in a room with a random jumble of tables and chairs. Mike sat on what seemed to be a chair ideally suited to a patio whilst I sat on what seemed to be a chair ideally suited to an office. Sometimes an element of idiosyncratic interior furnishing can be charming, but here it felt a bit awkward. The place felt ragtag. There wasn't much in the way of warm atmosphere there, perhaps due to the spreading of the venue over two floors, and this meant that idiosyncrasy felt alienating, whereas at other, friendlier and more involving venues similar jumbles have felt quirky and homely. Still, we weren't sitting around for long before we were presented with our food.

This breakfast will be a tricky one to review. The Dumb Waiter's breakfast menu is geared towards customisation. As such it felt as though the veggie breakfast option was there to serve as a foundation upon which to construct your tower of taste. Is it fair then to criticise this breakfast for firmly failing to adhere to the canon? It is especially strange when you take into account that there was also a vegan breakfast option, yet this one, on the surface at least, appears to be vegan. Why have separate veggie and vegan options if you are not going to include eggs and dairy? I think I will have to be critical; it strikes me that it would be relatively easy to reduce the portion sizes in order to fit in an egg or a slice of toast.

Seems to know what he's doing re: marriage

That aside, how did it taste? The sausages were actually really good; crispily done, firm, solid, with a strong meaty taste and texture. In terms of emulating the traditional meat sausage this was a superb rendition. The tomatoes similarly were well cooked, giving them a contrasting soft fleshy texture and a slight smoky edge to their flavour. Unfortunately the mushrooms and beans failed to back all this up. The mushrooms were very light, vague and vacant. There was not much in the way of flavour going. Similarly the beans, although abundant, did not provide much joy either. Their sauce was mellow in taste and soupy in texture, distinctly lacking in heart.

On the whole the flavours were not strong enough. The portions were very good but this was not enough to completely compensate for the lack of heart in the dish. With quite a minimal selection of items it is important that each item is dynamic and pulls its weight. You can compare this to bands. Any mistakes made by an individual in a 7 piece band will be much less apparent than those made by a player in a 3 piece. In order to have a good breakfast here then, it felt as though you would need to take action into your own hands and recruit some more members for the breakfast band.

It feels as though this venue rewards the assertive over the meek. If you are to sit around and wait for guidance then you will find very little. In many ways this is a very existentialist venue; the fastbreaker holds the responsibility of finding meaning in the menu. Unfortunately, at times when the cooked breakfast is most necessary, we normally require a bit of hand-holding to help us along our way. Giving the waiter a voice, friendly and assertive, is one of the best ways to enact this.

Function: not kind on the weak and passive 2/5
Adherence to canon: NO. Lazy, or an opportunity?
Taste: sometimes, but not often enough 2/5
Value: cheap, and large helpings of component, easy to augment 4/5
Presentation: not much to play around with 3/5
Venue: alienating 2/5

Overall: to make the most of this place you need to actively invest - 2/5