Breakfast Club Hoxton: no fasting here

Clear thinking for cloudy heads

Breakfast on a hangover is like water in the desert. It doesn't really matter what it tastes like, just that it's there. So to my mind, opening a restaurant that serves breakfast all day is a no-brainer. And it works for The Breakfast Club. I've heard rumours of queues outside its Islington branch from opening time to closing, which to me seems bonkers. We queue for the clubs, get drunk, go to bed and then queue again.

Luckily, most people don't go out on Sundays (only the Aussies in West London) so the Hoxton Breakfast Club was pretty quiet when we went there for a pick me up. It wasn't a traditional hangover, more of a Christ-we're-back-at-work-after-Christmas-and-my-head-hurts hangover. But they can be even worse.

So we settled into some tall chairs and quickly established a non-work related chat rule, largely ruing that Meat Mission wasn't open today. However, our eyes lit up after one glimpse of the menu. Like a kid with a new sticker book my eyes flitted across the pages, torn between going everywhere and not wanting to stick to anything and risk getting it wrong. I changed from the burrito, to the pulled pork sandwich, to the all-American Pancakes, to the chorizo hash browns. It was there that I stuck my sticker.

And I don't regret it... despite there not being a hash brown in sight. It was actually two chorizo sausages THAT WERE INCREDIBLE cooked to within an inch of their life, served with two fried eggs, shrooms and a big smattering of fried potatoes with peppers and onions. So more of a straight hash, except all served separately. The tats weren't as crispy as they should have been, nor were the onions. But it didn't matter, because of those sausages. GOD those sausages. I need to find their supplier. I will buy some. In fact, I will buy the supplier.

I was probably the happiest of my colleagues though. While to my left one demolished his burrito without saying one word (always a good sign), another complained his burger bun was dry and too big (both true) and his coleslaw bland (even more true) despite the token herbs, seemingly just there to break the monotony of the white unseasoned cream. My final colleague wasn't so much unhappy as angry. He had been defeated. A bearded man with a big appetite, he had laughed in the face of the American-sized portion of his all-American pancakes. Until he saw it: so much bacon it was like spaghetti on the plate, four (slightly dry) pancakes, two poached eggs, two sausages and fried potatoes. Not a vegetable in sight, just wall to wall protein and carb. And he buckled, broken like a man kicked in the balls. He couldn't look the waiter in the eye as he took his plate away, with four pancakes, half the potatoes and a good few rashers of bacon left untouched.

I imagine a lot of people are sick in the Breakfast Club. But cocky, tired and potentially still drunk revellers tend to have eyes bigger than stomachs, and only beer-fuelled nausea in their immediate future. Which is a shame, because the food is pretty good for the price, and the toilets well hidden.

   

Counter Cafe: a taste of east London

Bizarre but kind of brilliant

Such was the sudden acceleration of the Olympic Park that the rest of east London hasn't even left the starting blocks. I loved the Olympics, but it's a little disturbing that elite sport gets a bigger development budget than some of the most deprived areas of the UK.

Politicians will argue that the Park filled a black hole in central(ish) London. But anyone who has been to the Park will tell you that, since the multinational crowd have left, it's had less atmosphere than a boarded-up boozer in Hull.

Meanwhile, the circle of east London around the Park has developed a bizarre new charm - like a desperate show of the old ways in the shadow of the spaceship-like Olympic Stadium. And the Counter Cafe is quite literally in its shadow.

From one side it's in what would be a trendy converted warehouse if it were in Hoxton. On this side of the A12 it feels like somewhere between that and the Hovis advert. The cafe is in the back of an interesting looking art gallery. It's got a huge glass façade  running cross the cafe's two floors that looks like it was built in expectation of the new Olympic view. Sadly there's a good deal of wasteland, and canal/refuse channel and an unsightly fence between it and stadium, which all but spoils the view.

To get a bit closer to the action we braved the cold and sat on the floating astro-covered platform on the canal behind the cafe. We sat gently bobbing every time we moved, ignoring the slight seasickness, and soaked up the bizarre atmosphere. It was very pleasant, but sadly things had already gone slightly wrong food wise. My planned order of hot chocolate and eggs Benedict was impossible because they had neither. Nor did they have peppermint tea. In fact, all they had in the decaf department was green, the tetanus jab of teas.

Now, how you run out of tea in a cafe is one question, how you run out of Benedict is quite another, especially when you definitely have eggs (I could see them in the kitchen). It means you lack two basic staples of even a home kitchen, and given that there was supermarket not one minute's walk away, their refusal to serve it seemed almost personal. However, I took it as graciously as a hungover, hungry man could on a Sunday morning and ordered the poached eggs, salmon and potato cakes.

Just the sound of it eased the pain in my head, and the sight of it next to my translucent tetanus tea calmed the shakes. The salmon was bright and fresh, the yolk almost as orange as the salmon, and in deep contrast the gloriously charred potato cakes. The textures were all perfect: soft potato with crunchy burnt edges, runny yolks, and plump salmon. The lime they came with was a surprising but zesty twist, although sadly the dish was badly under seasoned. I'd love to tell you how the hot chocolate was - as a man intolerant to caffeine it's a problem close to my heart that so few hot chocolates are either hot or made with real chocolate - but the only adjective I can use is "absent".

Still, for the sheer experience and view it's worth a visit to the Counter Cafe. The fact you walk past art installations to get to it; the classroom feel it has with rows of wooden tables; its complete lack of tea despite being a cafe; that bizarre almost apocalyptic view - it all makes the cafe unique. The fact they run out of stuff, despite being out in no-man's land, is a testament to much this place is loved. I can totally understand it - understated in east London, defiant in the face of modernity, and happy in its skin. I really, really hope east London changes. But I also really hope the Counter Cafe never does.