London breakfast?
 

We're staying just southeast of Regent's Park in a hotel that fails to appreciate our need for full English breakfast included in the price. What, besides stashing yoghurt and granola in our room, to do?

Does anyone have favorite moderately priced breakfast joint? Will travel.

Kippers a plus.

Hmmm. Guess I should have written a sexier title. No rush, though.

1- Pay more at hotel for breakfast.

2- change hotels.

3-Look around on arrival for a cafe.

4-Don't be cheap, your on holiday!

Don't know that area but have noticed that more pubs are advertising full English breakfasts.

Wetherspoons, a chain of pubs which I don't much like, does a reasonably priced English breakfast that DH loves. You would certainly meet your carb and grease quota for the day!

Some of the old time cafes still exist and most do breakfast. Have a look around on the nearest high street.

IME, there are usually some little joints on the smaller side streets that do English breakfasts - a few quid for beans, toasts, tomatoes, eggs etc.

Some Fodorites like the Wolseley for breakfast, but way too pricey for me.
http://www.thewolseley.com/DocsAndMedia/alldaymenu.pdf

I've been searching google for the name of the place on Kensington High Street where we took the family every day during our stay a year ago (we were at the Holiday Inn Kensington and they don't do breakfast). Pricey, American fare (pancakes, etc.), simple stuff but good and filling and free coffee refills :)

Okay, gave you all that and no name! I just remember it began with a B. There's another that does breakfast and brunch called Giraffe, but I haven't been there.

rogeruk. Will carefully consider all your suggestions. Cafe it is.

Thanks, Cathinjoe and yk. Even better.

Possibly kippers have disappeared from the face of the earth, for all I know.

Thanks, Mel. We'll keep our eyes open, as suggested above.

There's a place driectly across from the Kensington High St tube station,on Kensington High Street, I think it had a French name. We had a great breakfast there , so good we went back for dinner one evening. I'll google and see if I can come up with the name.

I think it's Cafe Concerto, it is also a bakery. There is a Pain Quotidien a little further along the High St

>>Possibly kippers have disappeared from the face of the earth, for all I know.<<

Not retail (I bought one for my Sunday breakfast last weekend), but I suspect most hotels and cafés would consider them too much faff for too niche a market.

I seem to remember that some of the larger department stores (Oxford St.) served breakfast. Not sure that they still do, but you might check.

I'm unclear why people are suggesting you go to Kensington, which is practically in a different hemisphere from Regents Park.

You're going to have to forget the kippers, which AFAIK are available only in posh hotels (try the Landmark, which is near where you are) and a handful of eateries - like the Wolseley - that charge at least hotel prices. And if you were happy to pay those prices you'd be eating in your hotel. If desperate, buy a boil in the bag packet from the Tesco Metro in Goodge St or the Sainsburys at Tottenham CR tube, and boil it in your room kettle.

We really need to know more than "SE of Regents Park". Granted that does indeed exclude Kensington, but that's about the only part of London that IS excluded. In particular, are you N or S of the Euston Rd, and E or W of Hamsptead/Tottenhan Court Rd?

If in the NW quadrant of that area, tough. NE quadrant: meander along Eversholt St or Chalton St, both of which have a decent row of greasy spoons (best is the one about 20 yds north of the Novotel, on the W side, of Chalton S, though eggsbaconchipsandbeans recommends the Double 6 in Eversholt St. OK on a crisis). In the SE quadrant, there's one (though gone sadly downhill since being taken over by Eastern European serving black pepper in grinders, rather than proper white pepper, in addition to all sorts of other filthy foreign habits) in the pedestrian walkway just east of Duke's Rd. In the SW quadrant, there's a couple at the top of Conway St.

There's a reasonable list at http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/

Alternatively, buy real kippers from any fishmonger and a big aluminium foil container. Pour boiling water from your room kettle over the kippers in the container, and leave for 10 mins. Drain (just tip the water into the sink) then eat in your room.

Infintely better for you than that disgusting granola muck.

And that's why they put kettles in hotel rooms.

Avalon and historytrav, thanks! I have noted.

I suppose it's too much to hope PatrickL would fix us up some while he was at it?

flanner, we'll be at Holiday Inn Regent's Park, which looks to be south of Marylebone and between Portland Pl. and Tottenham Ct.Rd. I'm sure we'll spring for a nice breakfast or two, and it appears that The Wolseley does serve kippers. (I do have a bad habit of seeing a price like 13.75 on a menu and failing to multiply by the appropriate factor.)

Thanks for the other tips and recipe. Will print and bring. I honestly never knew that's what the hotel kettle is for.

I love the eggsbaconetc. You have pinpointed our demographic exactly.

''Pour boiling water from your room kettle over the kippers in the container........that's why they put kettles in hotel rooms.''

And trouser presses are really for crepes.

(This reminds me of 'Lies to tell tourists' in Time Out. 8-) )

You could take a morning stroll in Regent's Park and find the Honest Sausage.You can get a sausage, egg and bisquit sandwich or other selections. The added bonus would be the walk itself.

Coincidentally, we'll be in Kensington the first two nights, compliments of British Airways bless 'em. But that comes with breakfast.

Is Honest Sausage a food cart? We're always up for a walk.

I also like the looks of the Russell Sq. Cafe in the Garden as featured in eggsbaconetc. That would be a pleasant walk for us.

The Russel Sq cafe is great.

There's also a variety of decent cafes in and around Judd St nearby. There's an italian run place on the corner of Judd St that used to be very good when I worked in the area (this was a few years ago mind).

Thanks, Mr. Warner! We'll check those out.

Honest Sausage is not a food cart. It is an actual building with a few tables inside and outside seating as well if the weather is nice. We stopped there on our way walking thru the park on our way to the zoo.

Good to know, ckiskie. Thanks.

You are also near a couple of hospitals and universities - ok the atmosphere will be crap but all those students, patients and staff need to be fed.

May an outsider wander into a University cafeteria, absorb the student atmosphere, and eat?

I would have thought those facilities are for residents and their visitors only.

That would seem safer and reasonable, RM. But anyone can pay to eat with the students at the US universities I know about.

Since one of us is a student, I thought it might be fun. (She hopes to study abroad in a couple of years.) The caf at her college is the best dining deal in its small town.

May an outsider wander into a University cafeteria, absorb the student atmosphere, and eat?>>>

No. And you wouldn't want to.

Having said that there are umpteen places in Bloomsbury to eat breakfast. It's the one meal that we English can confidently say we are the best in the world at.

Blimey C_W - you made it to work in all that snow! I'm impressed.

Think I will leave at lunchtime in order to beat the rush home tonight.

Nope. Am "working from home". As you can see.

Also, please, we'll be at the Grosvenor House on Park Lane after getting back to town and before flying out. Financial considerations aside, can one trust establishments called Bord'eaux and Le P'tit Cafe to provide an honest English breakfast?

I'm guessing Mayfair isn't a hotbed of greasy spoons. Do we head north?

The Wolseley, which I mentioned at the beginning, is not far from Park Lane.

All right! We'll save the fancy things for last. Thanks, yk.