A taste of home: E Pelliccis

There’s a kind of special moment you sometimes get when you’re on holiday -  maybe it’s when you’re walking through a fug of incense in a backstreet market; or squeezed in a thrumming side-street bar as the evening kicks off; or sitting in sleepy town square, watching locals smoking and playing chess – and the magic suddenly strikes you and you think if only it was like this at home.

Of course being on holiday also means you conveniently forget that haggling over your weekly Tesco’s shop, or being pinned up against the wall by the hordes at your local when all you really wanted was a quiet after-work pint, would seem completely insufferable when you’re back in the real world. And who really remembers how to play chess, anyway.

Well, I had my own moment, on the Bethnal Green Road of all exotic locations, just a few weeks ago. A moment that’s so perfect that you feel like you’re in a book and you don’t ever want the story to ever end; and all before breakfast.

Well, more accurately, for breakfast. But while I was waiting for my fry up and drinking my way through the second cup of thick, malty tea I was already thinking – as I idly read the advert for a commemorative birthday party for the Kray twins that was stuck in the window  - that as moment’s come, they don’t get much better than this. And better still, I was at home.

Well, more accurately, on the Bethnal Green Road. At E Pelliccis, the celebrated café that has been in the same family since it was built in 1900 and who have fed everyone from the aforementioned Krays (who often ran their ‘business’ from here) to Henry Cooper to most of the cast of EastEnders. The bright yellow Vitrolite frontage and Art Deco-style marquetry panelled interior remain untouched - leading to the building being Grade II listed a decade ago which means that, like my favourite caff, the Regency Café in Pimlico, when you step through the door it’s hard to tell if it’s 2016 or 1960.

We, of course, were here for the full English (which come sans beans as standard, so remember to add them in if you’re a legume fan) mine without egg but with a wonderful puck of homemade bubble, a pan-fried potato and veg cake with the vegetal funk from the leftover boiled cabbage and broccoli. One of the few things, the others being sausage sandwiches and corned beef hash, that I prefer with brown sauce. The rest of it was pretty spot on, too, especially the fried mushrooms, which were as fine as any I’ve had.

Here the sauce is in squeezy bottles, the marge thickly spread on your toast 'do you want another slice, gels?’, and you can get a fried slice with a fried egg on it; surely the key evidence in the case against having to show the calorie counts on restaurant menus.

It's also worth trying to leave room for a slice of the bread pudding for afters, you can always get it to takeaway. (Also checkout Percy Ingle bakery a couple of doors down, the only place apart from Greg’s, I’ve ever seen my beloved Tottenham cake).

Even better than the food is the service, which revolves around non-stop banter (in the traditional sense, when it meant being both quick-witted and good-natured) from both the customers and the staff. My favourite part was the conversation that started up as we went to pay.  ‘Gels, I’ve been reading that Lady Chatterley's Lover. She might have been all prim and proper but - I don’t mean to be rude, gels - she still let him give her one’.

It’s an wonderful microcosm of London life and a slice of our city that makes me feel very proud; proving you don't need fancy foreign climes, just a good cup of splosh served with a friendly smile, to get that little magical shiver down your spine. Yours for 70p, but the feeling's priceless.

Robbers and Cops - Regency Cafe and the MOJ

I've got an idea... Why don't you come 'round for breakfast? I'll squeeze some orange juice and grind some coffee and we can talk about this like adults. How's that sound?

Anyone that's familiar with the British crime caper Layer Cake may remember a pre-Bond Daniel Craig quoting the above line to a Serbian drug dealer who's on the hunt for a million missing ecstasy tablets. Even if you don't remember the intricacies of the script, then there's a good chance you would recall the scene filmed at Pimlico's legendary Regency Cafe, where a 'business breakfast' ends in an unfortunate incident with a kettle.

While our early lunchtime visit was far more amiable, nothing much else has changed; from the formica table tops to the plastic sauce bottles to the art deco tiling to the signed Spurs photos from the 60s, you could genuinely imagine eating here at any time during the last five decades and the décor being exactly the same -  preserved in aspic, just like the corned beef in their salads. 

Sure you can no longer enjoy a woodbine with your cup of tea - served here the colour of creosote (THE best colour for tea - TE) - but the food, from the steak pie with virginal boiled spuds and processed peas to the fish and chips served on a Friday, is unapologetically untouched by modern convention.

As well as an expertly stewed cup of splosh, dispensed from the ornate urn on the counter, there is also orange juice in glass bottles. Anyone who ever woke up to the clank of the milkman collecting the empties will share my nostalgia for the joyful ritual of shaking a bottle fresh off the step, before putting your thumb through the foil top. Happy days.

Our family only ever had milk delivered, so I was rather jealous to hear the Ewing’s mum also ordered orange juice for their breakfast when she was growing up; I’d have been very jealous if I’d found out she’d also had the little pots of Ski strawberry yoghurt.

The aforementioned homemade pie looked majestic, but who could pass up a lovingly crafted fry up - nothing’s getting grilled here. Here the standard English comes with either baked beans or tomato (both fresh and tinned are available) toast and tea or coffee. I added extra black pudding and shifted my egg over to the Ewing, although sadly they had already run out of bubble and squeak. 

For my money, this is exactly what a full English should look like; no avocado, no rocket (although I did notice my toast was made from brown bread) no fuss. The bacon was particularly noteworthy, although probably down to the fact it had been properly cooked on a well-seasoned flat top, rather than the provenance.

I’ve never knowingly turned down a stodgy school dinner-style pudding with custard, and here was no exception when I saw they had bread and butter pudding with cinnamon. Needless to say, my soporific tower of baked buttered bread, interspersed with plump raisins and spice and cloaked in a thick blanket of Bird’s finest made a fitting end to our meal.

The Ewing wasn't complaining too much about her chocolate sponge with chocolate custard, either. Both yours for two English pounds; we even got two free unclaimed cuppas thrown in to wash it down.

Our slap up feast was followed by stop four on the #brutaltour, my ongoing mission to visit all 54 buildings on Blue Crow Media's map of Brutalist London with a trip up the road to marvel at the wonderful Ministry of Justice. Designed by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners, with Sir Basil Spence and completed in 1976, it stands out as a bold but fascinating chunk of modernism with it's fishtank windows and main tower that was, apparently, based on medieval Italian castles.

 

The last time I was here I was on the way to being late to my own wedding and had been told, in no uncertain terms, that there was no time for dawdling (although we still had room for a swift half before the ceremony. Also known as getting your priorities right). This time I had plenty of time to browse and found it interesting to see the contrast between the Regency Cafe, scene of a British crime drama, and the MOJ, brutal heart of British justice.

Built only thirty years apart, but a lifetime away in style and form, they both remain notable for different reasons; two nostalgic nuggets of London's recent history that's slowly being eroded by gaudy colored boxes and spiraling towers. As XXXX said in the film; 'when I was born, the world was a far simpler place. It was all just cops and robbers'.