The World Famous Comfort Cafe

Staffed by a selection of triads and Eastern European mafia members who work together to create the most spectacular (or certainly closest in proximity) fry up you can find, the World Famous Comfort Cafe have gone to the trouble of including their rather lofty claim of international renown right up front so you can see it on the approach. The car park is an awesome expanse of space, with areas allocated to vehicles of any size, from coaches (which we presume all arrive shortly after we leave for decadent lunches and glamorous dinners) to the bikers that we often see revving their engines incessantly outside the place in case nobody has noticed that lurking under their beer guts are some kind of bike which is presumably terribly impressive if you are a fellow biker, but turns out to be less so when you are hungover, sleep deprived and trying to enjoy your breakfast through the fug of exhaust fumes. To further their claims of being World Famous, there are a series of improbable clocks on the back wall displaying the time in Ulan Bator, Montevideo, Casablanca and other far flung places that sound familiar, and then you realise that you have no idea where most of them are and start trying to fight off the hangover fog to work out whether time goes forward or backward as you travel east. There is also the stunning 'garden room' which is a peculiarly constructed extension with massive folding glass doors which we have never seen open in summer, but which house large gaps which let in a lot of chilly air in the winter. At some point, somebody clearly decided that the view should be softened with a lot of creeping plant life, meaning that currently the windows are pretty much covered with vegetation which makes for an odd view but a strangely secluded feel when eating in there (as is our preference when it's too chilly to eat outside). A glance at the clientele that the World Famous Comfort Cafe attracts serves as yet another reminder that you are in a deeply special place - from young families with screeching children to doddery old folks enjoying a nice early lunch (or sometimes afternoon tea by the time we rock up for breakfast) and an assorted array of people who clearly had no idea that the place was there, making you wonder what on earth they were doing on that particular stretch of disused former A road ('the gateway to East Anglia' according to their own website) which is home to a Little Chef (surely the most pointlessly positioned eatery ever) and a petrol station manned by a man in a Ferrari jumpsuit who has trouble distinguishing between genders. Every time we have been we have taken note of the fact that people are enjoying items from the World Famous Comfort Cafe's extensive lunch and dinner menus as well as the classic breakfast fare that keeps us coming back time and time again, including the tiny bottles of wine which they place strategically on top of the counter as you approach to place your order to remind you of why you need so much comforting starch and grease. People unlike me who aren't faddy and set in their culinary ways probably find the process of ordering food very difficult - if you aren't going to order the same thing you had last time, there are a dazzling array of tempting treats all of which follow an apparently random pricing structure (£2.95 for a bowl of cereal and milk, £3.95 for a massive fry up) which is sure to have you gazing up in rapture at the many menus whilst the dark-haired eastern European girl looks at you with the same blanket contempt that people who have been up since 5 always have for those who order breakfast at 2pm. Once you have chosen, you then have to force your brain not to immediately lose your receipt on which is written your order number and without which you will be desperately trying to identify your particular combination of food items as they make their way round in the hands of the triad chef with other diners all peering at it to see if it's theirs too. The food is incredible - it's not so much that there's anything special about the ingredients or how they cook it so much as the fact that they cook it (as opposed to having to cook it yourself), it comes quickly, and it always tastes the same, which is a definite prerequisite for hangover food. The sole fly in the ointment is their slight tendency to run out of orange juice (a must when preserving the sanctity of a hangover breakfast) but this is more than made up with by the fact that they sometimes have Blood Orange juice (it tastes pretty much the same but looks much more dramatic) and the opportunity to taste weird and wonderful combinations of fruit and vegetable juice as a substitute. All in all, the World Famous Comfort Cafe is one of the most extraordinary places I have ever been, and is definitely my favourite venue for eating out (we will have dinner there one day, possibly with the Gift and/or the World Famous Comfort Cafe's newest fanboy, Uptown PJ) plus their faultless dedication to serving breakfast at whatever time you want a la Ken Walker is not only admirable, but demonstrates unfailing dedication to personal freedom.