Canny Breakfasts

Cafe Continental, Durham City

Modern life presents us with many difficulties.  One of them is the conundrum 'When is a cafe just a cafe?  And when is it a tearoom/bistro/restaurant/wine bar or whatever?'  On a rainy day in Durham, I encountered this very problem and found myself in what turned out to be a kind of hybrid cafe-bistro-restaurant.  Despite this identity crisis, the Cafe Continental provided a very canny breakfast. It's a bit posher than the places I usually frequent but such is life in a cathedral city.

I was lured inside by a rain-soaked blackboard, which offered:

 
After a bit of confusion with the lass behind the counter, I ended up ordering the large vegetarian breakfast which cost a bit more than the blackboard offer and was apparently double the size. When it first arrived, it looked like this:

Very canny but hiding its light under something of a bushel so after a bit of rearrangement and an application of the brown sauce lo and behold:

Now that's what you call a canny breakfast! 

Condiments clustered in a corner with milk jugs and collection boxes, as though they were queuing at a wet bus stop:

They have an upstairs room but I decided to stay downstairs, which turned out just fine.  It later transpired that most of the action takes place upstairs so I ate my breakfast in a kind of ante room or dentist's waiting room but that was OK by me.   Whilst there, I got to pondering the origins of the now ubiquitous hash brown.  When I was a lad nobody had ever heard of them - these days, you can hardly get moved for them.  As luck would have it, the Idaho Potato Commission website  (apparently the official home of the Idaho potato, which just makes me want to see the unofficial version) has the answer:

'Hash browns” (also called “hashed browns,” “hash brown potatoes” and “hashed brown potatoes”) are a popular breakfast dish, served today at fast food restaurants almost everywhere.  The term “hashed brown potatoes” was used by food author Maria Parloa (1843-1909) in 1888, “hash brown potatoes” is cited from 1895, “hash browns” is cited from 1911 (part of lunch counter slang), and “hashed browns” is cited from 1920. Hashed brown potatoes were a popular breakfast dish in New York City in the 1890s and were served in the finest hotels.'

If, by any chance, this fails to satisfy your curiosity then Dr Potato may have the answer...

 

 

 

Stateside Diner, Pink Lane, Newcastle

Back in the Toon.  I wouldn't normally go into a themed place but I was looking for somewhere (which I couldn't find) and fancied a breakfast so gave it a try.  If you can do ironic kitsch this might be it but since I'm no style guru I can't tell whether they mean it or not. 

It's in the once notorious Pink Lane now on its way to being gentrified.   Thankfully, it hasn't got there yet.  Unlike the cafes I usually frequent, there was a bit of customer service as I was greeted on entry and asked where I wanted to sit.  I'm more used to being ignored or frowned at so that was a bit of a surprise.

They give their breakfasts playful names such as the Bushwhacker (I thought it was Australians who whacked bushes?) , Prospector, Drifter and Pilgrim (the veggie option, which I had - presumably its name is intended to evoke the kind of austere non-conformism associated with vegetarians?).  There were also some Tex Mex breakfasts, with jalapenos and chillis, all of which seemed a bit too exciting for me.

You get a pot of tea (free refills) in with the price, which arrived looking quite perky so that was a good sign. 

Pot of tea with jukebox (not the kind of caption you write every day)

Unfortunately my Pilgrim's progress was a bit slow.  In fact, a couple of Bushwhackers who came in after me got served first.  However, when it turned up it was definitely canny and nothing like as puritan as I'd feared:

Oh dear, my tomato has been colonised (another unlikely caption)

Notwithstanding the flag, the layout of my Pilgrim seemed slightly aimless with one egg plonked on top of the other and the packet of butter arriving on the plate itself but it all tasted pretty good.

Finally, always good to see condiments being used as a supporting act for menus:

 

Berwick Youth Hostel

Slightly different from previous venues, and Berwick is probably as far north as Canny Breakfasts goes, but the cafe in this recently opened youth hostel is definitely worth a mention. 

They offer a buffet breakfast which is in itself a good thing.  I like a buffet and I like breakfast so by combining the two they're on to a sure fire hit in my opinion.  We'd stayed there the night before but when we came downstairs it looked as if they'd sold out of most things - no sign of any eggs, no mushrooms...all very worrying.  So much so, I had to start on the tinned grapefruit:

Worryingly healthy start

But then the chef appeared from out the back and assured us that he would cook fresh eggs and mushrooms (much relief all round).  And a very canny job he made of it all:

Two nicely cooked eggs with mushrooms and other things from the buffet (the hash browns were a bit overcooked).  When he heard I wanted a veggie breakfast, the chef said that if he'd known he would have cooked me a couple of veggie sausages as well - oh well, another time!  With it being a buffet, you got to choose as much toast as you wanted with marmite, jam or marmalade. 

The condiments were displayed in an attractively abstract way:

A Mondrian of condiments

Unfortunately, they were in the dreaded sachets, which are a pain for all kinds of reasons:

• you can't open them for ages
• when you do, they squirt all over the place (usually on your clean shirt)
• they all taste like they've been watered down with vinegar (even the vinegar!)
• there's nowhere to put the sachets while you're eating your breakfast
• they're  a waste of finite resources

Despite the sachets, it was a canny breakfast in a canny place and it's dedicated to you, Matt.  We wish you'd been there to eat it with us.

 

Sarah's Tuck-In, Grainger Market, Newcastle

Sarah's has already been covered in the excellent eggbaconchipsandbeans back in 2005.  It's pleasing to see that it's still with us and hasn't changed a bit.  There's something special about the light in the Grainger Market on a sunny morning, like a swimming pool filled with air.

Went there with my wife who's more a croissant and espresso kind of breakfaster but never mind.  She had a bacon and tomato sandwich - they used tinned tomatoes which immediately soaked through the bun creating a tomatoey doughy goo at the bottom of her sandwich.

I wanted a veggie version of their all-day breakfast.  The tall, blonde, languid girl who cooked it (possibly Sarah?) substituted three fried eggs for the meaty bits.  I'm partial to a fried egg but this was probably one too many for me - I ate them, though.  I liked the way they were cooked on a griddle in one of those circle things leaving them somewhere between poached and fried.  I also liked the way she positioned the toast - like wings.

The condiments looked like they were doing their own product placement:

The layout of Sarah's is intended to encourage customers to 'tuck in' spontaneously.  It's in the middle of the covered market and there's  a shelf running around the outside so we sat there on high stools.  Pleasingly, they served us through the hatch - it's  always good to get your breakfast through a hatch.  For pedants like me, it was good to see correct usage of the apostrophe throughout all signage.  And I particularly like the jaunty roof - in the style of a circus big top.

Judging by these posters, they're obviously pushing the pies but we didn't have time - another day, another blog:

Somebody took an extra moment to put up these posters in this chessboard style.  Which reminds me of the Elizabeth Bishop poem 'Filling Station' that ends:

Somebody embroidered the doily. 
Somebody waters the plant, 
or oils it, maybe. Somebody 
arranges the rows of cans 
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO

to high-strung automobiles. 
Somebody loves us all.

Red Square Cafe in Bishop Auckland, Co Durham

Went there with my brother-in-law who lives in the town.  He had the belly buster and I had the meat free breakfast...both were extremely canny.   I was first attracted to the place because of its lefty revolutionary name.  No sign of anybody plotting the end of free market capitalism unfortunately but we might just have been there on a quiet day.  There was a big bloke shouting the odds about something but he was so loud we couldn't make out what he was saying.

You get a proper mug of tea with your breakfast and prices are OK.  As standard, you get two slices of toast and an enormous pat of marge...so big you could take some home to last you the rest of the week if there was only an easy way of transporting it.  There's probably a joke in there about 'loose Marge' but I can't think of it.

They've got plastic cloths on the table (always a good thing although you can't really beat formica) and there's a lad who wipes them down.  They keep the condiments on a separate shelf as though they're somehow being kept away from the hurly burly of daily life and only brought out on special occasions.  No sachets (thank goodness) and proper branded sauce.

All in all a genuinely canny breakfast.

Meat free breakfast accompanied by mug of tea, plastic cloth and edge of toast

Belly buster in all its high cholestoralness

 
Arty shot of sauce & salt with stand-offish condiments in the background