All About My Favorite Breakfast Items

By Lu They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I'd say it's my favorite meal of the day..but not for every day.
For awhile, I've never eaten anything regularly in the morning even though I knew it's bad to skip breakfast for your metabolism. I also learned from one smart lady that skipping breakfast could cause type B Diabetes in adults. And, why I keep wondering that I always have to work hard losing weight, I do not know. Ignorance probably would be the best answer. But now, for weekday breakfast, I drink the best (in my opinion) meal replacement shake in the market today, Isagenix. I love this product. It's easy. It's natural. It's nutritious. It tastes good for a shake. Morning is not morning anymore without me shaking my bottle and making rattling noise. If you want to know more about Isagenix, contact me. You will probably be glad you learn about it. But that's for another day.Today I want to talk about real breakfast! There's something about Sunday breakfast or brunch that's endearing to me. Talking to family or friends, as you chow down eggs and bacon, and sip some coffee just sounds like a great Sunday.

Street vendor making noodle

In Indonesia, we don't just eat eggs for breakfast. Our breakfast items are very hearty, filled with starch, meat, and more starch. My favorite breakfast items when I'm in Jakarta would be Mie Ayam (chicken noodle, that my sister just wrote about the other day) and Bubur Ayam (chicken porridge). Indonesians also eat fried rice a lot for breakfast and ketupat sayur (rice cake, cut up and served with veggies in coconut milk broth). Where are the eggs? Well, if you want those items above as "special" like "special fried rice," it will come with an egg :D.

The above favorite items are usually sold by street vendors or in small mom and pop's shops around town. There are so many varieties of Mie Ayam, but we usually would go to the nearest best ones to our home, and they are usually in Kelapa Gading area of Jakarta. The vendors are usually Chinese descent Indonesians, and their informal name usually would start with "A" and they will use their names for their noodle shops. So if the shop is called "Mie A Heng", "Mie A Loy", or "Mie A Cong", I can pre-guarantee that they would be pretty good!

Bubur Ayam

Bubur Ayam, though the Chinese vendors make kick ass congee/ju/porridge, I like the traditional bubur abang abang (regular on-foot vendors). It is white congee, with sprinkle of boiled chicken on top, scallions, celery, fried shallots, soy sauce, sliced Chinese bread sticks (cakwe), and extra colorful fried garlic chips for texture (optional). For 50 cent, you will get your breakfast of champion! Well, the cleanliness I can't guarantee. My abs might not be made of steels, but my stomach is! But if you don't have iron stomach like me and you're venturing to Indonesia for some bubur ayam, make sure you have some Cipro tablets handy.

Dimsum Cart

Dim Sum, however, is probably the most known Chinese breakfast. Dim Sum is a Chinese style tapas that usually is served in the morning with a big hot pot of Oolong Tea. They serve from delicate dumplings with all kinds of fillings, congee with thousand year old eggs and pork, shrimp rolls, BBQ pork buns, to chicken feet and tripe. Servers with little carts filled with these small offerings will swarm the dining room and will stop at your table at your bidding. It is definitely a fun experience for some and religious experience for many Chinese men and women. A lot of the older men would go there, sip their tea, and read their newspapers or chat for hours. Yeah, it's pretty similar to your local Starbucks.
My all time favorite breakfast has to be just a simple continental breakfast. What could be better than sitting at a Parisienne cafe, eating a fresh baked croissant with some butter and jam, and sipping cafe au lait. Je ne sais pa..mais, peut-être, rien! (I don't know..but maybe, nothing!).
Another item that came to mind is Legal Beans in Hoboken, New Jersey, for their Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich on a Kaiser Roll. It is out of this world! The Kaiser Roll just makes this sandwich. My brother in law, David, and I would certainly order this each time we go there. If you happen to be in Frank Sinatra's home town, do stop at the Legal Beans at the corner of Newark and Garden st. and get the sandwich. You won't regret it even if you have to work it off on the treadmill for at least 45 minutes afterward.
I also won't ever forget the breakfast we had in Norway each morning for 10 days. Ragnhild, my sister Annette's mother in law, would prepare this spread every morning for us - hearty whole wheat bread, lamb specks, smoked salmon slices served with scrambled eggs, Jarlsberg cheese block, a sweet Norwegian cheese, and home made jams of blåbær (blueberry) and bringabær (raspberry). I loved it. The lamb specks and real Norwegian Jarlsberg were especially magnificent.

Crab Cake Benedicts

Lake Park Bistro in Milwaukee serves a great 3-course brunch. My friend, Heather, and I love to go there for our once in awhile catch up date. They serve the standard french menu complete with the fritatta, omelette, croque monsieur, Eggs Benedicts, and quiche. Yet, the cool part is the view. You can see Lake Michigan so blue and calm from the french window of this bistro. It is one of Paul Bartolotta's restaurants, so now you know why it is delicious.

The view from Lake Park Bistro windows

One of the local favorites for me has to be Richard Walker's Pancake House in Schaumburg, Illinois. Yes, it is a chain and they also have a sister chain called the "Walker Bros." They had to be related somehow, but they are both good. The pancake they serve are nothing like the regular flapjacks. They serve baked cinnamon apple pancake, that looks like a deep dish pizza than a pancake. A Dutch baby and/or German pancake - huge elephant ear looking pancake dusted with powdered sugar. You have to be ready to eat when you come here. Even their omelettes have a different look and they're huge! When you go here on weekends, they have a line out the door you think you're in line for one of the rides in Disney World. However, this place is definitely worth the wait.
I went to "Orange" in Chicago with my friend, Anne, today/yesterday (since the clock is about to struck 12). They have several locations in the Northwest side of the city. We went to the one on Roscoe and Damen. We both accidentally ordered the same thing - French Toasts with Almonds and Orange Rosemary Cream. Though, it didn't sound good to me at first, it tasted wonderful, yet too rich for my taste. I managed to down two slices and the rest were wasted :(. I love Orange's Frushi, which is a rendition of sushi using fruits and coconut infused rice. I also love the concept where you can make your own blend of juice made of various freshly squeezed fruits.
Yet, a great breakfast won't be complete without a great bacon, and for the pancake and french toast eaters, the maple syrup. Top shelf bacon in my book is Nueske's Bacon from Milwaukee. They're an applewood-thick-cut-not-a-waste-of-a-pig type of bacon. I go to the NRA (National Restaurant Association) Trade Show yearly, and you can always find me at the Nueske's booth, as I will keep going back and forth for free samples. Oups, did I say that out loud?
Lastly, once you have tasted organic Maine Maple Syrup, how could you go back to the fake sugary huge bottle they call "Maple Syrup?" I believe great maple syrup comes in small bottle and too bad it costs you a small fortune. Just imagine what they have to do in order to collect each drip from the tree. The difference in flavor in an actual Maple Syrup compared to a High Fructose Corn Syrup would be a revelation for some. Just ask my sister, Ri. She always brings home a bottle or two from the US to Kathmandu.
Ironically, I am writing about breakfast at midnight. I hope you will tell me what your favorite breakfast items are, especially if you live in different parts of the world than where I am at. It would be cool to learn what people eat for breakfast around the world. However, whether it is a toast at home, or Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity at IHOP, we have to make sure that we start our day right, each and every day. How? With a simple smile :).

*Special thanks to my mom and dad for the photographs for Chicken Noodle Vendor and Bubur Ayam. I appreciate you subjecting yourself to weight gain to support your children's project! :D