eggbaconchipsandbeans

Obertelli's Eating House, Leadenhall Market, EC3

Obertelli's was suggested to me by someone - I think it was Pete Ashton. (I'll need to check my email to make sure and I can't get into it right now.) But whoever it was, many thanks, this was a slap-up feed. A nice bit of quality bacon and a golden egg. Big pile of nice beans. Only disappointments are the chips, which are a little fry-like. Not a bad thing per se, but you know.

And the biggest bottle of Lee and Perrins I've seen in my life.

There's less room for eating downstairs, just stools or the tables outside. But upstairs is a land that time forgot. Lots of white tiles and blokes focused on eating. A good, dedicated atmosphere.

The Leadenhall Market is an interesting area. A bit of quaintness loitering in the high-tech city. It's so clean and Disney-like that it sometimes look less authentic than it is. They've shot some Harry Potter here, and I can imagine a bunch of other movies. Just around the corner is the Regis Snack Bar which also looks worth a visit.

GONE - Metropolitan, Edgware Road, W2

UPDATE: Now closed.

The Metropolitan is a classic cafe favourite. And rightly so. Faded 50s/60s atmos, bohemian credibility and magnificent chips. Brown, crunchy and austere like you might get in a Soviet chippy. Great, reduced, beans, all the juice boiled away to make a lovely beany paste. The egg all pale and interesting and the bacon stringy but nice. A curate's eggbaconchipsandbeans.

The first thing you notice is the green. There's green everywhere. The second thing you notice is the smoke. They really smoke hard in here. There was only three people in this morning but the smoke was so thick it slowed you down.

I really like this place. I can tell I'll be here again. There's all this history underneath the green paint.