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!