No11. Cafe Tipaza, Streatham, London

No11. Cafe Tipaza, Streatham, London

This one was awful. Firstly an apology to John Risky who was good enough to have me over to stay after an excellent night at his house in Streatham ('St Reatham' for anyone from North London), and then good enough to suggest the local Cafe Tipaza the morning after. However it was dreadful. A man of normally impeccable taste, I can only imagine that he is experiencing some kind of 'Stockholm Syndrome' in wanting to return.

Co-operative funeralcare is well placed

The establishment seems to be experiencing a crisis of identity. The name refers to a city on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria (perhaps not a place steeped in fry up culture), the name on the awning is 'La Florentine', whilst the sign on the wall above is keen to point out that they are a Patisserie that does wedding cakes and a broken sign on the wall once advertised Arabic lessons.

The Breakfast:

When inside we decided to have the Full English which was reasonably priced at about £5.50. We were alone apart from an old man drinking coffee and the proprietor. The interior was like a Turkish restaurant with tiled floor and metal chairs. It was frankly devoid of charm with the predominant activity being the proprietor watching The BBC's "Saturday Kitchen" on a huge television near where we were sitting. However appropriate the programming, it was so loud it made conversation difficult and we had to risk annoyance and ask it to be turned down which he did.




John receiving a culinary kick in the crotch.

Lets face it: this place needs a scrub but the problem is  the food. Where do I start? The sausage represents a new low for quality on the blog and may be the worst item ever served in blog history. Not only that it was grey and cut in half like four grey Minimilks. The quality of them was sub Netto frankferter. I can only imagine the array of animals therein...mostly chicken lips. Bacon was bland and thick but cooked, the mushrooms (hidden by the bacon in this image) seemed acquainted at some point with the grill.

The tomato less so; it seemed to have been just cut in half and laid on. The real crime was the egg. Enough to make Edwina Curry soil herself, it was only half cooked. Like a white paddling pool the mushrooms were having a great time in there but honestly it was a dangerous. Shame.

The beans were good! Obviously OK quality. The toast was OK but was also a bit in the egg so most of the meal had to be left. A real rarity.

Awful.

He even had the cheek to ask us how it was on the way out. Not knowing where to start I said OK and went out into the Streatham drizzle.

2/10

Needless to say I was a Full English (but I was only full of annoyance)