Tiffany's on North Road, Brighton has been suggested by a few correspondents, so we made a pilgrimage this weekend and it didn't disappoint. A splendid place. And I like the exterior, I like the way a cafe with a few owners over the years becomes a kind of history of typography.
The chips are very yellow. Almost dayglo. And crispy and delicious. The bacon, also crispy and delicious, but dark and brooding. A highly textured egg and a balancing sea of beans. A nice compact ebcb - pensioner size I'd say.
A simple condiment arrangement. I like the slight hint of translucency to the ketchup.
You look this way and you'd think one kind of cafe - traditional, solid, working-class, no-nonsense.
You look this way and you think a different kind of cafe; bohemian, young, going-out kind of people, buyers of fancy furniture, lots of nonsense. I like those contrasts in a cafe, seems very Brighton.
It's all about the type.
It's also very Brighton that they have to offer, and point out that they offer, a vegetarian option.
Christopher emailed me and suggested this place, and I'm very glad he did. It's fantastic. A proper working cafe with a high proportion of cabbies and high-viz jackets, but also bright, clean and airy.
Some ebcbs are all about boundaries, there are clear lines of demarkation between the different food groups. And some ebcbs are all about co-mingling, about the blending of the flavours and colours. This is one of those. The chips are golden and delicious, the egg is somehow simultaneously fluffy and soggy, which makes it marvelous, the beans are aligned like iron filings to a magnet and the bacon's comforting arms hold the whole thing together.
The infinite variety of cafe ordering systems always appeal to me. There's a fairly straightforward ticketing approach here. I'm always tempted to keep these things, start a collection, but they sit in my pocket for a few weeks and then get thrown out.
You can't beat those dayglo yellow starburst things for writing menu items on. I bought a pack from a catering shop once because I thought I could use them to lend a sense of urgency to my todo list. But I've not got around to todoing it yet.
Every cafe now seems to come with some copies of The Metro. It's one of the things I love about cafes, that sense of communal property, someone brings a paper, everyone gets to read it. It's like a socialist utopia. Well, not quite. But it's still a good thing.
I visited the Times Cafe a while back, and I've resisted posting this because I just couldn't remember what street it's on, and I still can't, but I thought I'd put the pictures up anyway. I know it's on a direct line between Kite Hill (Hampstead Heath) and the BT Tower. Maybe somewhere in Highgate or somewhere like that. I don't know North London very well. Sorry. Anyway. It's nice.
Very decent ebcb. Very healthy amount of chips. Towering like the Rocky Mountains, dividing beans from bacon and eggs.
Lovely condiments. In a kind of nicely backlit still life kind of way. A photographer would probably go on about the quality of the light.
Any cafe that supports pipe smoking is alright with me.
(Another open sauce contribution, from Eleanor, in Australia. Apologies it's taken me so long to get this up.)
"Thought that anyone holidaying in Sydney and on the look out for a nice ebcb might appreciate this. As would anyone actually living in the area, like us. A very friendly place, about 15 minutes up the hill from Bondi Beach. They have a list of about 20 different breakfasts, available all day, including “The Italian Breakfast” – steak, eggs and spaghetti on toast – but had no problem with producing a classic ebcb. Even gave us some free toast to go with it."
"A delicious ebcb – an initially unprepossessing appearance, leading to hidden depths on further investigation. A subterranean lake of beans under the egg and bacon, with chips liberally strewn over the top. The chips were some of the best I’ve had – crispy on the outside, soft in the middle."
"An excellent choice of condiments, including bbq sauce and a jar of toothpicks. Nice to see the classic Worcester sauce has made it all the way here too. No ashtray, due to smoking restrictions in Oz."
"No booths, but cheerful plastic tables, lots of pictures on the walls and, as it’s the beginning of January, Christmas decorations still up. Bonza."
Amigo's is just one of those lovely places you stumble across while you're looking for something else, and you're grateful and you reconcile yourself to not looking for the original thing and decide to have an early lunch / late second breakfast instead.
Lovely grub. Orderly left to right arrangment. The egg might easily be a scale model of a volcano. The chips and nice and crisp. Lots of bacon. Textbook.
Comprehensive condiment cluster. Flawless.
They've got those lovely orange plastic chairs. I love them. You very rarely see them in any different colour. Except sometimes a nice brown.
Nice art. And that scary prospect - additional seating downstairs.
Just goes to show, there's always another cafe to visit. I've walked past this place thousands of times, never went in, despite suggestions from Patrick. And it's a splendid place. Busy, cosy and friendly.
A delightful ebcb - the roundest chips I've ever seen, and the sunniest egg. Very respectable amounts of bacon and beans. A great way to start a day.
Lovely simple condiment cluster. Very metal and clean.
It's a place of nice little booths, dark green leathery stuff, deep marble/rock/something effect tables. Lots of good places for solitary paper reading.
