Thursday, March 05, 2009

Vege Breakfast at McLarens

The search for the perfect vegetarian breakfast is a lifelong quest. For me there are a number of essential agreements - eggs, mushrooms (not tinned), some kind of vegetarian sausage/bacon and some kind of potato product (such as hash browns. Price is also a factor - it should be roughly equivalent to the cost of meaty fry up in a local cafe (i.e. not restaurant prices).

For many years my favourite was the breakfast at Domali, the excellent vegetarian cafe in Crystal Palace. But now it has been pushed into second place by the breakfast at McLarens Bar and Grill in Honor Oak Park.The vege breakfast there includes scrambled egg, tarragon sausage, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, potato wedges, beans and four slices of toast. Extra points for having a home made sausage rather than using a supermarket bought one and for offering (without being asked) an extra sausage when I said I didn't want beans. Extra extra points for running over the road to buy a new bottle of tabasco when they realized that the bottle I'd asked for was empty. All this for £4.45.

Lots of other good food on the menu including vegetarian dishes but it may be a while before I get beyond the breakfast.

(evidently I am not the only one who thinks so - see this analysis of the breakfast)
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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nom! Sounds great ...

Anonymous said...

Cheers, thanks for linking to my photo! I'm glad to hear the breakfasts are still good over there, though it's been a while since I visited...

The quest for a good veggie breakfast is indeed a long and arduous one, but an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm, never been there, will go and investigate one day. Agree totally re sausages and mushrooms. Hate those things that pretend to be sausages but are actually just mashed potato or rice with a few bits of veg in them, and mushrooms must be fresh, not tinned!

Anonymous said...

"Great breakfast" and "vegetarian" are surely mutually exclusive! Get some meat down you, it'll wake you up a bit!

Anonymous said...

That bit of Brockley Rise/Honor Oak Park is a bit of a culinary oasis. I've only been to McLarens once but it was excellent - the only reason I haven't been back is I'm not an early riser & like breakfast in bed!

There's also Le Querce (top notch Italian or rather Sardinian), a very good small & unpretentious Chinese restaurant, and the Babur Brasserie very near - all in one tiny area.

(Great blog BTW)

Anonymous said...

Great cafe - first time I went, I sat outside with my dog, weekend papers and bf - a little bit of heaven in brockley/honor oak. Owner very friendly and gave my daughter a complimentary lolly after our vegi breakfast this week. Tops!

Anonymous said...

Being a chef it is not something that I had thought of much before the veggie breakfast. What about something like eggs florentine? Or maybe a nice frittata?