No.7 Cafe Rest Shepherds Bush, London

No.7 Cafe Rest, Shepherds Bush, London

A good Cafe is much more that a place to get fried food. They are places where one can sit and renumerate, get lost in conversation or float off into whimsy; they are modern Cathedrals for the thinking-man, offering solice and sanctuary in an often confusing world. Not only does 'Cafe Rest' on the Goldhalk Road have these qualities, but in some ways this is the cafe that all others serving a fry up can be measured against. It was with this in mind and after a bit of a session the night before that my good self and sister walked from Chiswick for jolly good Fry Up.


The place has just had a revamp but its lost none of it's 1950's charm, and is opposite the end of Pennard Road in Shepherds Bush where my forebears lived in the early 20th Century. All this and the Jellied Eel Shop opposite allows one to commune with a Cockney side you never really had. I could have had a 'Full Irish' which reflects the Celtic heritage of the local population. Yet Rest assured I had the the Full English.


Timmy "The Hat" "Knuckles" "Mad Man" Neville


The Breakfast.

Considering the cafe couldn't be better, the Fry up was not amazing. First problem: Chips. Don't get me wrong I like chipped and deep fried root vegetable as much as the next man but they are not part of the Full English. They have a place and it is part of the "All Day Breakfast" (This must have chips, and must be served on an oval plate). Despite being Cuckoos in the nest the chips were enjoyable and the toast and tea were great and came first as they should.

The beans were good quality, and the bacon was salty loveliness. The egg was so good I didn't save it until the end and instead broke it and let the yolk run round the plate. The more pretentious establishments can take a lesson from the mushroom presentation: they were plentiful and great with a bit of Bacon. The sausage was one of the rusk heavy, poor quality types, as you can see, but the odd thing is that it didn't seem to matter.



Chips!

There was a strange sense of positive accumulation that built throughout the meal. It was a bit like a Dickens novel: there were gripping moments, a couple of shite chapters stuck in as filler but once you got to the end it somehow didn't matter and you just got the sense that you'd consumed a great work and were in the hands of a master.

8/10

Needless to say that afterwards I was a full English.

No.6 Extra Perks Cafe. Alexandria, Washington DC. USA

No.6 Extra Perks Cafe. Alexandria, Washington DC. USA (From our correspondents in Washington DC: Kate Kynvin & Richard O'Hara)



As an avid follower of the Editor’s food blogs, we are delighted to be able to contribute a correspondent’s article from afar. Obviously, it would have been better to have had the critique from the Editor himself, but failing that, in true Dunkirk spirit we will do our best.





Great dog

There is a small greasy spoon café just outside of DC, in Alexandria, called 'Extra Perks' that specialise in “Full American and British Breakfasts”... so naturally after a relatively heavy night on the beers, we leapt at the chance to go and sample some delights that would remind us of the motherland and provide some much needed morning after grease. It was pretty busy when we arrived, mainly locals rather than visitors. Always a good sign.



The Breakfast itself is written in the menu as a “Full British” rather than full English, which definitely seems more inclusive of our colonial cousins, but I suspect it was written by a non-Brit who did not realise how geographically pedantic the English can be about naming food. Being the most pricey choice on the menu at $9.75 a punch, it included eggs, a sausage, bacon, mushrooms, sliced grilled tomato and toast, with the option of baked beans at an additional $0.75.

We both opted for the main breakfast without the beans, Kate had her eggs fried, sunny side up and wheat toast, Richard chose eggs fried, over-easy and white toast.'Over-easy' being a phrase used, over here, to mean that the eggs have been flipped at the end of cooking to make sure that the top is cooked.   

 

Richard embraced the undertaking wholeheartedly and ordered an English Breakfast tea, Kate fell at the first hurdle and ordered a coffee proving you can take a horse to water…but it may still be inclined not to drink. Tea.

 

The Breakfast

 

The eggs were excellent. The whites were cooked to perfection while the yolks broke and ran over the rest of the food. There was also a reassuring amount of grease on the plate, which provided glorious opportunity to use the toast to mop everything up with at the end. The sausage was a staple banger, whilst not particularly noteworthy, the fact it was included at all brought us joy. The tomato was fresh, sliced and fried, this meant it too was perfectly greasy, and not mushy. The bacon – described on the menu as “apple wood smoked”,was basically your standard American streaky bacon. For Brits, serving American bacon with a full English should be a deal breaker, but proper bacon is like hen’s teeth around these parts, and this cafe is in it to make a profit, and so standard issue dressed up as something more pretentious was acceptable. The parsley sprig and orange wedge garnish was probably the most interesting addition. What about the orange and parsley does the average American chef think says Full English? You might as well put a cricket ball on the plate.  

Overall, it was a thoroughly acceptable fry-up that made us a little misty-eyed for the motherland. The total bill (2 breakfasts, 2 coffees and a tea) came to $27. If I was eating this in the UK, I would probably not think it merited the expense, however in a country full of chicken and waffles and 'Man versus food' I take my hat off to anyone that can provide me with a small amount of gratuitous nostalgia. 7/10 for the food, 10/10 for effort! As a final perk, on the way out, there was a small stand of British food that you can purchase to go – fruit pastels, jaffa cakes, jammy dodgers and slightly dented tins of processed peas. Thrice Hurrah! It was enough to send me on my way humming  'Land of Hope and Glory'.

Needless to say, we were both “Full British”

http://www.extraperkscoffeeshopandcafe.com/
 

Kate Kynvin & Richard O'Hara, Washington DC.