OUTER SUBURBS 21 – A FULL ENGLISH

 

 

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I cannot by any stretch of the imagination be thought of as a foodie or gourmet.   I simply enjoy eating (and drinking!!!), I not infrequently over indulge, and I have but one simple requirement – which is, if at all possible, that my food and drink should taste at least reasonable or actually nice.  I am not asking for exquisite gourmet cuisine, nor for world class wines – but then neither do I want to stuff my face with either tasteless supermarket stodge or some liquid that, while undoubtedly powerfully alcoholic, equally powerfully reminds me of cats.  Much as I like cats.

Now full English breakfasts can taste very nice, but one has to be careful.  Loads of eateries produce them, they really are loved here, but their quality varies widely.  I mean, anyone can put together the ingredients and serve them up, but the quality of the ingredients – and to a lesser extent their mode of presentation on the plate – can make or break the treat.

Let’s look at this breakfast.  Firstly – and very crucially – it arrived on a warm plate.  Cold plates can crucify hot food, especially in winter.

Then, the classic ingredients (including modern upstarts like hash browns) were all there.  The rashers of bacon were hiding under the toast – Come on out, we know you’re in there! – and they were tasty.  Sausages can be the Achilles Heel of breakfasts, with an almost corpse-like pallor, no texture and very little taste – but these bucked that trend: they appeared burnt but in fact weren’t, they actually had pieces of meat inside (but I could have sworn this pub had a cat last time I was in … ) and they were tasty too – an achievement for this certainly not up market eatery.

So what else?  Well, real (as opposed to tinned) tomato, not quite fried enough but, as always, tasting like Heaven & Chips when eaten with the bacon.  And tasty mushrooms, probably tinned, but certainly good.  Hash browns don’t usually shake my tree, but these these were both tasty and quite crispy, not bad at all.
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There was a rush of customers just as we arrived and so I expected a hastily cooked meal with very runny eggs, but the eggs were reasonably solid, and the beans – well beans are always good!  And then quite a big and thick slice of black pudding – in the picture, that’s the round black thing with all the little white bits of fat in it >>> delicious!

And the accessories?  Well, toast made from bog standard, thin, white, sliced bread – adequate, and certainly better than nothing.  And finally a big, steaming, glorious mug of hot sweet tea, just the thing for washing down (or dissolving away …) all that fat!!!

Click onto each image to open another version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – but don’t blame me if you feel suddenly ravenously hungry or, on the other hand, unaccountably nauseous.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 5 Oct 2018.
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