August 8th
I try to keep my breakfast outings strictly mano y mano. This means that I should have a deeper pool of people from which to select fastbreaking companions from. However, there are certain special occasions where you can’t go eating with one person without another.
This was one such occasion. It would have been criminal of me not to go for a breakfast without both Ellie Williams and Dan McEvoy; two lovely folk who had for the past year or so been living, working and doing amazing things in South Korea.
South Korea must be an exciting country to live in. Alongside the occasional MERS scare, Ellie and Dan have been getting to grips with a completely new culture, complete with a different alphabet, its own legends and wildlife.
For example, when you are out for walk in the UK and hear a rustle in the bushes, one of the most exciting animal options you can hope to encounter is a badger. I told Ellie and Dan about the time I was up walking past the County Hospital one night when from out of a raised bed flew a discombobulated badger. It plummeted to the pavement before darting away into the darkness.
Dan was able to trump this tale, however. On a walk through a forest in South Korea, he and his party heard a mysterious rustling sound. Later pondering led the group to believe that the rustling could…could…have been…none other…than…a bear.
They have bears in South Korea!
Not only bears. They have tigers too, possibly with huge glowing eyes. Ellie was told a story from a local about glowing lights spotted in the forests of the night known as tiger lights that were believed to be the eyes of tigers.
It was a great pleasure to catch up with Ellie and Dan, particularly as I was able to chat exclusively to them rather than sharing them with a pub full of people as I had done the previous evening. They have that winning combination of being softly friendly and excitingly interesting.
This adventure in Korea is just the tip of the excitement iceberg, though. They have ambitions to travel further, to India, and to tackle projects in the future; a place to set up camp in France, a collaborative music project across the globe. They’ve got many pies baking at the moment, and it may be that even more exciting pies have been put into the oven since I last spoke to them. Whatever they end up doing, they are sure to have a lot of fun and look darn good while doing it.
With so much going on, both in the present and further down the road, their visit to England was a great opportunity to get back in touch with their roots and old acquaintances, be they good friends or homely meals.
And so, the breakfast:
The Weekender Breky
2 dippy eggs, seasoned chewy brown bread, grilled tomato, 1 grilled garlic mushroom, quarter of an avocado, 2 vegy sausages and a side of mustard mayo + brown sauce.
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| The Weekender Breky - £7.50 |
Well. I’m not sure how I feel about the spelling of that at all. Despite this, the presence of one particular item quickly set me at ease...
For me, there are fewer foods more homely than eggs and soldiers. So much so that I can’t remember the last time I ate them - they’ve certainly not appeared on my plate in adulthood. Consequently, when presented with my eggs, sitting neatly on their “hendelabra” (this word will catch on), I was unsure how to approach them. I couldn’t recall having ever removed the top of a soft boiled egg before. What if it went wrong?
Fortunately, Ellie seemed to know what she was doing, and after observing her method closely, I gave the tops of my eggs a soft whack before carefully taking the knife to them. It was a technical process requiring surgical levels of calm, but once it had been accomplished, the eggs were laid open and ready for dipping.
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| Revitalised by their Korea move |
Fortunately, Redwood eased my troubled mind by putting some effort into making the eggs and soldiers feel like a special event. The soldiers were drizzled with olive oil, at once distinguishing them from the simple buttered toast of my childhood. Combined with eggs that were cooked to runny perfection, these were a great success. Also cooked to perfection was the tomato, which came in that ideal and blissful state between firmness and mushy pulp.
Similar efforts had been made with other components to make them feel more special and, more importantly, taste better. The avocado had been seasoned with paprika and the mushroom had been grilled in garlic. It was even served with the chopped cloves of garlic it had been grilled with, adding another vibrant dimension of flavour to the plate.
The only let down on were the sausages which were bland and lacking in character. The only upside to these was that they presented an opportunity for me to use the mustard mayo that had been provided which lent them a little integrity.
It is not often that you find something that feels unique in a Brighton breakfast, and it is always exciting when that unique item is integrated seamlessly into a collection of oft-used favourites. The eggs and soldiers fitted in well but also made the breakfast feel twice as homely as it otherwise would - a fact that is especially important considering the lack of baked beans on offer. This lack and the uninspiring sausages were the only shortcomings that I could identify with this breakfast. Oh, and the spelling of “breky.” That kind of tomfoolery is never going to fly, no matter how good the food is.
Function: eggs and soldiers conjure warm memories - 5/5
Adherence to Canon: No
Taste: largely vibrant and exciting - 4/5
Value: significant fare for a significant amount - 3/5
Presentation: both homely and chic - 4/5
Venue: calm, friendly, has a big chessboard - 4/5
Overall: only minor faults held this delighful dish back - 4/5
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