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Bubbleboy's guide to eating cheaply in London

London is generally regarded as one of the most expensive places to live, work and play in the world, but there are still a plethora of cheap places to eat. I will grant you that a fair majority are of poor standard, but a good few shine out as beacons for the skint and hungry.
Here are a few of my favourites:
'Tai' Veg Noodle Bar, 10 Greek Street, W1 - one of many 'Tai' veggie and vegan cafes in London - an unlimited buffet of 'mock' meats, noodles, rice and veg all for a £5 (approx)
'Leon' - there are now 8 branches in London serving cheap Mediterranean style wholefood, the sweet potato falafels are lovely. The Spitalfields branch is my favourite, is has a great outdoor area.
Any of the Indian restaurants on Drummond Street, especially 'Chutney's'
'Wetherspoons' - for their ultra-cheap veggie breakfasts for £2.49 (and they use free-range eggs!)
'Jai Krishna' - a brilliant cheap Indian veggie restaurant on Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park (now has another branch on Turnpike Lane)
Any of the Indian cafes on Turnpike Lane, especially 'Salim's'
'Mega Bite Cafe' - a very plain ordinary looking Chinese cafe next to the Emirates Stadium which serves mountainous plates of very good, cheap Chinese grub (also 'Green Jade' on Holloway Road, another great cheap Chinese cafe)

and last but not least, the thousands of cafes and 'greasy spoons' in London, with their 'Set Breakfasts' and 'Roast Dinners'.

Cafe Musac

"any recorded background music; (more widely) light, bland music of a kind regarded as easy to listen to, whether recorded or live" OED Definition

No! Cafe Musac is not another new Hampstead eating establishment, but refers to the incessant stream of drivel that is played in most cafes nowadays.
All I want to do in the morning, before tackling the horny beast 'work' is to sit quietly in my local cafe, eat my usually mediocre breakfast and struggle with the Guardian crossword, not have 'House' music or some moronic radio presenter booming in my ear.
We are bombarded by noise pollution everywhere we go, is nothing sacred?

The healthy Scottish breakfast!

My brother is in Edinburgh, well Portobello to be precise, and is scathing about his B&B's full Scottish breakfast, "swimming in grease" was one of his comments. He also says that Edinburgh etc is incredibly expensive for eating out, everything is geared towards the tourist industry.

So in the interest of scientific research I googled 'Scottish Breakfasts' and up popped the picture on the left. What the hell are slices of orange doing on the plate, is this an effort to try and make it healthier?

'The Decline and Fall....'

You know sometimes when you get a craving that just won't go away, like for a tin of curried baked beans or in this case a chip roll!

Well I had to have one, so I went to my nearest chippy, placed my order and stood back aghast when the man put his hand into the 'roll box' (a technical term!) and brought out a soft seeded burger bun!! Before he could fill it with chips I remonstrated "haven't you got any crusty rolls?", but he hadn't, so I withdrew.

I mean what is the world coming too? Standards are slipping, once you knew where you stood, now things are hazy!

More 'Up the Holloway'

The Green Jade, 219 Holloway Road is a great place for Chinese food, take-away or sit down. It is more of a cafe than a restaurant but the quality of the food is excellent and very cheap.

I have lunch there quite often and on one of my recent visits overheard the following discourse between a customer and the woman behind the counter.

The punter had been standing looking at the menu for a good few minutes and then said "I don't like chinese food", the counter woman replied "well this is a chinese restaurant", "yeah but haven't you got anything else", "no, you will have to go somewhere else", "don't be so rude", "i'm not being rude, this is a chinese restaurant"
- at this point she walks out complaining loudly!!!

I wonder if she goes into her local Fish & Chips shop and asks for a Chicken Tikka Masala???

Do you want bacon with your vegetarian breakfast?

Having braved the pea-souper that hung over London on Sunday morning, I ventured along the rubbish strewn streets of Harringay looking for a cafe that was open at 8.30 am. Unfortunately I found the Corner Cafe and Deli on Green Lanes.

I ordered a Set7 which was one of the veggie breakfasts on offer, egg, beans, tomatoes, hash browns, mushrooms, 2 toast and a tea, all for the princely sum of £4.50. I was going to try the bubble but decided against it, mainly because it was spelt 'buble' on the menu!

The breakfast came a little too quickly for my liking, but looked adequate untill I noticed that hiding under the beans were two rashers of bacon. I called the waitress over and pointed the mistake out to her, she said that she would remove the bacon and give me the breakfast back. I responded that I didn't want to eat the breakfast as it had been contaminated with bacon residue and asked for a newly cooked breakfast. This caused a lot of discussion between her and the cook and after much head scratching, and 10 minutes, another Set7 arrived. There was no apology or refund offered.

All in all a very poor experience and one I definitely wouldn't recommend.