Some Fine Brekkies in a few Greasy Spoons

I love a good fry up, always have and as long as my body can take them, I always will. I hope.

I’ve always preferred my full English in more traditional cafes that sadly now seem to be very thin on the ground.

Foto Friday # 56

The Full English. A work of art.

Breakfast Club @ Artillery Lane

My hangovers are not what they used to be. I now wake up feeling fine and as the day wears on it kicks in, and by the end of the day I am as rough as I should be in the morning. Must odd.

I totally believe the best hangover cure of all is a good fry up. My aches and pains seem to vanish away with the consumption of mounds of fried food. Some of the best fry ups I’ve ever had have been eaten whilst I have been at my most worst.

I am a big fan of the Breakfast Club, as they do one thing and do it so bloody well. I’ve visited all of their branches now, including the branch close to Spitalfields Market, which unlike their normal feel of being at home in your front room. This one has an industrial feel to it. I quite like it actually. The starkness of the room fitted well with how I felt. I especially love the Roland Rat wallpaper in the toilets.

Thankfully and amazingly this was the first one we never had to queue up to get a table. I really wasn’t looking forward to that. As this is a new branch and it is down a very quiet street parallel to the market entrance, unless you knew it was there you would not come across it. This was to my benefit.

I really don’t know why I even bother looking at the menu, as I always have the same things every time. The Full Monty, flat white and an orange juice. It works a treat on my soul and I don’t see the point of deviating from it.

As with all the other branches the Full Monty is fantastic, although they did forget my mushrooms, which I only noticed as I was looking at the menu by the front door as I was leaving. I thought something was missing. Hey ho.

Thankfully with further expansion their standards have not dropped and they still deliver a fine breakfast on a large scale to an eager audience.

For a hangover cure the Breakfast Club cannot be beaten, at least they seem to understand what a hangover does to a person, unlike some other places that seem to look at you with disdain when you are dying in our seat.

Cafe Rendezvous - A Good Ol' Cafe

You get what you pay for at the majority of Cafes in England. Some are good, some are bad, and others are mediocre. Rendezvous is an ok place that serves your traditional favourites plus a few daily specials that may be up on the wall week after week.

I opted for the set brekkie as always. Sausage, bacon, fried egg, fried slice and a mountain of mushrooms. The yolk was runny and the sausage was still juicy. The bacon was a tad tough, but there were 3 rashers, which is a bonus as you normally only get 2. The fried slices of bread was a blast from the past, haven’t had one of those (for good reasons) since the 90’s.

My partner in crime opted for the daily special of the Chicken Curry. Which she says and I would have to agree with her, reminded her of one my dad’s Thursday night currys. Straight from the jar curry sauce, and Uncle Ben’s boil in the bag rice. Do they still make that?

The Rendezvous is a nice place on Highbury Barn filled with locals, workers and some students from the LMU. Friendly staff who provide a cheery service in a nice reliable place. If you are outside and in need of some filling food, then it cannot be beaten.

Lydia Cafe

There is something I love about cafes. Going from the down and out real greasy spoon filled with fat builders tucking into large plates of grease with some food added, or to posh cafes serving the same but to a more refined palette to those of you who are too afraid or disgusted to go into a workers café.

I think it is a cultural thing, as I’ve found a few friends from overseas who love a full fry up, but would not set foot in a small café.

Most Saturdays when I was a kid, I had a full fry up. My dad would always cook it, as it reminded him of his youth growing up in the 50’s, when café life first came around. But as the years went on I stopped eating them as often and went less and less to cafes.

It’s a shame, as they are part of our cultural heritage in one form or another. Although I am sure most of the population would disagree, but I’ve found those people deride some foods in public, but secretly you can find them noshing on their £1 burger under those golden arches.

As we are new residences of Stoke Newington, it feels only fair that we should sample the delights of our new hood. Moving is tiring work, especially as we have to clean the old flat up as well. I hate landlords who paint all their walls in light colours, makes cleaning them such a pain. Hey ho.

On Stoke Newington Church Street, is the Lydia Café. A small, pleasant establishment serving the charmed folk of Nappy Valley.

I never asked but I am sure Lydia is from or around the Middle East, as her menu has one or two items form that region.

Her full brekkie contains all what it should. Sausage, bacon, beans, sauté potatoes (instead of chips), fried egg with runny yolk and 2 delicious slices of crispy black pudding, plus toast. All were cooked well, tasted great and the portions were large. What more could a man ask for in life.

The other half opted from the Middle Eastern part of the menu with a combination plate of pitta, falafel, hummus and salad. All very healthy.

I liked it in Lydia’s and I think we shall become very good friends from now on. Especially as posher versions of the good ol’ café do not hit the mark. Yes you know who you are.

The Breakfast Club

What do you expect from a place that calls itself the Breakfast Club, apart from really good breakfasts. Well, that’s what you get. There is normally a queue outside with people waiting to get in. Which is always a good sign… For me, I don’t mind queuing but for others who have no patience it is a problem. Their loss.

It’s a fun, quirky place, lot’s of 80’s memorabilia on the walls, which was my teenage decade. Good and bad memories…. There are two other branches, one in Soho and one in Hoxton.

They have a varied menu, consisting of all the funtime breakfast favourites and a few other ones thrown in for good luck. The afternoon menu has a lot of burgers, jacket potatoes etc. The burgers are made in house and are really good. Disappointing are the lack of potato wedges that came with it. I want more.

But it was just the breakfasts that kept me coming back. Well actually I only ever had the Full Monty. I’m a sucka for a good breakfast, and when I find something I like, I stick with it. They have the largest sausages ever and some quality black pudding.

Lina has varied her menu, well she is the experimental one after all. The Eggs Benedict were well cooked, the eggs had that perfect tear drop shape that everyone likes. The Hollandaise was not as good as mine, but I have made several thousand litres. Kinda perfected it now. The Huevos Rancheros were not as I remember them in Mexico, but for this small corner of North London they were perfect.

Now, I wish I had eaten there more often than I did as in all my visits to Colombia, I have never seen sausages or good bacon on sale anywhere. What they call sausages is a hot dog sausage. So my full English in Colombia is gonna be a tad short. Or maybe I make then myself. This is an idea I have been playing with for a while. I’m not sure if they have Heinz baked beans either. Can life get any worse? Hahaha.

Well at least I know if things do not work out here, there is a Full English waiting for me …..