Originally Posted by
WillCAD
But I'd like to clarify something - It's not the fact that it's breakfast that threw me off; it's just that 20 quid is a very expensive meal, be it B, L, or D.
Given the GBP#1 is equivalent to US$1 in costs on the ground there, it doesn't seem that expensive in that sense; I've had plenty of $20 lunches at nicer places. $32 USD (errr, $30.32 per google... dang, time to visit the UK again) is a pricier meal, but I've had plenty of casual dining meals where my share was about that after tax and tip, and that's often less than an entree at fancier places (before drinks, share of an appetizer if any, and the tendency of fine dining to make sides separate, let alone tax and tip)... almost always for places by good beef.
However, a gourmet meal, made in a 5-star restaurant by a master chef, is certainly worth more money than a mass-produced meal in a chain restaurant. Had I the means, I would certainly enjoy such meals on a regular basis, but as a middle-class working stiff, I cannot justify the expense of such indulgences, when I can get an acceptable (though inferior) meal for less than 1/4 of the price.
See, I can't see for breakfast what a master chef can add. For meals where I'd be more inclined to try interesting and different food, sure. For one of the same handful of breakfast orders where I want them the way
I want them, rather than a chef's vision of them, paying for a fancy place and a master chef is rather likely to eff them up.
Same reason why I don't eat mac'n'cheese at any restaurant (I'm sorry, I've got a recipe for doing it at home that suits my tastes exactly and is dead easy) and I no longer eat hamburgers at any fancified restaurant which tries to charge more for them a regular burger joint; anything they could do to justify the higher price almost certainly consists of effing-it-up.
If I'm ever in London, and my budget can handle it, I might consider laying down a twenty for breakfast at Simpons on the Strand. Assuming, of course, that they'd be willing to admit an uncultured Yank such as myself.
Lunch or dinner there looks much more interesting, IMO.