I've been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Baker Street branch of Canteen for several months now, having enjoyed the "all-day casual eating" delights of the other two branches, although any cool restaurant that is about a 90-second walk from my flat is bound to get many thumbs up. It was quite quiet in there this morning but Baker Street is generally quiet on Sunday mornings and, besides, the place only opened on Tuesday.
The service was excellent, though, as were the cappuccinos (sourced from my favourite Monmouth Coffee Company), although my carrot and ginger juice had a little too much va va voom for my liking so early on a Sunday morning. Mum loved her bubble and squeak and Dad enjoyed his bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs. I had the best bacon sandwich I've had in a long time (since the first one I had after ten years of vegetarianism, anyway). I asked for the bacon to be very crispy and it was but also very tasty and the (sourdough?) bread was pretty good too.
All in all, I was very impressed and will definitely be returning often, especially as they do sausage and mash, a daily roast, afternoon cakes, great, creative cocktails and "bar snacks" that include a fish finger sarnie — OK, yes, said sandwich costs £5.75 and I could make my own for a fraction of the price but that's not the point.
We walked off breakfast around Regent's Park (bumping into quartier resident neighbour, Thomas More Jeremy Northam, on the way) before heading to Selfridge's where there wasn't the slightest sign of any form of credit crunch.
Having dumped the shopping at the flat, I went to meet Dr Max at the BFI. We had a drink in the very funky film cafe/bar before crowding into the very small screen three with a load of film buffs to see In a Lonely Place. It wasn't really Dr Max's kind of film but he didn't have any better plans so agreed to accompany me. We picked up a copy of the programme notes in the hope that we might be able to keep up with the film geeks during the movie but the top warned that there were spoilers therein so we decided we'd better not.
I was expecting something a little more noir and was pleasantly surprised that there were so many great and funny lines (in response to the question, "Why didn't you call for a cab? Isn't that what a gentleman usually does under the circumstances?", Dix Steele, Humphrey Bogart's protagonist (antagonist?) coolly drawls, "I didn't say I was a gentleman. I said I was tired.").
Besides, I always like films that are about the movies (oh, Cinema Paradiso — how pleasantly you made periods seven and eight on a Thursday afternoon go in the upper sixth) and Bogart is effusive, jaded, funny and scary in equal measures, although there is never really any attempt to get to grips with or to explain the lonely place that his character occupies (it isn't, I suppose, really the point).
The BFI is great. However, it is an exercise in choice and comprehending that you will never watch all of the movies you want to see — each month, the programme seems to contain far more films than I can afford to see (in terms of money and time) and yet so many that I would want to see. Besides, members' tickets are only £7.60, which is only just over half the price of the horrible West End cinemas — no classy bars or mediatheques in Leicester Square, that's for sure. The whole too much choice thing probably applies to all of London — it's so nice to always have plenty of possible things to do, of a weekend, after so many years of exile in Nowheresville. Not that I'm complaining, of course.
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