» Food&Drink
Andrew Kay inspired by marathon runners, fills his boots at Queens Park’s Home Café
It was the wettest of Sundays and the seafront was awash with washed out and washed up half marathon runners looking like bedraggled oven-ready chickens in their Bacofoil wraps. Strangely, it made me hungry, and with Mr R on his sickbed and nothing in the cupboard, I gave Mr L a call and suggested brunch at Home Café in Queens Park.
Home is a much neglected favourite of mine and one that I have written about before. So in a sense this would be a test: would Home live up to my favourable reviews and memories? I was already craving a fish finger sandwich and I hoped above all that their range of cakes would be as tempting as the last time.
“We decided that the two specials would hit the spot, especially if supplemented by a shared fish finger sandwich. What piggies!”
Home may well call itself a café, but in my opinion it is far more like the tea rooms of my Lancashire childhood where you could get everything from a Chorley cake to a cottage pie. Home has that sort of appeal, with people going there for a snack – an indulgence even – or a full-on hearty meal.
Despite – or because of – the teeming rain, Home was choca, with barely a seat to be had. We were just in time to snaffle the last table for two before a massive group came in demanding coffee and cooked breakfasts all round.
Mr L and I were in a far more sophisticated mood and went straight to the ‘specials’ board for inspiration. Oh yes, and we already had a large glass of dry white for me and the Bloody Mary that I loved so much last time for Mr L. It certainly put a smile on his face which he attributed to a sharp hit of grated horseradish and a slosh of vermouth.
We finally decided that the two specials would hit the spot, especially if supplemented by a shared fish finger sandwich. What piggies! Mr L was to tackle a dish of crispy bacon served with scrambled eggs, American pancakes and lashings of maple syrup. Oh, how wrong syrup and bacon may sound but how right it tastes. It was good bacon too, nice thick back rashers and not that weird crispy thin stuff or the insult of overpriced pancetta. It kept him quiet for quite some time, no mean feat I might add. I tucked into bubble and squeak with grilled smoked mackerel and poached egg.
I come from a part of the country where bubble and squeak is an alien concept.But I grew to love it when I moved south. This bubble was so good that it eclipsed both the fish and the egg – not that they were bad either. In fact, all the ingredients were top notch. But you know how it is, when something is so good that it makes you sigh like a satisfied pussy cat…
As for the fish finger sandwich, well what’s not to like? I did take the top lid off my bit as a half hearted gesture towards restraint and also in anticipation of a slice of a very handsome cheesecake that I could see lurking on the counter like some buxom culinary whore, winking at me and promising to envelope me in its welcoming folds.
In the end we tucked into a plate of cakes, sharing them all. The cheesecake certainly came up to scratch, matching my favourite which comes from a patisserie in East Sheen. Oh, how I have fantasised over that saucy minx.
There was also a very creditable Millionaire’s Shortbread, lemon drizzle cake and a deeply chocolatey brownie that could easily have been leader of the pack. I was most excited about the promise of an Eccles cake. Now the pastries of Lancashire are a passion of mine and a delight that I genuinely miss. My mum makes most of them brilliantly and her egg custard tarts make softie southern impostors look like badly lanced boils. Her’s tremble like tender flesh in a cloak of whispering shortcrust pastry.
The Home Eccles cake was damned good, OK, it didn’t drive me to the excesses of my last sentence, but it certainly put a smile on my face, even if it did have candied peel in it. Not that I dislike candied peel but back home they seldom do. The pastry though was exemplary.
We finished with a brace of large espressos. A perfect end we thought, if they were going to be hot and strong. And so they were, robust and piping hot, the perfect end to an excellent and very affordable Sunday Brunch.
Home, 32 Egremont Place, Brighton, BN2 OGA, 01273 674456, www.homebrighton.co.uk
