No. 3 The Spinnaker Cafe, Portsmouth

No. 3 The Spinnaker Cafe, Old Portsmouth (Portsmouth)

They say you can never go home again. This is clearly rubbish as I was back in my home town of Portsmouth. My good mother and I decided to have breakfast so we headed down to Old Portsmouth, which is such a historic part of the town I narrowly escaped being pressed ganged in an alleyway.

Your Editor: dry.

...on a collision course with
an Isle of Wight Ferry.

It was hot and I thought I'd have a swim in the sea (BBC4 viewers and those in Islington, please read 'Wild Swimming' for 'swim in the sea'). Having edged into the water like a man worried he'd dissolve, I was somewhat alarmed at the speed of the current and had to battle quite hard not to be dragged through the harbour mouth and into the path of several car ferries. Having not been dragged to a watery grave I was able to regain my composure and exit the water as if nothing had happened.

I dried off in the suns warm rays while the ancient sea washed the shore. As I squinted out to sea I thought of all the people that have sailed from this very spot to unimaginably distant places in the world: The first Australians in 1787, The Mary Rose, The HMS Bounty...the HMS Pinafore.

After a pleasant sunbathe we walked over the road and up to the Spinnaker Cafe. It has been a classic fryup location in Portsmouth for generations, and we thought that at one time it may have served as a British Rail cafe for people waiting to go over to the Isle of Wight. I remember the cafe being a lot more rough and ready when I was a kid but it is now rather nice inside. 

Your Editor: Wet. 

The Fry-up

The Fryup was a "Medium Breakfast" which is served all day. It would have cost £5.50 but I got  Black Pudding as an extra. Said pudding was included in the large breakfast but I thought that excessive at £7ish. Blog followers; please try to avoid paying evening meal prices for a Full English.

The Spinnaker gets points for playing 'Ziggy Stardust', but a large downside is that there is no loo. Instead you have to go over the road to a public toilet, but as long as you don't have a second tea you should be fine.

Your Editor...
oddly colour co-ordinated with the food.

The breakfast was generously portioned. I had builders tea and fried bread rather than toast (we swapped a piece of each thus getting a taste of both).

Generally, the addition of tinned tomatoes are a touch of class, but a drawback is that their juice is unruly and can rush round the plate making things wet. The chef was obviously acutely conscious of this crisis because the tomatoes were served in individual ramekins! To be honest I found this a tad OCD and would rather the elements got involved with each other. The tomatoes were very good; I feel the role they play in the drama of the fry up is to be the only real health item...a sort of refreshing sorbet to cleanse the palette.

It wasn't dark or empty but here it is looking dark and empty.

The Black Pudding on the other hand is not something you can feel holy about eating. As it's the first occasion that it been featured on the Blog it might be worth saying that it is cooked circle of blood and fat. Yes. Most cultures have some sort of traditional blood sausage, and this is ours. On this occasion it was a welcome friend, although slightly on the dry side as you can see from the image. The real star of this particular breakfast show were the mushrooms, they were salty and juicy and wonderful, if a little sparse, there being just two. The sausage was poor quality, a better sausage would have lifted their breakfast greatly. It was still great.

The "Wild Swim and Fry up Club" is a great social society waiting to get started. Such a shame I don't live there anymore!

7.5/10

Needless to say, afterwards I certainly was a Full English.