A lovely brunch

I've spent the past week living largely on nuts, pink wine, garlic, oil, bread and tomatoes. The only strong culinary memory is the alioli, the garlic mayonnaise that comes with bread and olives at every meal in the Balearics.

Alioli has found some interesting bastardised forms since the EU has spread the raw egg willies into the most remote kitchens. A Danish chef at La Formanterena near San Francisco has done magical things with olive oil, milk, lemon juice and spades of fresh garlic, producing something between alioli and its Middle Eastern cousin, toum, which blends oil, garlic and lemon with potato. Similarly, I've been blending my aunt's fresh-from-the-earth purple garlic with yoghurt and olive oil and eating it by the spoonful (my allium habit distinguished me in a bad way with my villa-mates on holiday, and was an effective contraceptive).

Back from the Med, I returned to the regimented meal times of London town -specifically, brunch at The Common Room in Ealing. Brunch menus have never done much for me, but here that's all they do from 10am until 5pm on a Sunday, which probably suits the area's growing young professional population who see the day of rest as a chance to eat eggs in all forms, all day.

I took the Princess Sharon, her husband, Chris, and their Boden-catalogue-perfect kids. It is not a kiddy place, as there are no high chairs, grown-ups drink pink champagne with their scrambled egg and smoked salmon bagels, and pre-kid groups of friends drink pints and plonk. It is more brasserie than pub, ashy wooden panelling, colour schemes in shades of fashionable griege. The London Pride, their only bitter, was good though.

It seemed to take an age for our food to arrive, even though the two cute-looking girl chefs in the kitchen weren't madly rushed. Husband went for the 'build your own' breakfast option, and had the full Versailles: there were breakfast sausages, proper, thick, plainly pork ones; back bacon, a bit too scorched, but with good flavour; grilled tomatoes, soft, a little watery, and not scorched enough to give the best flavour intensity; 'just right' pillowy poached eggs - as well as ordinary but not nasty black pudding, crisp hash browns and a few other things which overflowed off his plate.

The Princess had cod and salmon fishcakes. They had a strong, fishy flavour that was not specific enough.

I had a beefburger, a nice piece of pink meat, but a little tough and blackened. The caramelised onion on top of it was cloyingly sweet. The chips had their skins on and were cooked to a dark golden brown.

I wanted to try the rhubarb crumble and the strawberries with vanilla ice cream, but children being what they are, we had to make a hasty exit. I would be happy to eat here again - everything was fine but not great. Out of brunch mealtimes, the menu provides something for everyone - a piece of fish, meat, foul, pasta, risotto and portobello mushroom, all served in a variety of Euro, Asian or Middle Eastern ways. It compliments the more ambitious Ealing Park Tavern. Young professionals can never have enough choice when it comes to gastropubs - the residents of EC1 know that.

The Common Room
03-Apr Grosvenor Parade, Uxbridge Road, W5 3NN