Solely Steve at the Post and Telegraph

29th June.

Some things just have an air of inevitability about them. That an occasion will always come along to end any well-intentioned plans to give up drinking. That I would end up going to a Wetherspoons for a breakfast at some point. That Steve Kelly was going to move to Brighton. This weekend all of the above finally came to pass.

I have (very) briefly described Steve before, when we collaborated on a birthday ambush for mutual friend Ryan several months ago. As stated previously, Steve is one of my oldest, long-suffering friends; we first met back around the start of primary school and have been hanging around being white and nerdy ever since. Since January 2009, having finished his degree at Winchester Uni, Steve had been living at home in Ash Vale with his dad, gradually watching the majority of his pals fly the coop. Now it's his turn. Now he has joined us in Brighton. It's about time. He's a good guy to have around, and should make life in Brighton a good deal more fun for those who know him.

This opens up a whole new world of exciting recreational opportunities. Multiple avenues stretch out before us. We could revisit former glories; back in college the two of us spent a healthy amount of time writing lyrics of a political hip-hop nature. This collaboration was known as 2-Shay, and there is plenty more where that came from. Especially since we now have a degree of political awareness. Alternatively, we could look to the future. Steve has done a rare thing in that he's managed to get himself a job that directly relates to his degree. He's been having a great time working for a digital media distribution company and often this brings him into contact with niche market media. There are an awful lot of films and shorts that we could watch; delights such as Pinocchio 3000 which we could watch, or even re-dub, a la Whose Line Is It Anyway? The world is Steve's oyster, and its shaping up to be a pretty damn tasty oyster.

Now, there is a chance that this post may turn into a critique of Wetherspoons in general. Most towns in the UK are host to at least one of these drinking establishments, upon which one can always rely for immensely affordable drink and food. Although these by and large offer exactly the same things, you can split them into two camps; the J.D Wetherspoons camp and the 'Spoons camp. One attempts to present itself with a veneer of class and the other has no such pretensions. The Post and Telegraph was full of elderly folk and middle-aged couples, with an interior that looked like a cross between a village pub and a town house. This placed it firmly in the J.D Wetherspoons camp. There was some severe misplacement going on in the venue however. A world beer menu for some reason included Newcastle Brown Ale. The breakfast menu referenced Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking-Glass, quoting, "Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." It was as though they tried to find a literary reference that mentioned breakfast just to perpetuate what they thought was a classy image, a quotation just for the sake of having a quotation. That's some GCSE level writing, right there, and no way to sell your breakfast.

And so, the breakfast:

Vegetarian Breakfast

Fried eggs, vegetarian sausage, baked beans, hash browns, mushroom, tomato, slice of toast

Vegetarian Breakfast - £3.19

 

As expected, there was quite a lot of food there for the amount paid. As Steve pointed out though, you get what you pay for. It was served up like a car crash. The butter was plonked unceremoniously on top of one of the eggs, whilst the other was buried under some of the toast. This could have had dire repercussions for eggs of such a fecund nature, and is illustrative of the service you can expect at a Wetherspoons. Additional condiments were to be found at a table at the opposite end of the room, rather than being to hand as at other eateries, adding to a feeling of disregard for the poor hungry who were trying to break their fasts.

In terms of the food the breakfast was hit and miss, in quite a dramatic way. Some components, against the odds, managed to scale Olympian heights, and were juxtaposed with tastes from the torrid depths of Tartarus. A classical example of the slapdash scattershot. The overall impression I got was that this had been cooked as quickly as possible, in a bid to get it out of the kitchen and onto our table, though I've certainly been served food quicker, and with more care. This was a meal of contrasts.

Brighton will be seeing this face a lot in the future

On the negative side then. The hash browns were very crunchy, but were more crunch than flavour. The tomato had a sharp edge but was burnt; it was sooty and charred, masking real flavours. The eggs were vacant; overdone whites, brittle, creamy but flavourless yolks. The mushrooms were smoky and soft, to the point of feeling slightly gooey. All these textures and tastes were symptoms of a real scorching, when a more delicate preparation policy would yield positive results. Components such as tomatoes and eggs need a velvet glove rather than an iron fist, and whether these were prepared clumsily or rashly, either way they weren't at a high standard.

Other elements, mainly those that feel traditionally more hearty, the solid core of the breakfast, came out much better. The baked beans had a dark, rich, weighty taste, with a subtle paprika-esque edge.  The sausage was surprisingly triumphant, with a salty skin, stodgy filling, good mouthfeel. It was ebullient.  Toast was white and seeded (no choice in the matter unfortunately), with slight crunch. It fulfilled the carbohydrate role much more adequately than the hash browns, and indeed 'toast' may have been a more apt word to describe the HBs.

"You get what you pay for." Steve's words are a very apt way to sum up the Wetherspoons breakfast experience. The amount of food you get for your money cannot be faulted, and interestingly the menu informed me that this vegetarian breakfast contained more calories than the meaty equivalent. You're definitely getting a lot for your coin, but the question is whether this is enough to compensate for the lack of care and feeling that goes along with it. I guess the answer to this comes with whether you view your breakfast as a meal or an experience. Obviously I fall in the latter camp, and from the way it presents itself you would have thought that The Post and Telegraph, J.D Wetherspoon's prime establishment on North Street, Brighton, would have a similar view. Alas, no. Still, this venue would be a handy one for the undiscerning fastbreaker with a limited budget.

Function:  fills you up, a lot 3/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: it tastes like burning 2/5
Value: your wallet will remain as full as the plate 5/5
Presentation: car crash 2/5
Venue: J.D Wetherspoons 2/5

Overall: serves a purpose rather than providing an experience 2/5