To Bea or Not To Bea

Because Bea's Diner is only open at the weekends and because even I can only manage so many pancakes each month, it's nice to have other Bea's of Bloomsbury breakfast options. They have just opened a new branch near Farringdon station on Cowcross Street. It's the petite Tiffany-blue shop next to the station. This is how close it is to Farringdon station:

Bea's of Bloomsbury's Farringdon store.

Two of my friends work nearby and it's also about three-quarters of the way along my journey to work, so we decided to meet there for an important business meeting breakfast on Friday morning. The first thing I realised when I arrived is that this branch of Bea's is so small, there is definitely no room for any seats inside. There is a bench outside, but it was raining so heavily that even sheltering under copies of yesterday's Evening Standard couldn't keep us dry.

We had bigger problems, though. Namely what to choose for breakfast. Every time someone described one of the tasty treats to me, I kept changing my mind. I adore Bea's blondies and the chocolate chip banana bread also looked good, but in the end I went for a duffin. It was the right thing to do after my recent cronut failure.

A duffin is a doughnut-muffin hybrid. It's shaped like a muffin and made from muffiny cake, but has a jammy centre and is deep fried and dunked in sugar. Pretty sinful. Pretty damn tasty too. For me, a custard or chocolate filling would have made it even better, but I was happy.

Sweet duffins.

Bea's also serves Square Mile coffee, so I washed down my duffin with an impressively strong and smooth double mac.

And coffee too!

I probably shouldn't make it too regular a breakfast date, but it's the perfect occasional treat after a hard week.

Bea's of Bloomsbury. 43 Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6BY (Tube: Farringdon). Website. Twitter.