The Breakfast Club, Spitalfields

An old uni friend came to visit back in April, who I literally hadn't seen for about a year, so I wanted to take her to some cool places in London, have great catch-ups and make some fun memories for us.

She arrived pretty early on a Saturday, nice wake up call for me, into Liverpool Street and we decided to get brunch first thing for a good catch up (my fave). I love East London, there are so many independent, chic cafés, bars and restaurants to choose from. Astonishingly, I have never been to the Breakfast Club before and there is so much hype about this place, even though it's been around for a while now. I see queues outside the Soho branch at like 4pm sometimes. So we headed to Spitalfields!

Courtesy of The Breakfast Club's Google + page

Already a queue outside the door, we decided to just risk it and wait. The queue that was said to only last 20 mins, lasted instead over an hour....hmm reminds me of another time.....

A queue with a view. Jealous of everyone eating.
That neon heart sign says "Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls"

Once inside, at about midday, the queue was about twice the size it was when we had stood in it. GO EARLY!!

The setting was cute, booths for the larger numbers, some high tables and chairs and thick, rustic wooden tables scattering the room. It had a quirky industrial feel - you can see the metal scrap yard-esque chairs surrounding the tables. Quirky because there was a large Smeg fridge on one wall - which in fact turned out to be a door. Great touch.

Courtesy of The Breakfast Club's Google + page

Oh and I am sucker for a great bathroom. I should have a blog just dedicated to bathrooms, but I think other patrons might find it a bit weird to see me taking pictures of a cool bathroom, when they just want to wash their hands. I just really appreciate when effort has gone into making a really modern and chic or rustic and old-school bathroom. When it's not just run-of-the-mill.

Not the most snazzy I've ever been to, but the bathrooms here had some seriously cutesy wallpaper:

The My Little Pony Craze has spread to restaurant bathrooms....

I was feeling like I needed a bit of a health kick (we'll see how well that turned out....) so went for something savoury, even though their pancakes look incredible. We both went for the same thing (great minds) chorizo hash browns, but I added feta to mine.

Along with two smoothies, instead of coffee (shocking I know). I got a "Green is good" concoction - spinach, mint, mango and apple. Seriously - SO yummy. And S went for a "Blue Monday" - blueberry, strawberry and apple.

Fresh smoothies are amazing, their colour was just incredible:

They were so thick and filling they were a meal unto themselves.

Now the food...in hindsight, I was never really going to enjoy this dish because I hate fried eggs - and really greasy food in general. But it did taste great. The chorizo sausages were excellent, the potatoes and the peppers and mushrooms, all lovely. And the feta added an extra depth - although 7 cubes for a £1 more...not sure it was all that worth it. But I adore feta cheese so I would do it again!

But.....I hate greasy food. This plate had clearly been cooked in so much oil, it was swimming in grease. Understandably, as the whole plate was fried food, but did it really need that much oil?! The chorizo - although one of my favourite foods - came in giant, fat sausage form, which was unbelievably off-putting. Grease and fat poured out of them as you cut into it. I could only stomach eating one of them. I expected them to come as thin chorizo, or cut up pieces. I have never seen chorizo in British sausage form - maybe that's just me being naive though.

I'm not someone who counts calories - can you see how many burgers I eat?! - but I do like to eat healthily once in a while. The meals I cook for myself are pretty healthy, but I figure that allows me to have more chocolate! But here's the thing, I never like eating things that are worse for you just for the sake of it. For example, if a recipe asks for butter and olive oil in the pan I will usually just pick one or the other. Or I'll always choose a low-fat plain natural yoghurt, as it tastes exactly the same as full-fat but it's better for me. (That doesn't stand with Greek yoghurt though!!) I like to grill my sausages and bacon, instead of frying them in a pan because there's less fat and grease then. I am that person that cuts the fat off bacon, unless it has gone super crispy. Sue me.

So the meal was a bit of a backfire for my health kick then. It tasted great, don't get me wrong, but I hate grease and the dish just made me feel queasy. The taste of the chorizo and the grease just lingered in my mouth for the whole day. And that's not just my opinion, S said it had a really strong after taste too! But I don't think she was as bothered about the grease as I was. I guess on the plus side it filled us up for the entire day - we only needed a snack later on - but for me it was that heavy, lethargic, bloated, my-cholesterol-must-be-sky-high-right-now, I-feel-so-sorry-for-my-blood-sugar-levels, kind of feeling.

For some reason on the day I was feeling really indecisive. There was nothing on the menu that really grabbed me. I look at it now and I can pick out a good 4 different dishes that I want to gorge on right now! I don't know why I didn't go for one of them. Definitely should have gone for the cinnamon and apple french toast, or the breakfast burrito. Just nothing with fried eggs. Probably would have been healthier for me!!

Next time. There will be a next time because I want to rectify my memory of the Breakfast Club. I know the food in there is good, I kept lusting after plates I saw going to other people's tables. This dish was just not the one for me. And now I really can't stop thinking about that French toast.