Breakfast Nomination #4 - the Southern on Clerk Street

Nomination #3 - the Southern on Clerk Street

Nominated by Simon Messer, an old college of mine

Originally reviewed on July 5th, 2015

"Is that a sympathy sausage?"

His score: 3.5/6
My score: just ok in terms of breakfast but would definitely go back for dinner or lunch

He ate: "blueberry pancakes" with maple syrup and crème fraîche (£5) with a pot of English breakfast tea (£2.50).
I ate: the Southern Breakfast (essentially a big, full cooked breakfast with all the usuals) (£8) and also a tea (£2.50)
Total cost: £18

Our pros: friendly service upon arrival; nice layout; reasonable prices; orange juice comes with full cooked breakfast; complimentary bourbon with tea, and mostly decent food.
Our Cons: extremely quiet waiter who served us after we sat down; bitter tasting tea; not a huge selection on the breakfast menu, and Gary was very disappointed as his pancakes were cold when served and he expected/would've preferred them to be hot.

Our experience: All in all a reasonably pleasant experience but nothing extraordinary and for some reason our breakfast was briefly interrupted by a couple slow-dancing and singing along to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on their way out the door after their own breakfast. Ok then.

I personally feel like this place was lacking a little in terms of breakfast but I have to highlight that the menu for lunch and dinner was actually huge and had many varied choices. I've also heard a lot of good things about this place so I would be quick to return for a meal other than breakfast.

When we arrived the waitress who greeted us was friendly and funny but we didn't really see her again after we sat down as we then got served by a waiter who talked so quietly I needed Gary to translate for me.

He whispered something about whether we needed sugar when he delivered our tea, though I felt like the sugar should've just come with the tea - what is with places rationing sugar like it's WW2 again!? Though when he did bring the sugar, it came in quite a cute little tin - though one that had a design probably literally from WW2 era.

The tea tasted a little bitter to me - even with the sugar! And for some reason none of the hot drinks seemed to appear on the menu for the place so I didn't know what prices/options there were and I really don't like when you don't know what your options are or how much they cost - what's the point in having menus otherwise?

My breakfast was tasty enough and filling, but nothing special compared to most cooked breakfasts you would get elsewhere.

Gary was let down that his breakfast was cold so it was obvious the pancakes weren't freshly made and also that the "blueberry pancakes" as advertised were actually just cold pancakes with blueberries sprinkled on top as an afterthought as opposed to something akin to a blueberry muffin with blueberries immersed and cooked within the batter. A little bit of false advertising there I think, hmm!

He did say the crème fraîche was really tasty though and I donated a sausage and black pudding to Gary so his breakfast wasn't so piddly, hence the "sympathy sausage" quote.

I will say that this place had an exciting looking menu for other meals and lots of choice for alcoholic beverages if you were to go back later in the day.
They also did snacky things while you waited for your food so if you wanted to order a wee bowl of spicy popcorn or olives for about £2 each then you could have something to nibble on waiting for your main meal.

Gary and I agreed we'd go back in a heartbeat for other meals but in terms of breakfast, this place fell a little flat and it would've been nice if the waiter who served us could've spoken above a whisper as my wizened old ears couldn't pick up a fucking word he said!

Still, this place was miles above McDonald's and I didn't feel like vomiting all over myself after so that was nice change from the last nomination to say the least.

What’s next: Our next nomination is Patisserie Valerie, nominated by my oldest and dearest friend Ashley.