Breakfast and 3 Variations

It may be the most important meal, but with all these delicious options I wouldn't mind eating it more than once a day.

Taste & See: Every couple weeks I go on a new breakfast kick, happily eating my way through my entire supply of my current fixation before moving on to something new. (Always with my morning latte, of course.) For years it was cereal, with a pleasant rotation between old standbys like Life & Chex, splurging on Special K with berries when it was on sale at Safeway. But a little over a year ago, I had a breakfast experience that changed my life. At an early morning meeting, a friend of mine brought along egg sandwiches, two slices of whole wheat bread crammed good with poached egg, cheese and bacon. I'm really not a bacon person, but this was GOOD. I mean, really, really, addictively good.


And accordingly, for the past year or so I have been obsessed with egg sandwiches. In fact, I do believe I have it down to a science- though finding the perfect mix of fillings (I'm just not willing to continue on with bacon) is purely an art. The mix above was my first and most constant friend: prosciutto, provolone, English muffin, and of course, an egg. [The rest of the breakfast shall await another day in the sun, as today I'm all about eggs.]

My latest obsession, and what I believe is perhaps the pinnacle of all egg-sandwiches: egg on a whole wheat English muffin with brie cheese and a few sun dried tomatoes. Don't think it is hyperbole when I tell you that the mix of the nutty wheat bread with the sweetness of the cheese and tomatoes is pure breakfast perfection. Of course you can vary it up as you like- most kinds of cheese work, meat is optional, and vegetables could punch up the color. All you really need is a bread (pita, toast, tortillas, bagles, etc.) and an egg.

Now you'll notice the egg in the photograph above is perfectly round and flat. Where, you may wonder, do eggs look like that outside of McDonalds? Let me share a little technique trick: the microwave. I'm dead serious:

- Crack that egg into a little round microwave safe bowl, preferable flat bottomed
- Stir up with a fork
- Zap it for 40 seconds
- Wait a few seconds for it to cool so the second round doesn't splat raw egg all over your microwave, then heat again for 10-30 seconds, depending on how jello-y the egg is when you check on it.

But first:

- Heat up a sauce pan on medium and put both halves of the English muffin in, cut side down
- Cover the muffin with a pan for a minute or so if you're in a rush to speed things up, being careful not to let it burn

Then:

- Turn the muffin over & fork out the cooked egg
- Add your other toppings
- Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on the egg if you like.
- Put the sandwich together when the uncut sides are a bit warm, and let it heat til the cheese melts
- Enjoy!

[You may also use an oven/broiler if you become madly enraptured with the sandwiches and would like to make some for all your lucky friends.]

***

Now, sometime you find yourself outside your comfort zone. For me, that used to mean without my cereal & espresso machine. When I first lived in Thailand I used to resist the daily breakfasts of greens & rice, sneaking in my daily coffee via a French Press lugged to my village home and cereal by way of instant oats in a tin. Not entirely delicious.

It wasn't long before I realized the error of my ways and learned of all the ridiculous breakfast options Thailand has to offer. Now this isn't entirely Thai- Taiwanese, to be precise, but the freshly fried up donuts from dough stretched and cut before your very eyes and the sweetened hot soy milk with chewy textured bits swirling about is ta-sty. The carts are all over Thailand, easy to identify by the long slabs of white dough being cut, fried and stacked in glass containers & the big silver vats of boiling milk. The milk, nom tao-hoo, is usually 5 B and donuts are 1 B each.


This is not Thai either-- Chinese-- but I have the fondest memories of being stranded in my village house in the rain, unable to ride my moto to market to buy food, and forced to dart down to the mini-mart next door to buy an egg & a packet of instant jok. Jok is rice porridge, rice that has been boiled until it is the consistency of grits or cream of wheat. I'd pour the packets of gritty powder in a pot with some water, heat it up on our single gas-stove burner, and watch as the powder magically expanded into a steamy bowl of soup. I threw in some chopped ginger and green onions and crack in the egg and let the heat of the soup cook it as I folded it in. I finished it off with a dash of soy sauce. Only later did I get to try the real thing, and as you can see, I was quite pleased. Jok is usually 25 B, give or take 5-15 for meat (pork meatballs is traditional but I like chicken) or egg (obviously!).


Next we have an item that is very Thai, but not strictly breakfast: bpun. Four dollar fruit shakes at jamba juice just can't compare to the 10 B wonders sold in every village in Thailand. You can get them in every kind of fruit you can imagine, and a few you have never seen. Just point to the fruits stacked around the carts with blenders. I recommend mango (man moo-ahn), pineapple (zap-a-rote), and the flavor pictured below, coconut (ma-prao). (Never had I dreamed a shake could be so good!) Coffee, chocolate & Thai iced tea are also available.


I couldn't do a review of Thai breakfasts without returning to my earlier post on the ideal commuter's breakfast. My recommendation still stands but I confess I forgot a very important Thai trend: Mr. Bun.


Now I arrived after the trend's initial explosion and thus never got to see the rage first hand, but I have seen, and tasted, the result: "Mr. Bun" shops of all stripes claiming to be the real thing, like Gray's Papaya in New York, all nearly identical from the outside and impossible for an outsider to distinguish.


"Fresh fresh, hot hot, soft soft," the above sign reads. They're available below in coffee, coconut and vanilla, about 10 B each.


I don't know if this Mr. Bun stand at Victory Monument, just at the foot of the escalator, is the 'real thing,' but the boys there were more than delighted to share whatever Mr. Bun it is they're selling.