London's best breakfast? Join the club

The Breakfast Club, 31 Camden Passage, N1 8EA
The Breakfast Club, 2 - 4 Rufus Street, N1 6PE
Breakfast for two with cocktails: £30

Despite growing up in a country responsible for one of the world's best breakfasts, my younger self often longed for the sort of breakfast we ate on family holidays in South Africa. French toast with syrup was the firm favourite - an exotic concept for my fledgling palate, which seemed infinitely superior to our prosaic eggy bread. However, it wasn't so much the food that enticed me, more the possibility of going out to a stylish, non-greasy place for our first meal of the day. 

While we may lead the world at frying eggs and serving them on grubby plastic tables, most of us fine English folk can probably still remember a time when a nice breakfast or brunch was hard to come by, save in hotels. Until relatively recently, one would have been forced to conclude that whilst we still excel at the fry up, our breakfast culture lacks some the sunny finesse of the antipodeans, South Africans and Americans. However, two happy meals at the Breakfast Clubs in Islington and Hoxton reminded me that there are more and more of these fabulous breakfast places opening in the capital. Their varied menus and excellent coffee could even give our faithful old artery clogger a run for its money, unless it is made by the Regency, of course.

The Perfect Picnic: Mangal style

Mangal I, 10 Arcola Street, E8 2DJ

Picnic for two: £10.50 

One of the things I love about East London is the proliferation of makeshift BBQs, which fill up our open spaces as soon as soon as the temperature hits twenty degrees. By contrast, the residents of Clapham, whilst favoured with a spacious Common, are generally more law abiding when it comes to park regulations. However, there is a downside to the Victoria Park BBQ anarchy: food envy. How can even the most luxurious of hampers compete with proper grilled food? It can't but, fortunately, it doesn't have to.

Rock Lobsta: pop up and pay

This week's latest pop up is a temporary lobster shack in deepest Shoreditch. Here for one weekend only, it's worth a look if you like the idea of a posh pop culture picnic and you don't mind paying for it.

Red Dog Saloon: where's their smoke?

Red Dog Saloon, 37 Hoxton Square, N1 6NN
Meal for two (with 50% off food): £40

It doesn't take a genius to realise that North East London is changing. Where once there were only money lenders, Turkish supermarkets and secret warehouse raves, now the Kingsland Road sports those two well-known harbingers of gentrification: a Tesco and a Subway. The arch-hipsters, who remember when the area was the cutting edge of cool, have either moved to Clapton or are consoling themselves by producing ironic t-shirts and moaning about the changes in the Sunday Times Style magazine. Even Passing Clouds, once the sole preserve of the trendsetting elite who knew where to find its unadorned doorway, has started to advertise its presence with a sign. The restaurant business in this part of town is also changing to reflect its new market. The Turkish and Vietnamese places remain virtually unchanged but, in Hoxton and Shoreditch in particular, more and more recognisably mainstream places are opening, such as Busaba and Byron.

Even so, when I heard about a barbecue joint opening in Hoxton Square, my first thoughts were of the marvellous Fette Sau in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Those familiar with both New York and London will know that Williamsburg is the transatlantic ideal to which Shoreditch aspires. As such, I hoped that Red Dog Saloon would bring the same on-trend approach to BBQ that Fette Sau has successfully pioneered in New York. I expected rough wooden tables, artisan beer by the gallon and a selection of rare whiskies in mismatched glassware. Most of all, I had high hopes for the meat: I wanted meltingly tender slices of brisket, unctuous pulled pork and smoky slabs of ribs. Unfortunately, whilst Red Dog Saloon makes an admirable attempt at recreating these things in London, it doesn't quite hit the mark. 

The Corner Room: affordable genius

The Corner Room, Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, E2 9NF

Meal for two with much wine: £85

One of things I love about trying a restaurant for the first time is the sense of possibility. Whilst perusing the menu, enjoying a first glass of wine and in the moments before the food arrives, there is a chance that something wonderful is about to happen. The pleasure that comes with eating something brilliant is worth the risk of disappointment. Even more enticing is the possibility of eating something interesting and surprising, the sort of clever cooking that excites the mind as well as satisfying the flesh. Last week I paid a visit to the Corner Room, Nuno Mendes's new place in Bethnal Green's Town Hall Hotel, hoping for such an experience. I was in luck; rarely has a restaurant impressed me, and exceeded my pre-conceived ideas, as much as this one. Brilliant, beautiful and no need to book: the Corner Room is pure genius.

Pork off 2011: Piggy chow

As soon as we moved to London, I started to crave outdoor space. Not for growing plants or lounging in the sun, pleasant as these pastimes are, but instead for making fire and cooking meat. However, for our first few years here, we lived in a tiny top-floor flat and had to content ourselves with looking down onto other people's gardens. I think it was my South African DNA asserting itself when I demanded that our next flat must have some sort of outdoor area - no matter how small. This was also how I justified the rash decision to buy a BBQ (or should I say a braai?) as soon as we moved into a flat with a balcony. Before the Ikea shopping was unpacked, before we even had a bed - we had the ability to grill meat just outside the cramped comfort of our own home. Never mind that the balcony is small and wooden. That is why, when I heard that there was a competition to cook a dish made almost entirely of pork, it made sense to crack out the fire or, in this case, the smoke. It had to be 8 hour, slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig also known as pulled pork.

But what to serve with the pulled pork and how to elevate it above humble pig sandwich? These were the questions that plagued me in the days before my Pork Off cook-off. The dish had to contain three different cuts of pig and thus far I had only settled on one: the shoulder. Then, whilst eating a banh mi and marvelling at the way they had made more space for meat by removing some of the bread's middle, it hit me - why not make piggy chow, a porked up bunny chow? It was the South African DNA again.

Shanghai: in search of comfort greens

Shanghai, 41 Kingsland Road, E8 2JS

Whenever I am feeling sad about something, Mr Fork knows that there is only one thing for it: steamed Chinese greens. Guiltlessly healthy, almost crunchy but slightly slimy and slick with garlic, they are the one of the few things that can make the world better. Pasta with tomato ketchup and melted cheese is the other but, when work drives me to real despair , Mr F knows that overdosing on Heinz just won't cut it. In these situations, we are both immensely grateful that we live near a good local Chinese restaurant.  

We have eaten at Shanghai dozens of times, several of them since I started this blog, but I have never written about it for some reason. Perhaps because going to Shanghai almost doesn't feel like eating out for us, the former pie and eel shop turned restaurant has become an extension of our living room by virtue of the amount of time we spend in it.

A fairly lengthy menu and the rare option of dim sum in the evening are overlooked - the latter is invariably disappointing, in favour of roast pork, steamed greens and rice. Unadventurous but always satisfying, Shanghai excels in getting these basic offerings right. The greens are crisp, fresh and cooked to perfection. The pork is sticky and rich or crispy and fatty, depending on our choice of pig dish. Sometimes roast duck graces the plate, sometimes we have fried rice rather than steamed, but the greens are the constant, drawing us back whenever the thought of cooking casts an unhappy shadow and marital strife looks imminent. 

We chose Shanghai to cater the London end of our wedding. I think we felt we owed them something because, but for steamed greens and comfort, we might never have lasted long enough to get married.

Three ways with beef

East London Steak Co

Hawksmoor Seven Dials, 11 Langley St, WC2H 9JG

From time to time, I resolve to eat less flesh. This generally occurs when I read something written by a genuinely healthy person about wanting to eat sushi/salad/tofu because they feel fat from eating red meat. This triggers my deep-seated envy of people who actually want to have a well-balanced diet, forcing me to pretend that I too live that way and not, as is the reality, like some pre-historic dinosaur woman, chomping her way through meat-based meal after meat-based meal with no thought for vegetables. That said, eating my way through three different cuts of beef in one weekend was a bold move, even by my standards.

Breakfast heaven: an update

Mess Cafe, 38 Amhurst Road, E8 1JN

Breakfast for two: £12 if you eat everything

Looking back, I have spent much of the second part of this year looking for a good place to have breakfast. I already knew about the brilliance of the Regency but had struggled to find anything to match up to it in East London, despite the area's long history of caff culture. It seems fitting, therefore, to end the year with a post about what may well be the best place for breakfast in Hackney: it is certainly the best place I have found so far.

Swift slice

Due Sardi, 32 Kingsland Road, E2 8DA

I moved to East London partly because I wanted to drink in a bar in shoe shop. Coming from Nottingham via Battersea, this seemed like the height of cutting edge cool. So for a while, I had many happy times drinking in a shoe shop and eating burgers from the place next door. Then the place next door shut and I realised that it was never really a shoe shop, just a shoe shopfront on a fairly ordinary bar.  So I moved on. Then Due Sardi moved in and everything changed.

The Annual Junk Food Festival

Food is one of the things that Mr Fork and I often disagree about. An example of this divide: Mr Fork's favourite food is breakfast from a tin. Cold reconstituted bacon straight from the tin? That is just weird. Mr Fork attributes this to being from Telford but I am not so sure. Nottingham in the early nineties was not the culinary playground it is today. Instead of Sat Baines, in those days we had the Maid Marion cafe which still haunts me with memories of an appalling breakfast eaten more than twenty years ago.

Beyond bacon

Bistrotheque 

23-27 Wadeson Street, E2 9DR

Hawksmoor

157 Commercial Street, E1 6BJ

The English excel at breakfast. Granted, a freshly-baked croissant is a fine thing and huevos rancheros can be phenomenal, but a full English on a cold morning is heaven. Despite our (now largely defunct) reputation for poor cooking, our breakfasts are generally lauded for their commitment to heart-stopping awesomeness. 

Jerk off!

Peppers and Spice, 40 Balls Pond Rd, N1 4AU

J.M. Victuals, Strutton Ground, Victoria

I have an inordinate amount of respect for the good people at Time Out. They provide an invaluable source of information on the affairs of our city. However, sometimes they seem to feel the need to be unnecessarily provocative. Articles such as the list of best burgers that included Gourmet Burger Kitchen and the review of Caribbean takeaways that seemed to have been written by someone with an absurd phobia of South and East London read like they were designed to provoke readers into hurling the nearest heavy object at the screen of their computer in frustration. I am not alone in this weird, inexplicable food rage; such was the reaction to the last piece that Time Out felt the need to clarify their motivation for writing the article, excusing their imposition of a Caribbean takeaway exclusion zone over most of London by arguing that the article was intended as a Carnival piece. 

Even though I have now found peace with this particular article, I decided to visit the Caribbean takeaways in my corners of East and South London to ferret out any the places that would have featured in a more balanced piece. Here are my first findings.

Peppers and Spice on the Balls Pond Road is a perennially popular choice amongst Dalstonites. Having waited in the queue snaking out of the door into the night, classics such as jerk chicken, rice and peas and patties are always available plus a daily menu including oxtail, cowfoot and curry goat. The jerk chicken was sticky and spicy with a thicker, glossier sauce than the standard offering. Rice and peas are perfectly stodgy with a hint of coconut and the patties are marvellous, combining crisp, flaky yellow pastry with an unusually spicy filling. As with most of its competitors, Peppers and Spice is amazing value with a meal for two incredibly greedy people involving jerk, curry and patties costing roughly ten pounds.

On the other side of the city, JM Victuals is a small stall selling Caribbean favourites to the lunchtime crowd in Westminster and Victoria. In what was once a culinary wasteland, it is one of a number of stalls recently opened on Strutton Ground selling decent food to crowds of Channel 4 media types and downtrodden public servants. The menu is small but covers more than you might expect from a market stall. As well as the obligatory jerk chicken, there is usually ackee and saltfish, oxtail and some sort of curry. The jerk chicken was closer to the traditional dish but the rice and peas lack some of the flavour of their Hackney counterpart. The absolute highlight, however, is the homemade hot sauce. Bright yellow, slightly vinegary and fiercely spicy; it lifts everything it is poured on into the sublime. The bad news is that the man who makes it has recently left this company to start up on his own. I sincerely hope his new business model includes this sauce. 

Naturally, I am conscious that there are still whole swathes of London left to explore; that there is good Caribbean food to be found in Tottenham and Brixton if only I make the trip. I had better get cycling.

Peppers and Spice on Urbanspoon

Too much Boho, not enough Mexico

Boho Mexica, 
153 Commercial Street, E1 6BJ

Meal for four with cocktails: £140

When the best thing about a restaurant is the waitress's eyebrows, what does that say about its food?

Proper Mexican food carries so much promise. All that lime juice and avocado; the plentiful use of corn, beans and cheese. So many good things, brought together with clear spicy flavours and a hint of sunshine. And still I have yet to find a Mexican restaurant that lives up to this promise. Even my Mexican experience in New York was less the transcendental experience I had hoped for and more just nice. I have become sufficiently desperate that I am seriously contemplating a California to Mexico road trip to see if the problem lies with all Mexican restaurants or with me.

This was, unfortunately, no exception to my Mexican experience to date. It was perfectly pleasant and some of the cooking was relatively adept.  And yet, I could not escape the feeling that it could be improved, that all of the small pieces of brilliance could somehow add up to something better.

Boho Mexica describes itself, as places in Shoreditch are wont to do, as bohemian. They have even used the phrase "bite of Mexican deliciousness" to describe themselves on their website. In spite of this, they have created a chic but relaxed dining environment that combines cocktail bar and restaurant. Our margaritas were ably-executed but unexceptional. The cocktails at Mercado in Stoke Newington are as good if not better, though my Mercado preference is based on their use of interesting Mexican glassware as much as the drink inside. We should have known better than trying the house shooter - a bizarre combination of tequila, prawns and Bloody Mary mix; it didn't sound like a winning combination and it wasn't.

The evening menu is comprised of small dishes intended for sharing. Two variations on pork tacos were highly successful, particularly the cochinita tacos with three types of pork and pink pickled onion. They were an excellent example of that classic principle that fatty meat plus astringent pickle equals food heaven. Likewise, the combination of meat, banana and beans worked well in the Mexican style steak.  However, many of the dishes were pleasant but flawed: ceviche captured light, citrusy flavours but then hid them under a mountain of lettuce; the salsa was fierce and smoky but minuscule; guacamole was decent but only came with 2.7 tortilla chips. The larger dishes were particularly variable in their execution.  Enchiladas with mole had the right smoky, sweet sauce but were otherwise unimpressive and the barbequed lamb was nearly unpleasant with a slightly sour, almost rancid flavour.

When the bill came, our first reaction was disappointment. We justified it later on the basis that we'd had cocktails and that we had ordered expensive dishes like steak and prawns.  However, our first instinct was that we were paying too much for what we had eaten and, on reflection, I think we were right. There are flashes of excellence at Boho Mexica but the end result is somehow a less pleasing sum of often good parts.

The eyebrows were amazing though. The waitress had dressed as Frida Kahlo complete with tousled hair and pencilled in mono-brow. I would say go for the eyebrows but I suspect they were a one-off for Halloween. I do hope not.

Three breakfasts out East

Dalston Lane Cafe, 107C Dalston Lane, E8 1NG

The Counter Cafe, 4a Roach Road, E3 2PA

Tina, We Salute You, 47 King Henry's Walk, N1 4NH

Ever since the Forks relocated from south of the river to Hackney, we have been engaged in a long (and thus far fruitless) search for a truly great place for breakfast in our new 'hood. As previously mentioned, we both love the posh full English at Medcalf but we can't escape the feeling that there must be something just as good closer to home.  Armed only with our bikes and the authoritative work on breakfasting in London, here are the results of our most recent morning outings.

From the outside, the Dalston Lane Cafe looked like the real thing. The uninspiring shop front and checked table cloths hinted at a proper, old fashioned cafe. The food was a pleasant surprise - good quality eggs and sausages served with crusty, seedy granary bread. Not a turdy sausage or slice of plastic bread in sight. However, something about the Dalston Lane Cafe did not feel right. It is perhaps too hip for its own good. From the lacklustre service by a young man who clearly would rather have been at home working on his latest project to the prevalence of ironic hair, it has none of the charm of a proper cafe. The juxtaposition of old and new East London at the Dalston Lane Cafe served as an unwelcome reminder of what has been lost. Even though the breakfast was decent, the atmosphere was too stilted and self-consciously cool for us to contemplate adding it to our list of breakfast favourites.  

We decided to venture further east (Hackney Wick) to sample the breakfast at the Counter Cafe. Judging by the number of fixie bikes in the car park, most of its customers had chosen to cycle there. We were glad that we had too, for the cafe is well and truly off the beaten track in an industrial complex near to the south east corner of Victoria Park. It was easier to forgive the Counter Cafe its hipness because, somehow, it manages to capture the buzzing, creative atmosphere of the East rather than its uglier self-loathing arch-hipness. Table football and good music play their part in achieving this. 

The menu is reminiscent of the relaxed, sunny places scattered across the English-speaking southern hemisphere: lots of avocado and banana. The coffee was expertly made but, even with a varied range of delicious-sounding food on offer, the place somehow managed to fail to live up to its full potential. The full Counter breakfast was, to Mr Fork's mind, a bit pretentious and fiddly.  Good quality ingredients didn't quite gel into a coherent plate of food. For example, the sausage: thin chipolata-style links described by Mr F as a bit like merguez but drier and less interesting. Smoked salmon, poached eggs and potato cakes were better: perfectly cooked eggs and pleasantly-textured fish but the potato cakes would have benefited from being left a little longer in the pan. I would return if I was in the area but I am not sure I would cross Hackney again for the specific purpose of visiting.

An honourable commendation goes to Tina, We Salute You. Although it was the trendiest and least cafe-like of the three, their excellent coffee, quirky decor and fabulous jam selection wooed us.  We will definitely go back to sample their banana bread and (again) avocado-based snacks. 

Three very different breakfasts and, whilst we now know our local cafes a little better , we have yet to find breakfast perfection. But we still have the whole of Bethnal Green, Mess on Amhurst Road and the wilds around London Fields to explore. Who knows what they will bring?

The Counter Cafe on Urbanspoon

Tina, We Salute You on Urbanspoon

A refuge from the rain in London Fields

The Prince Arthur, 95 Forest Road, E8 3BH
Meal for two with beers and a glass of wine: £60

On one of those awful nights that makes you wish you could move south in October and not return till April, we did what every rain-sodden Englishman (and woman) does when the nights draw in and the weather is relentless - we went in search of a warm pub.

We found the Prince Arthur in one of the nicer parts of Hackney and upon arrival snagged one of the few remaining empty tables. Within ten minutes of our arrival the bar was packed. The relief at having avoided a trudge back to Dalston with empty stomachs was palpable.

We both had that ravaging hunger that is brought on by spending time out of doors on a cold evening so we ordered winter food: heavy on the pork products and things that had spent time in hot oil. We ordered the guest ale, Seafarers, which was smooth and golden - what an autumn evening should be.

And then things took a bad turn. The olives tasted of something odd. Dentist. No really. Apparently they had been marinated in lemon and mint but, frankly, marinated in mouthwash would have been credible.

Fortunately that was the only real low point in our meal. A terrine of pig's cheek with black and white pudding was good. Visually, it was a posh gala pie. The tasty strands of pressed meat and the slice of black pudding worked well together by providing a contrast of piggy tastes and textures. The white pudding was a bit dull and lacked flavour but that didn't spoil an otherwise well-conceived dish.

However, this was mere preamble and, on our visit, the mains were the thing. A pork chop was perfectly cooked. The rind had been scored, turning the edge of the pork chop to crackling and this sat well alongside the tender, juicy meat. However, even with my sizeable piece of pig heaven, I was quite jealous of Mr Fork's fish and chips. The fish was perfect. Light crispy batter cracked open to expose soft, flaking fish. Probably, we agreed, some of the best fried fish either of us had ever enjoyed. We were not surprised, therefore, to learn that the fish is bought every morning from Billingsgate Market. The chips were of the skin-on, hand cut variety and the peas were nicely squishes and properly seasoned.

The Prince is not cheap (£60 for one starter, two mains and dentist olives) and Forest Road is a little way from transport. But our considered verdict is that it is still worth a visit. In addition to good food, the ales are also well kept and the decor stills conveys the feel of an old East London pub. A fine place to hide from the weather.