Entropy, Leicester

By Linda Steelyard

One of the best breakfasts in the country can be found in Leicester, according to the Observer.

The newspaper named Entropy among the runners-up in the breakfast category of its food awards. There were no other venues in Leicestershire in the list, and only three across the Midlands.

It’s only, ooh, a stone’s throw from my house if I didn’t throw like a little girl. It seemed rude not to go.

The Observer’s summary read: “Generous portions, particularly if you order the breakfast platter.” TIN.adverts.adWriteDC('article-detail-impact-tile', '452x118');

Well, we were hungry, but even Meal Buddy (MB) and I couldn’t scoff four breakfasts (which is what the platter is), so we chose the scaled-down version – one full English, one veggie, plus cranberry and grapefruit juices.

My veggie breakfast comprised scrambled egg, two hash browns, two thin discs of fried bread (couldn’t work out what they were at first), a grilled tomato, a Portobello mushroom, two sausages and two slices of toast.

It all looked great, everything was fresh and hot and the plate was full.

But this breakfast had a lot to live up to, and it wasn’t perfect. The veggie sausages, I think, were Linda McCartney, which, as any non-meatie will tell you, are tricky little blighters to cook.

They love drying up into tough sticks, and, unfortunately, that had happened.

Other minor gripes were down to my preferences – not Entropy’s fault, of course, but here they are anyway:

The eggs were too sloppy. I’d rather have mushrooms sauteed in butter than a Portobello cooked we didn’t know how, but not in a way which brought out its flavour.

I like a bit of baked bean action.

Breakfast providers of the world – what is the point of ready-made hash browns (as these apparently were)? What’s wrong with a couple of slices of fried potato?

The full English comprised two sausages, two small rashers of bacon, scrambled egg, two discs of fried bread, a grilled tomato, a Portobello mushroom and two slices of toast.

The sausages were “meaty and nicely seasoned”, said MB, but the bacon “thinly cut”. He’d hoped for something more substantial.

He thought the scrambled egg was tasty and would’ve liked more. The mushroom was a “pleasant surprise to begin with” but he was disappointed by its lack of flavour.

There was enough food to satisfy my sparrowesque appetite but MB, despite eating all of his plus my tomato, one of my sausages and some of my toast, was hungry an hour later.

“I want a man’s breakfast for seven quid,” he said. “In fact, I want two.”

Entropy is a lovely place to start the day but, to abuse a phrase from The Apprentice, the search for Leicestershire’s best breakfast continues.