Eating Out and About in London for the 2007 WSOP Europe

The English breakfast at the Sanderson Hotel in London during the 2007 WSOP Europe. (Bodog Beat Image)

As it was our last morning in London, we decided we needed to fuel up for the long day of poker ahead of us with Team Bodog poker player Matt McCullough as the chip leader at the final table of the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event. What better way to start a day off right than to sit down to an "English breakfast", the breakfast of champions.

The menu said that we could choose from several different components for our traditional day-starting meal: eggs (we get ours sunny side up), bacon (both streaky and back), mushrooms, baked beans, tomatoes (which we left off), Cumberland sausage, toast and the peculiarly English "black pudding." Oh, and the obligatory cup of tea (see, it's not only booze we feel obliged to drink).

Let's first address the most unknown part of this meal.

Black pudding or blood pudding is a sausage made by cooking blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. Right, with that out of the way, back to the meal. Obviously, this is a huge amount of food to consume but we tried our absolute best. As you would expect from a place like the Sanderson, the quality of the food was excellent. We can only assume that the black pudding was high quality because this was the first time we've had this. Crispy on the outside and soft and crumbly in the middle, there was an unexpected metallic flavor, although as blood has a high concentration of iron maybe it should have been expected. As odd of a dish as it sounds, we liked it a lot.

After finishing up with a few slices of toast spread with orange marmalade, we loosened our collective belts and heaved a sigh. For all the incredible food we've eaten over the last week we may have to starve ourselves for the next couple.

Stay tuned for live updates and coverage from the 2007 WSOP Europe.