Breakfast Wednesdays

In a quite worrying display of organisation, we have arranged the next breakfast more than a day before it’s due to happen and then also lined up the next two venues as well (lets hope this isn’t a sign of the end times). So without further ado…

February’s breakfast will be held at Camino, up near King’s Cross on the 10th starting from 8am (a little later than usual due to their opening hours, but that’s no bad thing). It’s a Spanish themed place so the food won’t be the standard Full English, but that’s no bad thing either; however if you are worried, they have a menu which should placate your fears

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then March will be held at Simpson’s in the Strand followed by April at Chandos Cafe near Charing Cross

Well, Dean’s Brasserie was alright; it was very much a standard all you can eat buffet type affair so had the usual issues of the food sitting around for however long being kept warm instead of having been cooked fresh, no fried eggs for a similar reason. If you don’t mind that then it was fine, but where I really had an issue was the lack of coffee and toast – basically, despite advertising their breakfasts outside, they don’t seem to be able to cope with the extra custom that it generates and so the service was terrible, so while you could help yourself to food, the tea/coffee/toast was brought separately and so didn’t really arrive.

After rounding off 2009 with yet another sumptuous breakfast courtesy of Alpino, we’re ready to kick off 2010 with renewed vigour. As is now our expectation, the fare at Alpino was outstanding – they do seem, more than any other place we have been, to have thoroughly perfected the art of the fried egg.

Our first venue of the year offers an ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet style breakfast. Also, now is probably the time to pre-warn you that in March, once everyone’s finances have had time to recover from Christmas, we are planning to head to Simpsons in the Strand. You may also wish to skip your dinner on the night before this one … just take a look what is included in the “Ten Deadly Sins” breakfast to see why!

But anyway, first things first – here are the details for the January breakfast. Hope to see you there!

Breakfasting venue: Dean’s Brasserie

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 13th January

Time: As per usual – 7:30am – 8:30am, drop in whenever!

Nearest tube is: Holborn

Location: 130-134 Southampton Row

On the basis that you can never have too much of a good thing, this month’s breakfast we’ve decided to head back to an old favourite, for what will hopefully be a guaranteed good Christmas nosh-up. We’ve been to Alpino’s twice before, it’s true – but they were great both times, and if we never go back to the really good ones .. well, what’s the point in having Breakfast Wednesdays?

Alpino is at the far end of Chapel Market from Angel tube if that’s the way you’re coming from –  you’ll pass a couple of other caffs on the way, but don’t be distracted .. it’s worth the travelling for the journey’s end!

Breakfasting venue: Alpino

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 9th December

Time: As per usual – 7:30am – 8:30am, drop in whenever!

Nearest tube is: Angel

Location: 97 Chapel Market, London, N1 5EY

Apologies in advance that this is probably going to be a quick and dirty post, so much like the breakfast really.

Not that it was bad mind, just more towards the cheap and cheerful end of the spectrum, but at £3 for a full english I really can’t complain

As you can see, it was a bit bean heavy, but also had a fair amount of bacon, sausage and eggs (that seem to have disappeared in the contrast) and toast, so standard stuff.

Um, yeah, I am kind of struggling to say much about it as it was just so ordinary… so right, next month then, there are vague plans to posh it up a little so check back later to see if we manage to organise that.

Having been thwarted in our last attempt to succumb to Temptation, I popped by at 8.30am-ish after our Amici breakfast to double-check on its state. Finding it well and truly open, I popped in to enquire whether or not it was actually supposed to open in time for our purposes – and, having been assured by the proprieter that being closed at 7.30am was an unfortunate aberration rather than an intentional situation, we’ve decided to give them another go. A sort of Last Temptation, if you will.

Yes, terrible, I know. But in any case, that is where we will be heading this Wednesday. The details are as before – but to save you scrolling down two posts, here’s they are again:

Breakfasting venue: The Tempation

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 11th November

Time: As per usual – 7:30am – 8:30am, drop in whenever!

Nearest tube is: Covent Garden or Temple

Location: 45 Aldwych

Unfortunately the Google Streetview picture for this was clearly snapped on a dim and dismal day, and at a time when the neon sign was turned off … however you should just about be able to see the place. For navigational purposes, it is immediately to the right of the Waldorf Hotel, so should be reasonably easy to locate.

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Continuing in what appears to be the Breakfast Wednesday tradition of this year, once again we ended up having breakfast a different establishment to the one intended … this being the second occasion this year that arriving at the proposed venue, it has been discovered to be not open at the time it advertises.

However, being now conoisseurs of the London breakfasting scene, we did at least know that an acceptable breakfast would be readily available nearby, at Cafe Amici. So we toddled round to there.

Just as on our last visit, Breakfast at Amici was acceptable without standing out in any particular way. There’s not really much more to say than that .. full English breakfast, nothing terribly wrong – but nothing tremendously ‘right’ either, as it were.

Breakfasting venue: The Tempation

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 14th October

Time: As per usual – 7:30am – 8:30am, drop in whenever!

Nearest tube is: Covent Garden or Temple

Location: 45 Aldwych

Map can be found here – although the pointer seems to be a little misplaced. Basically, just walk along Aldwych till you see it …

An insight into the careful planning and research that goes into selecting a breakfast venue.

Brekmeister: “Where shall we have breakfast this month?”

Full English: “I dunno – maybe that place behind Holborn tube?”

BM: “Cool.  What’s it called?”

FE: “Uh, I don’t know”

BM:  ”Damn.  Google it is then ..”

Breakfasting venue: Chez Monique (though actually it’s not called that any more, and hasn’t been for some time; it’s really Holborn Lily’s Cafe)

Date of Breakfasting: Wednesday 9th September

Time: As per usual – 7:30am – 8:30am, drop in whenever!

Nearest tube is Holborn

Location: 7 Little Turnstile, London, WC1V 7DX

Map can be found here: http://www.multimap.com/s/jaSpf1hJ

um, yeah, this picture is out of date too, but if it helps, it is opposite Bar Polska

Well, time does fly. Tuffo’s place seems like yesterday, but in fact it was four weeks away. How was it? It was pretty good all said – we finally managed our Summer-time outdoor breakfast. The sausages were done in a fairly unique fashion – split horizontally and served with the cut sides upward. Interesting. It’s vaguely possible that the exciting presentation was to make up for the rather unexciting substance of the sausage.

However, moderate blandness of the sausage aside, all was done well – the food was good, there were a host of options to satisfy pretty much every full English breakfasting preference that you could name, and the veggie breakfast gave the carnivore’s choice a good run for its money.

Plus you can never criticize a place that serves up double egg on toast, that looks this good