. BRUNCH 101 .
If you read my blog, know me, follow my instagram or my twitter then you will be fully aware that I am a weekend bruncher. Without fail every weekend, usually Saturday and Sunday I will start my day with brunch. I don’t ever eat breakfast in the week and so the weekend is a great opportunity for me to indulge in my favourite breakfast food at a more human hour of 12pm (ish). I love breakfast foods, scrambled eggs & salmon, pancakes & berries, porridge, Eggs Florentine etc are some of the tastiest food arounds and now a day there are TONS of restaurants clocking on to the brunching trend and priding themselves on the best breakfasts in town.
They’re of course lovely, but there’s also no reason you can’t make your own. Here’s my breaky from last weekend with a little ‘how to’.
So my favourite, and ‘go to’ breakfast has to be scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. For this brunch it was served with grilled vine tomatoes, toasted ciabatta and the piece de resistance the almighty bloody mary.
Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon are a seemingly easy dish to create but I’d say i’ve perfected my eggs after 4 years of dedicated brunching – take some time to work out what works for you. Personally i like to cook mine in a non stick frying pan, with butter and seasoning and think the key is to take your time and let it cook slowly, and generally speaking I go for 3 x eggs per person.
There’s tonns of salmon available but I always look to get a quality pack as you actually really can taste the difference (Sainsbury’s always do a good half price offer on their smoked salmon which is worth keeping an eye out for). By rule of thumb, the deeper and darker the orange the better. If you’re feeling a little experimental, buy some fresh dill and lemon for seasoning.
I always like to add a little something more to my eggs in the morning and so without fail will always have steamed spinach (my real favourite) or grilled vine tomatoes. This brunch saw tomatoes, simply grilled with some salt and pepper and garnished with coriander.
But like I said the real piece de resistance is the bloody mary – hair of the dog, hangover queen, king of brunch. I like mine spicy and with a kick, and so here’s my little tips.
Always start off with quality vodka, what the doctors and specialist say is no lie. Cheap vodka isn’t any good for you (plus tastes disgusting), and if you want to enjoy your bloody mary without any horrendous hangover symptoms then look for a quality bottle. Smirnoff is a great starting point, but anything up to Ciroc and Grey Goose will of course work. The bloody mary is all about a treat, not about getting drunk, so they key to it, is making sure you enjoy the flavour.
Like I said, I like my bloody mary with a real kick. At the basics you’ll want to add a dash of Tabasco, some drops of lea & perrins, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. But obviously these can be upped according to taste.
I like to go wild on tabasco so always add a good 6+ drops, I also like to add horseradish to mine for a cheeky kick too, it works perfectly and is extremely tasty.
The finishing touches to this drink, aside from the Big Tom juice itself, would be a sprinkling of celery salt around the glass rim as well as a piece of chunky veg. Usually i’d opt for celery, but unfortunately we’d run out last weekend and so cucumber made the cut.
But perhaps the most important thing of all is ICE – every ingredient needs to be chilled, cold and refreshing and a tonn of ice helps make sure the drink stays cool. There’s nothing worse than a warm bloody mary.
Combine all of the above and you’ve got yourself a pretty good start to the day right there. I always like to start off with a nice strong cup of coffee first of all – to properly wake myself up, but the kings breakfast and the queens drink really couldn’t start the day off any better.
I also thought I might share some of my top brunch spots around London and the south west too – just in case you ever want to nip out for a bit more of a breakfast treat:
London:
Covent Garden Hotel – 7 Dials, Covent Garden
Aisa De Cuba – St Martins Lane, Covent Garden
Breakfast Club – Hoxton
Koppapa – 7 Dials, Covent Garden
Dean St Townhouse – Soho
Kitchen Pantry – Chiswick
Cafe Boheme – Soho
Bills – Covent Garden
Riding House Cafe – Great Titchfield St
Bristol / Bath / Winchester:
Gold Brick House – Park Street
Rosemarino – Clifton Village
Bocca Bar – Bristol
Banco Lounge – Bristol
Hall & Woodhouse – Bath
Ginger Two – Winchester Town Centre
Lily’s Cafe – Wickham (near Winchester)
Cafe Monde – Winchester
New York:
Grey Dogs – Greenwich Village
Next on the hit list:
Caravan – Liverpool st
Duck & Waffle – London
Bunga Bunga – Clapham
Tart – Bristol
Primrose Cafe – Clifton Village
Sadly bar Grey Dogs, I can’t actually remember any of my other favourite brunch spots from around the globe, but Grey Dogs is pretty darned awesome so it makes up for it and is a must do if you visit NYC.
So there you go, a how to on brunch and a list of my favourite brunch hot spots. I’d love to know of your favourite locations for breaky, here and around the world or the UK.
Love smoked salmon for breakfast. Always feels like such a treat. x
whatsonyourtulips.blogspot.co.uk
I adore brunch! Some of my favourites are any Browns restaurants, Malmaisin hotels, the scrumpy willow and singing kettle in newcastle, coffee culture in York, Bills in Covent garden, urban angel in edinburgh and going much further afield… Cargo Club in Hoi Ann Vietnam! Eggs florentine is my favourite closely followed by scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Yours looks delicious!
Great post Mel – it may shock you but I’ve never actually had a bloody Mary and I don’t know why as I’m sure I’d love it.
I adore going out for brunch and will be doing so tomorrow, woop woop! My favourite place to brunch in Sheffield is Relish.
Hannah http://www.cagneyandlace.com
Every weekend me and a few of the girls in the dorm make a point to go for brunch at least on Saturdays. Sometimes we make it to Sunday brunch as well. It’s a great time for us to talk since we don’t have to rush to make it to class. We usually stay for an hour and a half or so (kind of like our Sunday dinner!)
http://allthatglitters.co.nr
They’ve just opened a Bill’s in Bath too! Never been before but desperate to go, for breakfast, lunch AND dinner ;) xxx
You had me at smoked salmon… Bloody Marys are still on my to do list!
I love Hall and Woodhouse, good food and the decor is fecking gorgeous too.
Loving your London list, I’ve definitely got a few hot spots of my own.. one being Toms Kitchen Chelsea, you must get your butts down there. They’ve got all the favourites and do it SOOOO well. I went there recently myself.. http://thelondonfiance.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/a-delicious-breakfast-at-toms-kitchen-chelsea/
T x