Da Breakfast Club, Soho.

Da Breakfast Club, Soho.

Yes I know everyone in London has already been to one of the Breakfast club’s branches, but I haven’t so I went and I’m going to tell you about it.

After queuing for half an hour from 9:15am on a Saturday morning, we finally made it in to the Soho venue of the Breakfast club. This places reputation precedes itself when it comes to breakfast in London and to be honest I don’t why? I can’t tell you any specific reason why I felt I had to go on Saturday morning, maybe they’ve just hit the nail on the head with the name? “Where shall we go for breakfast? How about the Breakfast club.” Who could say not to that?

Anyway we went so it doesn’t really matter now. The place is bright yellow and crammed full of tables with some trendy looking staff and a great soundtrack thrown in the mix. Top that off with loads of bacon and pancakes and were cooking on gas woo.

I was determined to pick something I wouldn’t normally eat this time of the morning so I went for Huevos al Benny (eggs Benedict with chorizo peppers and fresh chillies). It was bloody lovely I must say, except the yolks weren’t very runny in my poached eggs L . I’ve always been a fan of peppers and spicy food with eggs on a morning, ever since I had migas with chorizo and fried eggs one morning. Oh and after my friend’s American gf convinced me that hot sauce on a cheese omelette is amazing. The charred peppers hiding under the poached eggs were particularly good on this dish and the addition of fresh chilli really helped cut through the rich hollandaise, the chorizo was pretty good quality as well. So we’re in agreement then it was good even without a runny yolk.

The other thing we went for that morning was the classic full works pancakes, these were pretty good as well, a nice errrby sausage, eggs and loads of bacon and unlimited maple syrup yummmm. They really don’t skimp on the bacon in this place, it comes in a giant tangled ball straight out the deep fat fryer I think.

So there you go, you probably know all about this place already anyway it’s not exactly a hidden gem anymore. My advice it’s worth the queue if you get there early enough. When we were leaving at 10:30am the queue had grown to about 30 ppl, so I wouldn’t bother turning up any later than 9:30am.

P.S. check inside the drawers in the tables, I had a good 10 mins of delight leafing through the notes and poems previous customers had left in there.

8/10 (would be 9 with a runny yolk)

www.thebreakfastclubcafes.com

Boozy Brunch

Last weekend was pretty banging, I had a boozy brunch at Anthony’s at the Piazza in the Leeds corn exchange and followed it up with a backwards Otley Run (Pub crawl if your not local) out of town towards Headingley. I’m showing my student roots here.

The brunch deal we had at Anthony’s was bought off living social for £17 a person and got you; one breakfast, toast, hot drink, juice and a bottle of prosseco between two. I normally only buy deals of these websites if I’ve been to venue in question before so I know its not some greasy spoon masquerading as a Michelin starred restaurant.

The Food was good as ever at the Piazza, I’ve had breakfast here a few times and this place currently has my award for best eggs Benedict I’ve ever eaten. This time seeing as we’d already paid upfront and I’m a massive scruff at heart I got the most expensive thing on the menu which was the full English breakfast.

To start we had fresh fruit juice, which was ok. I opted for orange it was nothing special and not even a patch on a carton of Tropicana. This was followed by a glass of prosecco de dolci colline.  I don’t know much about wine or fizz, but I was expecting something which had fallen off the back of a van to be given to lowly living social deal customers. I was wrong it was nice plonk and I’ve had a look online and apparently this is a good value bottle of fizz from award winning, Claudio Manera? Whoever he is? It tasted great even if it was a bit early in the morning for alcohol.

With my head now suitably dizzy, breakfast arrived. Everything was nice; good quality sausage, tasty black pudding (the British kind, not the posh French boudin noir) and bacon which had been shown a bit of love. The baked beans were particularly good, which surprised me as i'm a bit of connoisseur when it comes to beans thanks to my dad’s obsession with them. You’d be amazed the variation between baked bean brands.

So seeing as it was all going so well, its time for me to have giant moan about one of my pet hates when it comes to fried eggs. Brace yourselves because this really pisses me off (I might suggest skipping this paragraph if you’re in a rush). The top of my yolk on my fried egg was translucent and raw, which in my opinion ruins the entire egg. You have to faff about scraping off the gelatinous mass just so you can dip your toast and by this point I’m normally in a bad mood. I once had a friend who told me he didn’t like fried eggs because they were raw on the top. When I asked him why he didn’t just cook the top he replied by telling me that he didn’t know you could do that with fried eggs (you know who you are)! This seems to be a recurring theme with me and breakfast, for heavens sake will someone just splash a bit of fat on the top or flip the thing over for 10 seconds, I don’t want my yolk cooked within an inch of its life, I just don’t want raw egg on the top.

Phew, rant aside everything else was lovely. The end of brunch was wrapped up with a cappuccino to perk me up, which was definitely required because I was falling asleep having drank half a bottle of Prosecco.

In conclusion everything was pretty good, as I said before I’ve eaten here for breakfast a few times and it’s always been good, you seriously need to try the eggs Benedict (I put some pictures up from the last time I went below). The venue is nice for an informal special occasion in the grandeur of the corn exchange or in my case to start of an impromptu pub crawl at 11:00am. No I don’t have an alcohol problem. Do I?

 

7/10 would have been 8 if not for the egg

anthonysrestaurant.co.uk/piazza

Corn Exchange
Leeds
LS1 7BR

0113 247 0995