Nigel's Beetroot Porridge

This is my first non-restaurant-related post. And I'll admit from the outset, it looks a little dodgy. I promise you, it's not. It is delicious. The above picture is my colleague Nigel's creation. We often get into work at stupid hours of the morning. Like 5am stupid. You feel like you are not a functioning member of society. But there is one thing that cheers us up: a tasty breakfast. One morning Nigel brought in a container filled with something resembling (in the words of another colleague) "bloody vomit." But I was curious. I asked for a taste. Let me tell you - looks aside - Nigel has created a genuis bowl of oats. Although you may crinkle your nose at beet juice for breakfast, it's actually barely noticeable. Adding a splash of apple juice gives it a lovely sweetness. Here's his recipe.

Nigel's Beetroot Porridge

Organic oats

Organic beetroot juice (eg Beet It, which is 10% apple juice too)

Nuts, apple, carrot (grated), dried fruits and seeds

Yoghurt or cream

Soak three or four handfuls of oats in the beetroot juice so that the mixture resembles a runny porridge. Leave to soak in the fridge for several hours, then serve with grated apple or carrot, nuts, dried fruits, seeds, yoghurt or cream. It works well with apple and pear juice.

Three cheers for Nigel! Let us know what you think!

Fleet River Bakery: Niche quiche

71 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, WC2A 3JF

tel: +44 (o)20 7691 1497

"What do you mean you've never heard of Monmouth coffee before?!?" I shrieked as my colleagues shrugged their shoulders. "REALLY?" My life's mission suddenly became clear to me. I would strive to introduce every single soul I knew to a cup of London's best coffee. I was first introduced to Monmouth brew ten years ago at Borough Market. I used to think that was the only place you could get it. Then I discovered the original Monmouth Coffee shop on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden. Oooh, the excitement. But THEN, I found out that Monmouth is all over London. You just have to be a super sleuth and search it out. Lucky for moi, it's on the menu at Fleet River Bakery, just a hop, skip and jump away from my place of work at BBC Bush House. The joy of it.

Fleet River is not all about the Monmouth coffee however (which my colleagues became instant converts to by the way). It is the most fabulous breakfast and lunch spot this side of Holborn station. Breakfast starts at 0700 and includes freshly baked pastries, banana bread and massive bowls of yogurt, fresh fruit and compote. It beats the stale, factory packed crap at Starbucks and other coffee shops by a million miles. Tag on an uber trendy flat white (made with Monmouth beans) and you've got yourself a breakfast of champions.

Lunches at Fleet River Bakery are a splendid treat too. Each day they have a new soup, freshly made sandwiches, a frittata or two and their specialty...quiche. I've tasted the traditional quiche lorraine (fabulous!), a spinach and ricotta number with pine nuts (hello heaven!) and another with tomato and butternut squash, which was very, very good. All of the frittatas and quiches come with the option of salad on the side - and you get a choice of three. Often they have a fresh Greek salad, something with chickpeas, potato something-or-other and lots of leafy greens. If you can't decide, they'll let you have all three. For desserts, you've got your pick of giant slabs of homemade cake, chocolate brownies, and oversized cookies. They also have jars filled with old-fashioned candy such as lemon drops and humbugs. The main level has a couple stools to perch at, but if they're taken, there's a downstairs too. The atmosphere is very chilled with a side of rockabilly. Johnny Cash is often on the stereo - and Tom Waits too. I wish Fleet River Bakery was still a secret, but the queues keep growing by the day. It's easy to see why. 

Wright's Bar: Five can dine for £9.99

5 Houghton Street, Holborn, WC2A 2AD

tel: +44 (0)20 7405 4421

"Let's go for breakfast," says my editor. This is not a phrase I hear often. I work on a morning radio programme that gets put together in a mere three hours. It's usually so rushed it feels a bit like someone's holding a gun to your head, shouting, "MAKE RADIO! NOW!". But on this particular day, most of the programme was being presented and put together in Baghdad. So we had some slack. We decided to celebrate by going for a team breakfast and trekked across the street from the BBC studios in Bush House. It was 7am, and like zombies, we stumbled sleepily into Wright's Bar. I admit, I groaned when I saw where we were going. It's a dive. Right across from the London School of Economics, it attracts students whose mummies and daddies have not sponsored their full education. It is for those on student loans and struggling to make ends meet in one of the most expensive cities in the world. It is for journalists who have a whole 15 minutes to spare for breakfast. 

We were surprised at such an early hour to find other people inside. Two workmen in bright yellow vests were hunched over two gigantic plates of french fries with gravy. Breakfast of champions. There aren't many tables in Wright's. Those that do exist are stuffed in the very back of the cafe, near the storage closet. We plopped ourselves into five seats. A nice old man came over with a pad of paper to take our orders. I was feeling flush and went for the most expensive thing on the menu. 

A ham and cheese omelette with a side of fried tomatoes was £2.70. And that's why people come here. It's cheap. Dirt cheap. One of my colleagues had a bowl of minestrone soup (at 7am - weird, right?) and that put him back a whole 80p. As much as I would like to pull the food snob card here, this place is actually decent. The omelette was a generous size and whatever cheese they used inside was tasty. The ham did not look like SPAM. The tomatoes were burnt to shit, but when I last looked at the stickers on the door, I didn't see a Michelin star.

Granted, if you ate here everyday, you would end up like Morgan Spurlock in that Mc-movie and start having heart palpitations. I'm not sure anything on the menu is good for you. Likely nothing is organic. But hey, it's cheerful - and cheap as chips.