Bucko's World

Day 2 (part one)

Dawn breaks and it is a typically beautiful Irish day – leaden grey skies and drizzle – and we assemble in hotel reception ahead of our first full day of sightseeing, a trip to The Titanic Experience, a visit long wished for by our birthday girl.  Before that however, we need tucker and the receptionist, overhearing this, suggests we head off to St George’s Market for a Belfast Bap.  We’ve never heard of this so it sounds spot on.  Directions are given and we head out into the wonderfully refreshing drizzle. 

After one turn we are already going opposite to the directions I heard, and before long I’m pretty sure none of us have a fucking Scooby where we are.  Lovely.  Fortunately however, we do find ourselves next to a place called Granny Annies which seems to be just what we’re after, and Lo and Behold! They do a Belfast Bap, so in we pile.

It’s certainly an eclectic place, with the only way to describe the décor being Junkyard Chic, or indeed shit.  

The toilets look like they’ve been rescued from a breaker’s yard – the sinks are formed from what look like old car tyres and the taps are some part of a car’s mechanicals – and there’s plenty of rust covered corrugated iron cladding and car knick knacks to make sure you click to the theme…different.  But, well ok…

We wait an age for our menus, strange in an half empty restaurant, although to be fair when they arrive there are several tasty options to try, all suitably high enough in saturated fat to satisfy the most hardened of arteries.  Granny’s big fry comes with two each of Eggs, Bacon and sausage, and enough gluten to send the straightest person hypoglycaemic (there’s potato bread, soda bread and toast there too) but so littered is it with random apostrophes as to make a grammar pedant’s teeth itch.  Mine are raging…To whit, the full contents of GsBF straight from the menu:

Mushroom’s?  Mushroom’s fucking what you divs?  And whilst we’re at it, why is there no fucking apostrophe in Annies?  You’ve got enough spare you bell ends…

Anyway, rage aside we all just order tea and Belfast Bap.  Which, unknown at the time, leads us on a quest to discover just exactly how much milk do you need with two cups of tea?

The tea arrives first, and we’re in for a shock.  Not since our primary school days and Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher have we been confronted by one of these:

Yes folks, if you're of a certain age you’ll no doubt remember being force fed a lukewarm bottle of this every first break till you were old enough to tie your own shoes – the famous 1/3^rd pint of cottage cheese.  But here it is, masquerading as a serving of milk for two cups of tea. Two.  A third of a pint, for TWO.  For fuck’s sake, how milky do they like their tea round here?  A simple question to which became more and more complex as the trip went on…

But first, here’s the Belfast Bap…

Sausage, bacon and runny fried egg, enough to put hair on your chest and set you up for whatever the day has to throw at you.  Which turns out to be tea.  Lots and lots of tea...