These are some boiled eggs we ate for lunch in Vienna. We tend to over rely on eggs for lunch when we are away, particularly if propelled into a hunger panic due to cold weather, unfamiliarity with good, vegetarian friendly, lunch spots and a reluctance to eat a large schnitzel. Although, as Joff says, who would ever find out…
Category Archives: Breakfast
Sourdough
Having started baking bread as a sort of antidote to work frustration, although I only worked out the connection after I had started making the bread, I am now making sourdoung. This means I have a gloopy smelling mixture, my sourdough starter, living in the fridge which I use to make the loaves. The loaf in the picture on the left is, I think, my finest loaf moment so far. I initially used Nigella’s Domestic Goddess recipe which looked fairly good but didn’t taste sourdoughy enough. I then moved onto Andrew Whitley’s Bread Matters which tasted fantastic but was only an inch high. For this loaf I used a combination of both recipes and it almost made the perfect loaf. I say almost, as it did have a large crack along the top, which doesn’t impact on the taste but doesn’t look very pretty. Anyway, I am proud of it, even if it does take 12 hours to make.
Breakfast at Cha Cha Moon
I need to say before we start that I am not a fan of Chinese food. I went to Cha Cha Moon to meet friends and to check out the new breakfast menu, and it was free. So there we are.
Cha Cha Moon has just started serving Breakfast. We went to the one in Ganton Street. The first thing I noticed was how nice it was to be in Oxford street at 10 O’Clock on a Sunday morning. Most of the shops were closed and it was more or less deserted, excellent for window shopping and noticing that actually, some of those side streets are realy quite attractive when not stuffed with shoppers.
Ch Cha Moon is owned by Alan Yau, he of Wagamama, Yauatcha and Hakkasan. It is basically a noodle bar with a slick interior, comfortable bench seating, low lighting and very friendly staff. The food is very reasonably priced, both for breakfast and dinner. For breakfast the most expensive dish is £6 and most are below that. The menu is short and centres around asian style breakfast favourites, for example Salmon Porridge and Crispy Duck Breakfast Wrap. Both of which sound wrong to me but I think that it is my general aversion to the style of food rather than the food itself. One of my friends ordered the crispy duck wrap and it looked, and apparently was, very good. The duck was juicy but not greay and the wrap was toasted which made it look much more appetising than wraps usually do. The salmon in the Salmon Porridge was apparently well cooked and tasty but the porridge was swimming in cream and went largely uneaten.
I had a taste of Brioche french toast (£3.80) and a whole pancake with raspberry compote (££3.60), presumably on the menu for cowards like me. The Brioche French Toast was a little too sweet but looked soft and fluffy and the 2 year old I was with loved it. The Pancake was excellent, less sweet than the french toast, very good texture and savoury enough to offset the raspberries.
And now the eggs: normally as anyone who reads this blog may know I would order the eggs. They came in several styles, scrambled, fried and in a frittata. However, in keeping wth the rest of the menu they were not ordinary hens eggs but duck eggs. Duck eggs! Now call me squeamish but I have tried to eat duck eggs twice and both times have failed to eat more than a mouthful. In my opinion, and I realise that many will disagree, they smell and taste of fish, and I don’t want that in an egg.
The coffee is good and served in attractive porcelain mugs without handles and the smoothies were unusual and tasty. I would recommend the more adventurous among you, or just those that like this type of food, to try it, if onyl once. The food is cheap and well presented. And if you feel like I do about this type of food, go, watch others eat duck eggs and order the pancake.
