i was given this really nifty little card from a lovely lady called kb at fourteen ten to try #breakfastmyway at the big chill house near kx. it has taken me a while to get round to using it as when the card first arrived the only breakfast i could face was a hot honey, lemon and ginger thanks to a sore throat that cost me my voice and a weeks worth of sleep. summer is turning a page in london so that although today was a warm day, the seriously grey sky made it seem closer to winter in spirit than autumn. it was just the right day to try the cheer of the big chill house.
i took myself down to the big chill house for breakfast before heading into work today. for a while now i have been thinking about boiled eggs and soldiers. i haven't eaten a soft boiled egg in a long long time, possibly since kindergarten. mum had these rather uninspiring but very functional brown two toned egg cups that i dreaded, partly because of the insipid nature of the egg cup and mostly because i detested soft boiled eggs. not only did i dislike egg yolk, i detested runny yolks. now i love eating poached eggs specifically for the runny yolks.
eggs and soldiers are quintessentially english. in fact the first time i heard of them was when i moved to london. they are basically thin sliced sections of toast and are the perfect accessory to dip into a runny yolk. i do believe that boiled eggs and soldiers are somewhat of an art. when it comes to the egg it has to be boiled just to point when the yolk is runny and the whites just set. the toast soliders have to be thick enough not to be fragile and thin enough to be able to be dipped into the hollow of the yolk. in fact so important is the toast soldier that a couple of years ago an electronics engineer invented a device to perforate toast into the perfect soldiers. he used to hate cutting up toast because
"it is fiddly, messy and time consuming. there has always been a danger of cutting your soldiers too fat or too thin. if they are too fat then obviously they can't fit into the opened neck of the egg which is infuriating. but if the soldiers are too small then there's the risk of a catastrophic failure after they're dunked into the yolk. the simple act of withdrawing the soldier may cause it to break in half, forcing the person who is eating the egg to resort to a teaspoon."
fortunately for the big chill house, they manage the perfect soldiers.erect slim fingers of perfectly toasted toast with a side of butter and markedly salty marmite (yes, i am a marmite lover). however, it was the boiled egg which turned out to be mixed experience. unfortunately the egg was too done and so i couldn't really dip the toast soldiers into the yolk. instead i had spread the yolk onto the soldiers. the white was done perfectly and it was a real pleasure running the spoon against the shell to release it and eat it whilst it was still warm.
the space itself is spacious and airy. i love the expansive windows that look out onto the traffic whilst filtering the sound of the traffic. i can definitely see myself coming back with o in tow and a newspaper too. next time round i'll be trying the big chill house's version of rosti. and perhaps the next time a perfectly boiled egg too.
"it is fiddly, messy and time consuming. there has always been a danger of cutting your soldiers too fat or too thin. if they are too fat then obviously they can't fit into the opened neck of the egg which is infuriating. but if the soldiers are too small then there's the risk of a catastrophic failure after they're dunked into the yolk. the simple act of withdrawing the soldier may cause it to break in half, forcing the person who is eating the egg to resort to a teaspoon."
fortunately for the big chill house, they manage the perfect soldiers.erect slim fingers of perfectly toasted toast with a side of butter and markedly salty marmite (yes, i am a marmite lover). however, it was the boiled egg which turned out to be mixed experience. unfortunately the egg was too done and so i couldn't really dip the toast soldiers into the yolk. instead i had spread the yolk onto the soldiers. the white was done perfectly and it was a real pleasure running the spoon against the shell to release it and eat it whilst it was still warm.
the space itself is spacious and airy. i love the expansive windows that look out onto the traffic whilst filtering the sound of the traffic. i can definitely see myself coming back with o in tow and a newspaper too. next time round i'll be trying the big chill house's version of rosti. and perhaps the next time a perfectly boiled egg too.
No comments:
Post a Comment