Breakfast Wednesdays

… would be a preferable fate to the unhappy experience of attempting to obtain breakfast at the inappropriately named “Breakfast Club” in Soho.

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To be fair, the staff were friendly enough.  Just incapable of delivering anything resembling a decent breakfast.  A full description in the usual style might not be the best way to convey this experience, so instead I will merely list the pros and cons of our visit to The Breakfast Club, and let you decide for yourself.

The total order was:  2 x ‘All American’ cooked breakfasts, 2 x ‘Breakfast Burrito’, 1 x full English breakfast, 2 x Panackes with yoghurt and fresh fruit, 1 x veggie breakfast

Pros:

• The pancakes were good

Cons:

• Ordering at 8.15 am and not getting anything – not even the coffees – until 8.50am.
• The breakfast burrito was cold
• The ‘All American’ cooked breakfasts were cold
• The full English breakfast was also cold.
• The ‘pancakes’ in the All-American breakfast were not American pancakes – more like crepes.  And were not improved by being cold.
• Two of the group left unfed – one because after 20 minutes and no sign of their pancakes, they had to cancel the order and leave for work.  The other because the second breakfast burrito never actually arrived – and after a 40 minute wait to get the items that did arrive, the prospect of hanging around to see if they could whip up another cold burrito appealed to nobody.
• Being told that smoothies were off the menu because the member of staff that makes the smoothies hadn’t turned up and apparently no-one else knew how to work the machine
• The pancakes didn’t arrive until after the cooked breakfasts – clocking in at a distinctly unimpressive 45 minutes from order to arrival.

As their uber-trendy website is keen to point out, the Breakfast Cafes chain is ‘not Starbucks or McDonalds’ and their cafes ‘have their own personalities and quirks that includes menus and food’.  

Maybe so.  But when your food’s ‘quirk’ is that there’s a 1 in 4 chance that it won’t turn up, that’s not especially something to brag about. At least in Starbucks and McDonalds you have better than a 75% chance of actually getting fed.

All American (un?)cooked breakfast

Changing the topic somewhat, I would like to make room for an aside to sing the praises of Selmo’s Portuguese restaurant and cafe on Church Street/West Lane Ham

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This is a place that knows how to do a good breakfast.  A modest £4.90 gets you a full spread of sausage, egg, bacon, beans, mushrooms, chips, toast and tea/coffee (I took hash browns instead of the beans, as is my wont).   Service was swift and the food was hot and delicious.

Breakfast at Selmo's

Not only this, but they provide a superb Portuguese evening meal menu.  A lunch with four friends here last week saw us stuffed silly on 8 unexpectedly generous tapas dishes – including clams, mussels, squid salad, a fantastic flame-grilled sausage that was served on a special dish with the flames still crackling around it, prawns, chicken wings and more.  All was served in double quick time, along with a bottle of ‘green wine’ (taken out of curiosity, and turned out to be rather good) and bread and olives – and hit us with a grand total bill of £56.  Can’t sing the praises of this place highly enough – it’s an absolute delight, and I’ll be back there on a regular basis.  Which is more than I can say for the Breakfast Club.

*** UPDATE ***

OWING TO THE TUBE STRIKE, BREAKFAST WEDNESDAY THIS MONTH WILL BE ON THE THIRD WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH

*** UPDATE ***

So, not much of a write up for Dakin & Co I’m afraid.  Two main reasons – one, I have no idea what I did with the photos that I took of the breakfast there.  And two, the breakfast itself was not the most inspiring that we have had.   As far as my recollection goes, the eggs were reasonable and the sausages were rather disappointing.   On the other hand, we had another first-time breakfaster with us so that made up for things somewhat.

Now, in an extraordinary departure from normal practice, we will be starting this month’s breakfast and the very uncivilised late hour of 8am, since we will be trying out ‘The Breakfast Club’.  Despite the name, they don’t open at proper breakfasting hours, and will only let us in at 8am.  Still, this is a chance to have the American style breakfast we never got to have at the oh-so-misleadingly named Tinseltown 24 Hour Diner …

Let’s hope that the Breakfast Club can live up to their name a little better.  We will be heading to the Soho branch of The Breakfast Club, details are as below:

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 18th June

Nearest tube is Tottenham Court Road

Location: 25 D’Arbley Street, Soho, London, W1F 8EU

Map can be found here: http://www.multimap.com/s/OQgcxK1Q

Website: www.thebreakfastclubsoho.com

Once again, for one time only .. Breakfast Wednesday begins at 8am, not 7.30am … all the more reason to come!  Get a lie-in and come to Breakfast Wednesday!  See you there ..

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 13th May

Nearest tube is London Bridge

Location: 7 London Bridge Walk, London, SE1

A map can be found here:

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/restaurants/map/240/dakin-and-co

the cafe is near London Bridge Station, near to where Richer Sounds is on that walkway bit above the road.

Harry at the Giggling Sausage has been doing breakfasts for 22 years, and the end product certainly shows that although practice never actually achieves perfection, it certainly gets you pretty close.  With proper chunky chips, well cooked eggs, generous servings of beans, tasty black puddings, and the obligatory namesake sausage, this place certainly lives up to its promise.

As happy to provide  you with individually ordered items as they are to rustle up any of the voluminous array of set breakfast options,  the service certainly cannot be faulted.  And, on seeing our poster, the proprieter nipped over to our table to discuss a few of the finer points of the aesthetics of a well-organised breakfast spread.

Was anything wrong at all?  Not much.  The eggs could perhaps have been slightly less greasy – but as they were cooked to just the right degree, it’s hard to fault.  Overall: highly recommended

Yes, tis true .. I’ve been watching *THAT* Blackadder episode again.  But it’s not completely irrelevant either – as this month’s breakfast will be taking place at the inimitably named “Giggling Sausage” caff, near to London Bridge.  With a name like that, you kind of have to go really.   (Thanks to our blog-watcher Northcote for the suggestion – and note to all lurkers, suggestions gladly received!).

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 8th April

Nearest tube is Borough 

Location: The Giggling Sausage, 105 Great Suffolk Street

Ok, so it was Broadway Westminster rather than Broadway, New York – but there was a taste of America in event.  Specifically, in the sausages, which tasted very much like American sausages.  And not in a particularly good way.  In a kind of bland and processed way.   The overall quality of the breakfast was below average, with the solid yolks on the fried eggs and fairly lacklustre toast, and quite sparing portions of mushroom (an especially heinious sin in the Breakfast Wednesday book).  The one saving grace was that, for those who are able to stomach the stuff, apparently the bubble and squeak measured up well.  Unfortunately, this was not really enough to make up for the rest of the fare.  

However, Breakfast Wednesday was particularly glad to welcome our first Japanese guest – whom we can only hope was not too put off by the standard of this month’s fare.  Fortunately, our decision to recommend the bubble and squeak proved to be a good one.  Next venue will be announced shortly.  Keep watching!

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 11th March

Nearest tube is St James’s Park.

Location: Broadway Café, 16 Broadway

Among the perils of moving house is that irritating intervening period without any internet access except from the dodgy 16 Pentim 200s in a basement ‘internet cafe’ in the grocery store.  ’Internet dungeon’ more like.  Anyway, all this is a pathetic attempt to excuse the length delay between the occurrence of the last breakfast and the appearance of the write-up.  So how did Tiffin fare?

Let’s get the let-down out of the way first.  The curry was unfortunately only available to order for lunch, not to have for Breakfast, which was a source of disappointment to at least one adventurous breakfaster.  However, that aside, opinions did vary somewhat – with some ranking it among the top breakfasting experiences, and others who felt it was more of a ‘could do better’.   In fairness, it is a fundamental basic of breakfasting etiquette to offer a choice of brown or white bread, so although the Tiffin toast tower was impressive it could have been bettered by the simple offer of that option.

On the other hand, extra points were certainly in order for the fantastic concept of describing every single item on the menu as ‘Chef’s special’.  It’s exactly this sort of idiosyncrasy that marks out a proper caff.  Not only that, but the prices were extremely reasonable – even the “Chef’s Special Big Boy” – 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, potato waffles, hash browns, toast and coffee – was a mere £5.90.  Now that’s what i call quantitative easing!

Service was prompt and friendly, and the breakfasts themselves were cooked well – it’s always refreshing to find somewhere that serves a properly cooked hash brown.  Some caffs just don’t get it, and appear to think that serving up any old  limp yellow slodge in a roughly triangular shape will do.  The clue is in the name .. hash browns should always be … brown!  Well these were brown indeed, and crispy and meltingly delicious to boot.   There was no faulting the cumberland sausage either, eggs arrived with their yolk intact and cooked through, the bacon was just as I liked it – soft and well cooked – there is a special fate reserved for those heretics who advocate crunchiness in breakfast bacon.  And, vitally, the mushrooms were plenteous.

To round the whole experience off, it was a welcome sight to see a breakfast oriented headline on the front of the day’s paper.  

The Tiffin experience was certainly one to be repeated in my book.  All I have to do now is find out if they will deliver to my desk!

Forget snowstorms, forget tube and bus meltdown, forget the ungritted pavements, forget global economic upheaval, forget those post-Christmas credit card bills – there’s NO excuse not to come to Breakfast!  Especially not when it’s somewhere as special as Tiffin’s … with a menu that spans the globe, it’s a guarantee that there will be something there for every taste.

Ususal rules apply – come one, come all – whether you’ve been before or not, you are welcome!  7.30am is the official start time.  Officials reserve the right to arrive shortly after the official start time in extenuating circumstances.  You don’t have to be there start to finish, you can drop in any time, and leave whenever suits.  

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 11th February

Nearest tube is Chancery Lane.

Location: Tiffin’s, 24 Leather Lane

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Get directions to or from Tiffin’s

Oh yes, and last thing … if anyone (and by anyone, I mean three shifty looking blokes in hoodies and bandannas) offers you a cheap slightly used Asus 904HD, a blocked Nokia N95, and a brown wallet with a bunch of bank cards and my driving license in – please summon the assistance of whoever happens to be in the vicinity, place the gentlemen in the stocks, and then drop me a line.   Much obliged!

A new year and a new start? Well if your version of that involves overly healthy detox eating then balls to it! Think about it, doing that would make it quite tricky to justify a fry-up, and if there’s one thing that can always be justified, it’s a fry-up (and doubly so if it’s a mid-month Wednesday) – just look what you’d be missing out on…

A large plate of breakfast: double egg, sausage & bacon along with beans and tomatoes (surely that’s at least one of your five-a-day) accompanied by coffee and toast. Okay on this occasion the food wasn’t great, tending as it did towards the average, but then this leaves lots of room for improvement over the course of the year (and it wasn’t unpleasant or anything unsavory like that).

Also of note is that the veggie breakfast is apparently very good (look at that smile – it’s not posed, really) and comes with a fair old mountain of chips, so if that’s something you like first thing in the morning then this is the place for you.

So anyway as to the cafe itself, the place somehow managed to feel largely pacious and yet also slightly cramped too – it is a pretty sizeable room and one that didn’t have too many people in (hence the space) but it was also rather full of tables which I would imagine get more occupied a bit later in the day (hence the cramped). The decor, such as it was, was quite simple with light walls adorned with a few framed coffee sacks and a large window onto the street keeping that feeling of space (and dare I say, simplicity – it was certainly less cluttered than most other places).

So um, yeah… in short I’d say it’s definitely somewhere I’d stop in again (though this is in part due to the fact it’s close to where I work) perhaps at lunchtime to sample some of their other fare.

P.S. next month: Tiffin’s (24 Leather Lane, EC1N 7SU) 11th February