Today I was planning to have brunch at the Waffle House in St Albans, one of my favourite restaurants growing up and it still is to this day. A unique experience, sitting in an old water mill, or outside by the stream, with a menu full of waffles. Regulars include savoury ham, mushroom and cheese sauce, or sweet banoffi. There are daily specials too and they do gorgeous milkshakes. Unfortunately, due to bad time planning, brunch ended up being an incredibly bad bacon bap eaten whilst running across the park trying to spot my dad walking the St Albans half marathon.
Usually, brunch is the perfect meal, as it encompasses two other meals and therefore you are entitled to eat twice as much, which is usually necessary as I inevitably have the sweet vs savoury dilemma and they both win. Such as at Kopapa (Soho), shown below, where I wanted to try the avocado and goats cheese on toast for something a bit different, but I just couldn’t resist my beloved porridge, especially as it was made with chocolate and topped with figs and hazelnuts.
The problem with brunch is that I can get a bit bored with the typical options. Don’t get me wrong I love eggs and a decent fry up, but I can make them at home very easily, so when I’m out I like to see something unusual on the menu. That’s why I adore the brunch at Dishoom (Covent Garden). A soft bacon naan roll, complete with cream cheese and chilli jam, with a thick breakfast lassi of banana, mango, yoghurt and oats, finished off with the perfect Indian cuppa – a cup of comforting sweet spicy Chai.
Another favourite brunch of mine is the chorizo hash topped with poached eggs, which I’ve had varieties of at The Riding House Café (near Oxford Street) and Giant Robot (Clerkenwell, shown below). Riding House is one of my favourite brunch spots, I like the atmosphere and décor, plus they do an awesome PB&J smoothie (if a restaurant serves anything with peanut butter it gets extra brownie points from me). I didn’t actually have the Giant Robot hash for brunch as it was part of an all day menu but it did deserve an honourable mention in this category. They also do a cracking burger apparently.
An old favourite, that has unfortunately gone downhill recently in the service stakes, is The Modern Pantry (Clerkenwell). The restaurant has a nice modern setting and good range of savoury and sweet brunches. My favourite combination would be eggs with mushrooms and halloumi, followed by ricotta pancakes (not too much, contrary to the waitress’s beliefs). If you’re still not satisfied after those two courses, there’s a Tinseltown, aka Tinselghetto, diner just across the street where you can get nachos and a huge variety of exciting flavoured milkshakes (cherry bakewell was my personal choice). Yes we actually ate that much once.
For twists on classic breakfast dishes, I have enjoyed NOPI (Soho, pictured above) and M1LK (Balham, pictured below). NOPI is a lovely laid back communal dining area complete with open larder and bizarrely blinged up toilets. I sampled some pastries before enjoying a good old sausage sarnie but with fresh tomato relish and a fried egg with perfectly runny yolk. M1LK had more of a quick turnaround but served up the superbly named ‘Convict’, essentially a fry up served inside an English muffin. Perfection.
Next up…I would love to go for brunch (and everything else) at Duck and Waffle, but I don’t know where I would even begin to decide between the dishes: duck egg en cocette with mushrooms, gruyere, truffle and soldiers; Colombian eggs with grilled chorizo; or ox cheek benedict to name a few. That would definitely have to be a two courser, ‘Full Elvis’ Belgian waffle with PBJ, bananas brulee, Chantilly cream and all the trimmings anyone?!
The Bright Side Foodie 