To begin, there are some rules.
Avocado is NOT an appropriate constituent of a full English Breakfast. There is
an egg hierarchy (you'll want to condition your choice on your confidence in the chef). Properly consigned, poached always dominates scrambled,
scrambled always dominates fried, and boiled is obviously out. Bacon, grilled
(to a crisp), is permissible but not necessary, and the (single, invariable
desiccated) sausage needs a ketchup accompaniment to aid digestion and escape a
burnt tongue. Sourdough bread, thinly sliced, two of and lightly charred,
unless you’re a Celt in which case you might prefer fried. So far as mushrooms
go I’m open to debate, but they must be cooked in butter and must be open cup.
Exhibit A: a Giraffe (franchise) in Spitalfields Market.
After a minor altercation, the effete
dreadlocked maître d’ agreed 11:55 was
still brunch service, and took my order: ‘the veggie full English but with real
sausage, please.’ Medium cut white, with a rather uncooperative crust; two
poached eggs resembling a pair of exhausted testicles; a fan-cut avocado half;
three shriveled mushrooms; my real sausage; a sea of beans, and atop, a lost
looking sprig of parsley. Despite the semblance, the eggs were good; white
ovate, yolk gooey and lucent. The mushrooms were not, and I didn’t eat the
avocado. The beans were beans. My sausage was fine. Four on ten; this breakfast lacked passion and the
consolation I demand from a Saturday morning.
