Occupying Lovefit Café with Ollie

October 18th.

Again, another blog post that was written a long, long time ago. I'll make amends, I promise...

Meeting people is easy. Both the title of a Radiohead tour documentary that finds the band feeling increasingly alienated following the success of their third album, OK Computer, and a statement of truth. So long as the two people want to meet up and hang out, there’s little reason for there to be any difficulty in a meeting happening. OK, well, perhaps if one of the two has diarrhea & vomiting and lives on a different continent, that might make things tricky, but otherwise, I would say that meeting people is easy.

This is a conclusion that Ollie Fournier has come to. Ollie was making his first return to Brighton for about 3 years, and was slightly annoyed with himself that it had been that long. He had moved to London once he had finished his degree, but the rigours of employment had deprived him of the impetus to make the short pilgrimage to the coast. Now living in Cambridge with a satisfying job that leaves him plenty of free time, Ollie is looking to make amends.

In this first instance of his new attitude, he has a friend who he hadn't seen for an inexcusably long time. Deciding that enough was enough, Ollie simply sent a message asking them to name a time and a place for them to meet up and that was that. Easy peasy. Our meet-up for breakfast was arranged in a similarly efficient manner.

I first met Ollie playing in a Stop The Cuts Bank Holiday 5-a-side football tournament. Our team, Workers of the World Utd (probably my favourite pun football team name, just ahead of Lokomotiv Sodor), were victorious, seeing off a team of black bloc anarchists and the Justin Fashanu All-Stars among others en route to victory. His footballing and immediate friendliness were instrumental in the early shaping of Kemptown F.C., and without his input it would doubtless be a very different team.

In Cambridge, Ollie is currently the organizer of play schemes for kids with the University of Cambridge. It sounds like an ideal job; he gets to work towards something fun and has the responsibility to work his hours flexibly. Excitingly, for the (then) upcoming half-term he was hoping to arrange for the kids to do some Parkour.

His argument is that Parkour is ideal as it is a form of process-based play, rather than outcome-based. This means that the reward comes from the process of participating, rather than the outcome of winning something. As it is a form of challenging oneself and passing one’s own boundaries, it is suitable for children of all abilities. Just so long as no one face plants into a handrail, it is a compelling argument.

In that respect, I would say that this breakfast blog was similar to Parkour. As I’ve acknowledged previously, it will be nigh on impossible for me to sample every single vegetarian cooked breakfast in Brighton; there is a vast multitude and new ones are opening every week. Treating this fastbreaking as an outcome-based project is not the way to go. Rather, it is a process-based project. The fun and joy of it is in the meeting up with friends and eating some (hopefully) hearty food.

And so, the breakfast…

Veggie Full English

Scrambled egg, baked beans, mushrooms, grilled tomato, hash brown and granary toast, with two grilled Linda McCartney sausages and an extra hash brown (plus a complimentary small coffee, pot of tea or 8oz orange juice.

Veggie Full English - £6.99

The Love Fit Café is also similar to Parkour (vaguely) in the keen eye it has on health and fitness at all times (you don’t often see an out-of-shape individual attempting Parkour). The casual and easy-going atmosphere gives way to a menu that gives healthiness precedence. Many options on the menu can be served with extra shots of protein. You can even find out the precise nutritional content of your breakfast. 

Nothing as maverick as that in the breakfast, but it did come with a complimentary beverage of choice. I opted for the orange juice which was freshly squeezed. Delicious and zingy.

The breakfast itself:

Calories 711

Protein 51.1g

Carbs 60.4g

Sugar 12.3g

Fat 17.6g

Salt 4.9g

2 of your 5-a-day.

The plate was full and some care was taken with the breakfast’s delivery. A small garnish of parsley and separate packet of butter left the amount of spreading to my discretion.

Meeting Ollie is now easy

I was eager to try the egg, with personal and professional egg failures fresh in my mind. The scrambling had been done well, giving a solid yet fluffy texture. The other items that require careful cooking were also well done. The mushrooms were succulent and the tomato seemed friendly in its soft juiciness. It was welcoming, though no additional flavouring was present on these items.

It was notable that the food had been cooked in as healthy way as possible. This was most evident in the sausages, bearing the scars of grilling proudly. These Linda McCartney sausages were hot and firm, their solidity contrasting wonderfully with the other fleshy items.

The other components all shared a certain chunkiness. The beans felt sizable and were fruity without further softness. The toast, too, was chunky in a triumphant way. Crisp rustic bread that was wonderfully chewy. 

Unfortunately, there is another form of chewiness. A chewiness that is unwelcome and unbecoming. This was the fate of the hash browns, which sadly had been overdone. The potato was subdued as a result and ultimately the browns came across as a re-hash of the toast.

Overall, it was a pleasant breakfast. The complimentary drink represents great value for money and on the whole the dish tasted good. Perhaps it could have benefited with a little less attention to healthiness and a little more attention to delivering some outstanding flavours. I feel as though additional seasoning wouldn’t comprise Lovefit Café’s mission and would improve the dish no end.

Still, one of the great selling points of the vegetarian breakfast is that it can be one of the funnest and most warming ways to make major inroads to your 5-a-day. With my orange juice I would argue that I was over half the way there way ahead of lunchtime. It is nice to have a café that makes me feel like I’m doing my body good as well as my spirit. A little bit of outcome to go along with my process isn’t bad every now and then.

Function: felt healthy and heart-warming - 4/5

Adherence to Canon: Yes

Taste: tasted fine, but have benefitted seasoning - 3/5

Value: complimentary drink? Right on! - 4/5

Presentation: looks good and good attention paid to healthfulness - 5/5

Venue: comfy, although the toilet has a weird security lock - 3/5

Overall: a lot of love and a little bit of fit in this breakfast - 4/5

Recovering with Rachel at the Green Tomato

October 11th.

Please note, I actually wrote all this up in October. It's just taken me this long to upload the pictures and put in the links. Happy New Year!

What does it mean to party? The great Andrew W.K. has a lot to say on the matter. Alongside his helpful columns advising people with how to deal with situations such as crises of faith or friends joining the army, he also likes to let everyone know precisely what a diverse concept the concept of partying is.

A selection of things that count as partying:

- books
- hugging chubby pets
- drawing
- role-playing games
- being obsessed with sports

Rachel Silverlight may be someone that, in the words of Mr. W.K., parties hard. We were supposed to meet for breakfast last weekend, but the after effects of a party proved to be too much for her. She left the party, maybe sometime between 1am and 2am (I can’t remember too clearly, I was also partying hard) but didn’t rouse from her slumbering until 4pm.

(Despite partying hard and leaving at some point between 5am and 6am, I was up and ready to break the fast as the morning hours were rolling into double figures. Just sayin’…)

So, second time lucky. We successfully managed to meet at the Green Tomato on Western Road at 10.30am and proceeded to have breakfast in a cafe that seemed to buy into the partying hard ethos. On one wall was written, “Eat good, feel good, life is short, enjoy your coffee.” Positive and uplifting music was playing and there was a small shelf devoted to condiments. This was my kind of party - a polite, homely one.

Rachel is another friendly chap whom I met at Sussex Uni, sharing with me both a module in psychoanalysis and a knowledge of Paul Weller’s favourite town, Woking. Similar to previous breakfast buddy, Sophie, she also had a winning piece in one of the Quick Fictions competitions. She has got writing skills.

As well as having strong writing skills, Rachel also has strong taste in music (well, she’s come to see Red Diamond Dragon Club play a few times) and literature. I have lent her Donna Tartt’s wonderful novel, The Secret History, and I can imagine that she (and possibly her whole family, considering how long it's taken me to write this up) will have finished reading it before I publish this blog post. She’s currently writing a novel, and hopefully Tartt’s work will give her the final spark to speed her over the finish line in a Bacchanalian blur.

Rachel was going for a haircut later. Both us dislike getting haircuts. Visits can often make you feel like Samson taking a seat at Sweeney Todd’s. Fortunately, she has found a place where she is able to have a nice chat with the hairdresser, something that is worth its weight in gold. Sure, there are many places where you’ll be able to talk to the person cutting your hair; talk about the weather, what you’re doing that weekend and where you work. It is a rare and wonderful thing to find someone to discuss poker, the radio and children's books. I miss Harry from Toppers.

With regards to hair, Rachel made a bold (bald) prediction: “mutton chops are the new beard.” It’s not completely out of the question, but would the hipsterisation of mutton chops deprive them of their rural charm? Like a good breakfast, thick sideburns have a homely feel to them, an aura that is more comfort than glamour. Only time will tell whether their inevitable return to fashion erodes that away.

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian

2 v. sausages, 2 eggs, 2 hash browns, beans, tomato, mushrooms & toast.

Vegetarian - £5.95

I was rumbled by the staff of the Green Tomato. They saw me jotting down their menu and asked me what I was up to. I was only confronted after I had finished eating, however, and so my newfound status of food critic did not lead to preferential treatment. The only extra helpings I received were of smiles.

Not that I really needed any extra helpings with this breakfast; the portion sizes were good for the amount I had paid. I was particularly fond of the beans. These were fruity, rich, soft like vellum, and were plentiful enough to be taken in freely with each of the other components as I chose.

Publishing shrimp and literary cowboy

Our food was brought to us very swiftly. This was good, although suggestive of a meal that was cooked quickly. This was conveyed by the textures of the components, some of which were softer than usual and others firmer. In nearly all cases though, this did not prove to be a problem.

The hash browns, usually reliable for a hearty crunch, were soft and warm, albeit with a crisp skin. Fortunately, there was ample crunch in the toast. It came pre-buttered and happily on the spectrum of crunch right in the middle, yielding happily to my teeth but with that satisfying roughness of texture.

The sausage was also quite soft. These were of the vegetable variety and were surprisingly sweet. They probably had more in common with bubble and squeak than sausages, but had enough going to differentiate them from the other components.

In contrast, the tomato and mushrooms were much firmer. Pleasantly, despite their firmness, both ingredients managed to carry a lot of flavour. Although I could tell that the tomato hadn’t been cooked for a great amount of time, the seedy sections had a decent softness to them. It was soft but didn’t offer much juice. Conversely, the mushrooms were solid but somehow very juicy, with a bright and cheerful taste.

Everything was fine for the amount of time it had been cooked, save for the eggs. I’m not sure what had happened here, but they were fragmenting all over the place. I would pick up a piece on my fork and before I could raise it to my mouth it had split apart and tumbled back to the plate. They felt undercooked and were frustrating to finish. Those darned eggs...

Overall, the Green Tomato had a lot to offer. As a venue it was warm, comfortable and friendly. The food was affordable, quick to arrive and, for the most part, tasty and enjoyable to eat. Still, the egg was the feature that stayed with me. It fell apart like an impressionable new student getting caught up in a group of elitist Classics academics and finding that they’re in a little too deep. If only the eggs had gotten on with the job of cooking rather than plunging headfirst into the glamorous world of the breakfast plate. Things might have ended up much better for everyone. Still, egg breakdown makes for an interesting story. Donna Tartt, take note. 

Function: would have been higher, but those darned eggs... - 3/5

Adherence to Canon: Yes

Value: more than a fair price - 4/5
Taste: everything tasted fine, save those darned eggs... - 3/5

Presentation: looked great, even those darned eggs... - 4/5

Venue: very friendly, with commendable condiments shelf - 4/5

Overall: those darned eggs... - 3.5/5

Handily placed, well catered