Brunch at The Lounge, North Road, Bedminster, Bristol

The Lounge, has become a regular feature for slightly-hungover sunday brunches during my visits to Bristol, (particularly because it seems to be the only place in Bedminster which meets R's requirement of serving hash browns with their cooked breakfasts).  This 'Lounge' is the original, more have sprung up since 2002, has a very chilled-out independent feel to it. 

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all good here, so it is always packed.  Strangely though, it was uncharacteristally quiet on a late sunday morning, making service attentive and speedy.

Orange juice is freshly squeezed and delicious.  Breakfast options consist of a full english option, a veggie version, a healty museli option, an eggs benedict version and perhaps most intriguingly, something called 'an egg and bacon stack' - eggy bread served with bacon and...maple syrup! 

How could I resist?

Oval Lounge, 24 Clapham Road, The Oval, Kennington, London, SW9 0JG

1st January 2011.  I woke up face-down on an airbed under a huge christmas tree in Amie's living room, after a night of New Year's Eve perfection (dinner, bubbly, london fireworks, extreme booze-fuelled boardgame competitiveness) with just one thought...an extreme desire for that classiest of hangover-busting breakfasts, EGGS BENEDICT.

Blindly reaching for my blackberry, I googled 'Eggs Benedict Oval London', found the Oval Lounge's website, and promptly fell back asleep (at this point, hours of sleep had totalled around 4, and there was no chance that my hangover addled brain would be able to develop any sort of plan to find a specific pre-planned breakfast venue). 

Hours later, venturing outside and back home in state of dazed new year bafflement, myself and the boy decided the best plan of action was to head home and stop at any breakfast serving establishment that came our way.  Realising we had a wait for our bus, we decided to walk round the corner of Oval station to see if there were any suitable breakfast places.

Seconds away from giving up when we passed place after shut place, I had a sign...  Quite literally, a sandwich board sign.  The boy hadn't yet spotted it, but like a woman on a breakfast mission, I power-walked towards it. 

There's nothing quite like the unexpected joy of finding the exact type of venue you had in mind!  The Oval Lounge was perfect.  We made a bee line for the comfy sofas, and very much appreciated the chilled out music and relaxed atmosphere.  The breakfast menu wasn't vast, yet boasted a healthy option, a full english option, a veggie option and, AN EGGS BENEDICT OPTION, served with toasted buttered english muffins, hollandaise sauce and a choice of ham, crispy bacon, or spinach. 

What Joy!  The eggs were perfect - soft and runny yolks with hot crispy, salty bacon and fluffy buttery muffins.  Also served with divinely juicy mushrooms and respectable tomatoes and enjoyed with freshly squeezed orange-juice, I was convinced that 2011 was going to be a good one!

Nostalgic Trip to Wimpy, High St, Marlow - 3rd January 2010

"I'm worried you might be setting yourselves up for a huge disappointment" - my words of warning to my over-excited sisters as decided to revisit our youth in the Wimpy in Marlow. The majority of Wimpy Restaurants in the UK became Burger King in 1990, but in Marlow-on-Thames, it staunchly remained. (A Burger King in Marlow dahling? How preposterious!) Throughout the nineties and and noughties it existed in its own bubble of 80s decor, until a revamp about a year ago.

My sisters and dad had been struck with the idea that they wanted to celebrate the start of 2010 with a family trip there. We hadn't visited in years and years, and despite my slight cynicism, I allowed myself to be dragged out of bed early on Sunday to join them.

And I'm glad I did...

The table service and proper cutlery and crockery makes it a pretty civilised affair. The service was really quite exceptionally friendly. The food portions were big, well presented and very tasty. No one was disappointed. I don't normally write about chain restaurants on here, but for this one I will make an exception.

Satisfyingly large pot of tea each, marred only by the fact I wasn't able to drink much of it after my dad managed to drop a baked bean in the milk (I won't be bringing him again).

We were offered a variety of condiments - condiments are good.

My dad's immense all day breakfast. He doesn't like beans - he was trying to give them away, hence the bean/milk incident.

And now...Wimpy even serves booze! What's not to love?

Head Chef Cafe, 173 Farnham Road, Slough

To refer to 'Head Chef' on Farnham Road as a greasy spoon seems a little ungenerous. Technically, that is exactly what it is - cheap, cheerful, unpretentious and specialising in food of the fried variety. However, it is clear that effort has been made to make the interiors look relatively plush (and as it only opened two months ago - they are still looking pretty good). I'd only visited once before - for an emergency cup of tea whilst waiting for an emergency locksmith. On that occasion I had found it overly bright and slightly loud for 7pm on a Monday, but upon returning for a recovery fry up late on Saturday morning, the atmopshere was far better. There's a large amount of seating and the place was pleasantly full. We'd already checked the menu from the outside as we had to ensure that Rachael's one pre-requisite for a full english breakfast - hash browns - would be met.

We spotted 'Set 3' and we were satisfied, and upon seeing the sheer size of breakfasts that the other diners were tucking into, I was glad I was hungry!

Service was brisk and efficient. Breakfast came with toast and tea or coffee. Beverages arrived very promptly - toast soon afterwards (it turns out white and buttered was the default. I found this slighly amusing, but I liked how no-nonsense it was. I realised that there was little point in ordering a massive fry up if you were going to start being precious about that type of bread you wanted or whether you wanted your toast buttered!)

Rachael, using her hotel manager mentality, started timing how long it would take for breakfast to arrive, now that we had her toast. We both expressed our pleasure at how short a time that was - the toast was still lovely and warm as we dunked it into our beautifully runny fried eggs! Portions were very generous, and the hash browns were excellent!

Atmosphere - Not too loud or bright for our hangovers. A good number of other diners. Pleasant interiors and lovely toilets!

Service - Very efficient but could have been more friendly.

Value for money - £5.95 for a large breakfast with tea and toast was fair, but not as cheap as you might expect. As the prices had been handwritten on the menu, I couldn't tell whether they had put their prices up or down after opening, but they were advertising deals on breakfast during the week.

Overall: 8/10 - provided exactly the no-nonsense breakfast needed after the night before.

Food pictures - Chez Kathleen

Leg of Roast Lamb, as beautifully cooked by Kathleen, using James Martin's handy hint of adding anchovies to increase flavour and meatiness. Worked fantastically well.

It tasted delicious, especially with the addition of her home grown herbs, and roasted cherry tomatoes.

Waitrose Chocolate Cheesecake. Highly recommended, as is the lemon variety.

Fairtrade cup of tea on the Guardian.

Crumpets for breakfast, enjoyed with local honey.

Breakfast at Mallory Court Hotel

I firmly believe that there are few things in life more wonderful than a full english breakfast. I'm not ashamed to say I love them in their many varieties. When I lived in Bristol I was spoilt for choice - there were the many hangover-aiding breakfasts in Havana (Cotham Hill), the great-plan making ones with Rachael in the second-hand bookshop, Circles (Bedminster), and an amazing greasy-spoon breakfast (complete with endless mugs of builders tea), with Lee in the now sadly defunct York Cafe.

Hotel breakfasts are a different beast entirely. The big chains do big buffets but eggs, bacon and sausages are far from appealing when cooked in advance and left under bright lights to keep warm. Independent hotels are far better with breakfasts cooked to order. Rachael always insisted that the inclusion of hash-browns was of optimal importance in the breakfasts of the hotel she managed, and I agreed with her. But the quality can still be variable.

The breakfast at the Mallory Court, was quite possibly the best full-english i've ever had. Aesthetically it was beautiful, and the quality and flavour of the sausage, bacon, eggs and mushroom were quite amazing. The portion may look small, but the richness of the food made it the perfect size (even with the pictured fried bread swapped for toast). I'd opted for poached eggs after Graham inspired me by ordering some, and we both found one with a wonderfully runny yolk, and one with a harder yolk. The precision with which this had been accomplished made me think that this was done purposefully, but it is mere speculation on whether they did this to hedge their bets on the diner's preference.


From the moment we walked into the breakfast room, the service couldn't have been more attentive and professional. Being a huge fan of tea, I loved the ceremony that of having tea leaves and tea pots. All I needed was my cooked breakfast, but the continental buffet looked ample and well stocked. The addition of freshly squeezed fruit juices was also a very appealing touch.

Overall:

The quality of the food and presentation made this the classiest full english i'd ever had, and the attention to detail and professional friendly service, in lovely surroundings made for a rather wonderful breakfast experience.

10/10

Strumpets with Crumpets, Lounge on the Farm Festival. Canterbury, Kent

Our first proper festival experience had started optimistically - we'd enjoyed creating a very small oasis of civilised camping (where we sipped wine from my plastic wine glasses and ate strawberries and Kathleen's delicious homemade caramel shortbread), in a field full of mentalist teenagers. However after a very trying night (our tent being moved, our tent being ransacked, our tent being trampled on all night whilst we were in it, our tent being rained on, our tent witnessing drug dealers having fights), things seemed bleak.


We were damp, weary and mildly depressed, as we walked through the drizzle trying to find a cup of tea. The previous evening we'd seen an impressive array of local food stalls, but sadly the majority were still shut. We walked to the far end of the field, following a tantalising aroma of buttery, bacony, syrupy goodness. Suddenly it seemed things were going to improve. Salvation had come to us in Crumpet form!


'Strumpets with Crumpets' is an enterprise devised by the three females who serve the crumpets from their boudoir-styled trailer, whilst in their 'strumpet' outfits. It wasn't the outfits that made crumpets sexy for me (corsets/basques surely can't make for good food preparation, can they?), but the locally-sourced, organic and fair trade ingredients, resulted in crumpets with joy-inducing combinations of toppings.


The menu ranges from the simple (butter), to the traditional (marmite, honey, jam, peanut butter, chocolate spread), and the sublime (frappe egg, pancetta and cheddar, or eggy crumpet, pancetta and maple syrup). We couldn't resist opting for the latter, and enjoyed cups of tea and Bob Marley whilst we waited.

It was well worth the wait. We each received a molten hot 'eggy' crumpet (perfect for filling the holes in the crumpet), topped with incredible fried pancetta and maple syrup! This was by far the best crumpet based food i'd ever eaten. These hot, square-shaped crumpets were a million miles away from the usual bland, dry, tough crumpets my toaster usually produced. It was heavenly - the ultimate breakfast, comfort-food. Nothing could have lifted my spirits more.


Overall:

Food quality: Absolutely wonderful. The crumpet was cooked perfectly, and the combination of salty pancetta and sweet maple syrup on a eggy base, was quite amazing.

Atmosphere: They had a number of tables and chairs outside the stall - It was all very relaxed, we sat there a while sipping tea, soothed by Bob Marley, whilst we slowly felt more human.

Service: Efficient and friendly. They looked like they were enjoying themselves, which I certainly wouldn't be if I had to prepare and serve crumpets whilst wearing a corset!

Value for money: £3.50 for our crumpet and tea was pretty great for a festival. The crumpets weren't large, but were very filling.

Overall: 9.5/10 - You must try this if you see the 'Strumpets' at a festival.