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Sunday, March 6, 2016

Bellanger Birthday Meal - Sweet and Savoury

At a birthday party at Bellanger restaurant one of our number (birthday boy) was delayed. We started with Croque Madame.

I've always had trouble remembering which is Welsh rarebit and which is Croque Monsieur and which is Croque Madame. I think I've finally got it. Welsh rarebit is just an open toasted cheese sandwich. Out in the Welsh countryside you don't eat a rabbit, just a cheese sandwich. Watch the spelling. It's not rabbit but a rare bite.

The French make food more exotic and complicated like a French restaurant. Add ham for a man (man and ham are two three letter words with a in the middle) and you have Croque Monsieur.

Add egg from a female chicken for a lady and you get Croque Madame. (Two two-syllable words are female and madame and an egg comes from the female chicken).

Here's the Croque Madame from Bellanger restaurant in Islington, London, England. I like the way it comes with lettuce. 

We divided it between two. We had enough side plates to do that. We were not running short of side plates and cutlery as we have been at other restaurants when dividing food.

This photo is not so elegant but it shows you the metal under the egg. I'm not really keen on ham or any cured or smoked meats and fish because I've had a member of my family on a cancer cure or rather cancer recovering after medical intervention diet which involves eating only fresh food. 

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright Angela Lansbury.

Pork or Salmon.
If you don't eat pork or simply prefer smoked salmon, an alternative breakfast food would be Eggs Benedict which is scrambled egg mixed with smoked salmon.

I keep typing Ballinger instead of Bellanger. It's not Ball but Bell. Not ginger. With an a in the middle like Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. But not like Bollinger Champagne, which has double l but rhymes with ginger.  If spell the Bell anger restaurant wrongly and can't find it, you are filled with anger. (As you come out of ANGEL (a  n g) station aim for the statue on the point of the triangle and the restaurant is slightly right of the middle at the opposite flat end of the triangle. And my name is Angela, starting A N G.

PS Of course I never wrote crocus monsieur in the tags. A sneaky spellchecker or predictive text crept up and changed it after I had gone away.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. 

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