Buddies USA - on the A5 roundabout between Deanshanger and Milton Keynes

I think that breakfast is a meal that the British haven't really got to grips with yet. In general, we tend to go with either toast and coffee, or sausage, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, hash browns, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon and some fried bread if you're still hungry. There doesn't seem to be anything in between and it is in this fine tradition that Mrs P, The Child and I decided to find out how the land of the free and the home of the lardy do it by visiting Buddies USA.

I have to say that we've often driven past Buddies and the place has always been rammed - I mean packed out and even when we were there during breakfast, people were waiting in the foyer for tables. So, to celebrate the first meal after a month of culinary lock-down, we invited/forced our new neighbours to join us - a party isn't a party unless there is at least two people there who wish they were somewhere else, right?

The menu reflects the country of it's birth well by being both American and massive. It had pretty much anything you could want for breakfast from a ten item egg section (that weirdly doesn't contain scrambled fried or poached), through to various steak options via waffles and pancakes. I decided to go with the waffle, maple bacon and spicy potato option because clearly waffles don't contain enough carbs for the day so I need a shovel full of fried potato on my plate.

The maple bacon was really nice, thick and salty/sweet and definitely the star of the show. The waffles were a bit so-so if I'm I'm brutal, either they weren't on the iron for long enough or it wasn't hot enough but it just didn't have the crispy outer and fluffy inner that I want from a premium waffle. And what can I say about the potato cubes? Well, after I got over the fact that I was basically eating the breakfast equivalent of a curly fry, I came to the conclusion that they were OK. Bite sized pieces of warming taters together with the sweet, salty bacon and filling waffle gave me a breakfast my stomach could really work with... for the rest of the day. Portion size was, of course, monstrous but that was why we went and you can't argue with the people lurking like obese vultures, ready to swoop in to our empty seats and engulf our still warm buttock imprints with an appetite only matched by the size of their arse.

Oh yeah, I can't forget the train that rolls around the ceiling, an actual train. Now that's pretty cool.

www.buddiesrestaurants.com