The English Breakfast
As important as Sunday lunch, a good English breakfast is a must-try on any visit to London. Most times it’s under a tenner and it is a lot of food. While a proper English breakfast is good under most circumstances, it seems to taste just a bit better the morning after a long night out at the pub.
Just in case there are any questions, the elements of a proper English breakfast are as follows:
Eggs. The standard is fried with a nice runny yoke. Scrambled or poached are merely tolerated.
Bacon. Not the strip kind, but the ham-like kind. Salty and fatty, it is the perfect food.
Sausage. Unlike its North American counterpart, these links don’t need breakfast, breakfast needs them.
Grilled tomato. While some places try to get cute by giving you cherry tomatoes, the best stuff is a proper vine ripened gem with a proper amount of char-grill on it.
Fried mushrooms. No need for anything fancy here. Just the modest button mushroom and lots of butter please.
Toast. Properly buttered and if you’re really English, white. I’m from North America, so my toast is always brown.
Baked beans. This is what makes the English breakfast English. Sweet, smoky and packed with flavour, English baked beans are the best kind.
The 95 pounder
Wagyu beef, white truffle, pata negra ham slices, cristal onion straws, modena balsamic vinegar, lambs lettuce, pink himalayan rock salt, organic white wine and shallot infused mayonnaise in an Iranian saffron and white truffle dusted bun.
Is this worth £95?
Burger King seems to think so. The world’s most expensive hamburger will be available for pick up at its Gloucester Road branch on June 26.
You can’t just go in and order it however. Those looking to get their taste buds on the lavish burger, will have to pre-order via the good old fashioned telephone.
For those of you who are interested, you can call this number to place your order as of June 19: 0800 756 6629.
Youth Binge Drinking
“More young people in Wales have been drunk at least twice by the age of 13 than anywhere else in the western world, a survey has found.” (BBC.co.uk)
So there is a huge binge drinking problem in the UK. I’ll save the discussion about adult binge drinking for another time. (Probably after I’ve seen yet another yob barfing on the tube.)
What has been top of mind as of late has been the issue of youth binge drinking. It’s actually gotten so bad here that the NHS has launched a pretty intense “Know Your Limits” public service campaign.
Just a few stories to illustrate:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article747872.ece
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=179982&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2116518/Drunk-and-disorderly-children-escaping-prosecution.html
To remedy the issue the government has decided to “get tough” by slamming those who sell cheap booze (Tesco and ASDA in particular) and by proposing that the suggesting a minimum price for liquor. To show the kids that they mean business, they have proposed that you should be over 21 to buy alcohol in the stores, but 18 year olds can still buy booze in pubs and restaurants. Today I read that they were now trying to make those buying alcohol at the market should have to go through an “alcohol-only” check out.
What you have here is a government that is desperate to provide a superficial fix to a problem that is deeply complex. It’s like trying to put lipstick on a pig really.
To quote the Children's Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler, "The whole of our culture is based on drinking," he said. "As adults we have got to think of our responsibilities to children and what example we are setting."