Hanover Street Social - Liverpool

I wasn't in the best mood for a trip to Liverpool. Three hours sleep and then a three hour train ride up to watch the inevitable capitulation by my football team. At least it was sunny.

Liverpool is a strange place - a hugely redeveloped pin-sized city centre attempting to counterbalance a sprawling donut of hideous estates. On a match day, it's a stranger place still. Hundreds of clueless tourists and southern-scousers making their one trip of the year to Anfield. Adorned with armfuls of branded tat, stopping to photograph every crack in the pavement, clutching a copy of the words to 'You'll Never Walk Alone', they hold their nose and close their eyes in the taxi to ground and make damn sure they're back for the 5.15 to Euston.

As footballing experiences go, a trip to Anfield is the perfect pink Barbie doll that Sky Sports want the Premier League to be.

And so to the food. The Hanover Street Social was the call for an 11.00am breakfast. 'We don't serve beer until 10.30am', said the waiter in thick scouse. Presumably after flag-stoning the entire city centre, the council will turn their attention to education. He then informed us that as they were busy (half the tables were full) they couldn't make specific additions to the breakfast. You can have any breakfast you want, as long as it's black.

I was pleasantly surprised by the taste of the breakfast, all six mouthfuls of it. So this wasn't the venue for the world's largest, greasiest fry-up, but I expected more than two chipolatas and a single piece of mushroom. Strangely they were accompanied by a saucer-sized black pudding. All-in-all, a terrible balance.

Moving from a place which describes 'being social' as more than just a political ideology - a bizarre nonsensical statement with which to advertise your restaurant - to one where communism rules supreme: from each according to his own (Sky Sports) to each according to his need (the people of Liverpool). Cafe Sports Express in the aptly named Chavesse Park shows football from (channels) around the world on it's twenty-five televisions, accompanied by a chef on a whistle announcing when another Piadina Carragher is served. I'll say no more.

Woodstock Road Deli - Oxford

The Woodstock Road Deli is a place I've queued a couple of times during their lunchtime rush. This used to be much more of a deli than the 'lunch-venue-with-deli-counter-attached' that it's become. It's not a bad thing though. Hearty and delicious plates of stew, with rice or potatoes are on offer, with the same efficiency you'll find at their sister in the Covered Market - Alpha Bar.

Breakfast here was a different kettle though. One girl struggling under the weight of early morning orders from the typical North Oxford stiff upper lip brigade - wanting their bacon sandwich and coffee to be organic, soy, fair trade and just so. She did well enough, but as I frequently find some very simple basics were missed. No heat in the plate made the egg go cold; coarsely chopped parsley 'sprinkled' in a single lump led to a single mouthful of overpowering flavour (and bits in my teeth).

Nice setting, good coffee, but stick with lunch.

Blenheim Palace - Oxford

It's not often you get an invite to Blenheim Palace for breakfast. Normally you have to pay just to walk the grounds. This time, someone else was paying. Don't worry, the Marlbroughs weren't dishing it out for free.

My sceptical side says that meals like this are mediocre to average, with the grandiose setting blinding you from the food on the plate. This, however, was good. Very good. The coffee was decent, the orange juice fresh, the food delivered hot - no mean feat when fifty people are dining simultaneously.

But the one thing that elevated this meal from the good to the very good was the plate. A single white round plate. No squares, no smorgasbord of an itemised breakfast, this was a single plate with everything (bar toast) rubbing shoulders with everything else.

The absence of a round plate for something as simple of breakfast sickens me. It's fiddling for the sake of fiddling. Possibly a distraction tactic. If the chef has one moment to think about the plate, then I would expect the meal to be perfect. If not, then that one moment was wasted.