Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day – I often have it for lunch or dinner. At least when I’m home, that is – it’s hard to order a round of pancakes (or is it flapjacks?) in a foreign port after noon. But when I travel, this is one meal I don’t miss. Sometimes, I’ll have the free hotel breakfast, then I’ll squeeze in second round of local foodie goodness before the menus switch. Naughty? Yes. Delicious? Oh yeah. Join me in a tour of my favourites, breakfast around the world.
English Breakfast
Out of all the breakfast around the world options, we start deliberately with the classic English breakfast because of its ubiquity – perhaps it is a leftover bastion of the days when there was a little bit of Britain all across the world, but rarely is it that you find yourself in a country where you can’t get ahold of an English breakfast. As the picture shows, English breakfast comes with toast, eggs, mushrooms, sometimes baked beans, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato, and hash browns. If you were hungry before this plate of calorific fuel, you won’t be after.
Variation: In Scotland, your Scottish Breakfast will come with black pudding and/or haggis. Definitely a way to start your day! And in Northern Ireland, you’ll get the “Ulster Fry” which has soda bread for toast.
American Breakfast
Is it just me, or is America the breakfast king? I think would could have a breakfast around the world lineup just for the Americans and their northernly neighbours alone! Beyond the pastries and egg-y dishes, there’s nothing more emblematic of the U.S. of A. at breakfast time than a classic stack of pancakes (flapjacks?) with eggs and bacon. Don’t forget that maple syrup (a staple of Quebec food) and a big ol’ scoop of butter. In the states, you can get regular pancakes, buckwheat pancakes, blueberry pancakes, strawberry pancakes, pumpkin pancakes, and I’m sure there are others I’ve never heard of.
Slightly Off Topic Editorial Rant: Dear America, not everyone wants cream in their coffee. Ever heard of milk?
Turkish Breakfast
Out of all of the breakfast around the world options, if I’m on the road, Turkish is my favoruite if I can find it. While I love a gut-stuffing serving of pancakes, it’s hard on the system – I need even more of a caffeine injection to keep me going, but Turkish breakfast is light, tasty, and still gives me the tastes I want. Turkish breakfast mostly consists of spicy sausages or meat, feta cheese, olives, cucumbers, egg and tomatoes. Sometimes there will be some extra fruit or veg, such as figs, depending on what part of Turkey your chef is from.
Burmese Breakfast
Out of all the breakfast around the world inspiration, it is Burma that is the most surprising, both for the breadth and depth of the options! Consider the naan-like flatbread, pictured, which comes with bean sauce, or you can also just butter the bread. Another tasty option is htamin jaw, which is rice with chickpeas. Burma has its own Burmese doughnut, which you can dip in some palm syrup. Yummy!
Greek Breakfast
For those of you with a sweet tooth, your breakfast around the world option should be set to Greece, where pastries and coffees are the order of the day. Consider the options: spanakopita ((spinach, feta, onion, egg, flavouring in a flaky pastry), tyropita (cheese, egg, filo dough), or bougatsa (custard, cheese, filo dough), paximathakia (a.k.a. biscotti), all washed down with a jet black coffee that could clear the grease off a car engine. Greek breakfast is fairly small, as they work themselves up for the bonanza buffets they serve for late lunch and late dinners.
Australian Breakfast
Most of the time, breakfast in Australia resembles our other breakfast around the world candidates – either a classic English fry-up or an American pancake stack. But some of my favourite memories from the land of Aus were starting off on our day’s long drive, stopping at one of the Old Country Store shopfronts that dot the country, and getting a glass of cold, flavoured milk (coffee flavour, chocolate, etc) and having a meat pie. They have different kinds of meat, such as sausage or bacon, but a classic meat and brown gravy pie really hits the spot. And perhaps that flavoured milk appeals to the kid in me. Nobody mentions this, but to me it just feels… a little more Australian than anything else.
Hong Kong Breakfast
Ok, so I’m pandering the the tourist in me here, because typically the average Hong Kong local only goes to dim sum on a Sunday, for a special occasion. But if you’re visiting, I say have dim sum as often as you like, because it’s one of the most unique of our breakfast around the world options, and it’s yummy. Caffeine addicts take note that it’s usually green tea served, so if you have a lot of trouble with your chop sticks, you might want to have a cuppa before you head out. Dim Sum is usually served in places called “teahouses,” and the menu will be full of tasty options. I’m not a dim sum expert, but a couple of favourites include cha-siu-bao (Cantonese barbecue pork buns), and dou fu fa (sweet tofu pudding with ginger sauce). If you’re not sure, then just ask for an assortment of stuff, both sweet and savoury, and laugh your way through the experience.
Brazilian Breakfast
Breakfast around the world wouldn’t be complete without a shout out to Brazil. That’s not because you’d find anything all that exotic here – Brazilian breakfast resembles European continental breakfast in many ways – but because of the juice. A Brazilian friend of mine told me that the one thing he hates when he travels abroad is the lack of fresh fruit juice – because in Brazil, fresh fruit juice is always on offer. At one place we had breakfast, I wanted to try all the juices, so I had about 6 glasses of juice on the table. Nobody batted an eye – though perhaps they were wondering if I was on some strange health kick! Some of these fruits are considered ‘super fruits’ (translation: really healthy), so drink up!
French Breakfast
We end our tour of breakfast around the world in France, whose breakfast resembles more like our list of the world’s best desserts than it does breakfast. In many countries, an alternative to breakfast is to have some classic French breads and pastries. Who doesn’t know about pain au chocolat (yum), pain aux raisins (yum), croissants (yum), baguette with butter and jam (yum), brioche (yum), or any of the country’s other hundreds of flour and sugar based products? Start your day off right.
What breakfast around the world was really special and memorable? Tell me – leave a comment!
Photo Credits: Mike Fleming, Misterbisson, stormgrass, Mirmurr, Ed, AvlXyz, redpolkadot, Beedieu, xiaozhuli.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
All look yummy! Curious, where did you have your Burmese breakfast? I love both that you mentioned. There are many many breakfast items to chose from in Burma…
Andrew, it’s not just in Scotland where the breakfast comes with Black Pudding, pretty common in England too
)
I may be biased, but I have to say that there is nothing better on a weekend morning than a typical American brunch – eggs benedict or omelettes or pancakes stacked high. This massive meal will keep you going all day long and it’s usually accompanied by a group of good friends and lots of conversation.
When we were in India, I started to get into parathas with Indian pickle and plain yogurt for breakfast. The taste was very different than what I’m used to for breakfast, but my tastebuds changed and I started to crave it in the mornings.
in some of southeast asian countries, notably Indonesia, Singapore, malaysia, we used to have coconut milk rice. In Indonesia it’s called “Nasi Uduk” or in Malay peninsula called “Nasi Lemak”.
And chicken porridge (bubur ayam) is also common meal to start the day.
Had some fabulous breakfast’s when visiting a friend in Berlin. Nothing beats the continental breakfasts, breads, salami’s, cheeses etc yum!
Tea Tee The and Tiffany’s in Europa platz were personal favourites. So much choice. yum.
I too am partial to American breakfast, especially as it includes (for this California girl at least) things like huevos rancheros and tamales. Living in Istanbul, I have developed an appreciation similar to yours for Turkish breakfast, although if the pile of bread it comes with is fresh-baked (and hence irresistible), it can still be pretty gut-stuffing! Especially if there’s fresh honey with thick cream involved… Highly recommend the multi-dish variation the breakfast joints do in the old caravansaray in Diyarbakır if you ever get out to eastern Turkey.
One Turkish tradition I haven’t been able to get used to, though, is lentil soup (mercimek çorbası) for breakfast!
Am I the only one who initially assumed Brazil’s was booze to recover from the night before?
Cute post!
Before arriving in Mexico last year, I almost never ate breakfast. But for some reason, eating enchiladas suizas, with a side of beans and rice, at 10am has become quite addicting!
This is great! I am planning a trip to Brazil and did not know that fruit juices were so big there. Also I am really excited about greek breakfasts!
I wonder why Indian breakfast is not on the list considering that it is so different from the rest of the world.
Great post!
My breakfasts are usually really light but I used to get a Shanghainese breakfast every Sunday. It’s Chinese soy milk and either “you tiao” (a stick of fried dough) or “fan tuan” (fried dough with shredded dried pork and pickled vegetables wrapped in glutinous rice). It’s soooo good!
Oh my gosh – what interesting stories! Thanks for all your additional breakfast tips, everyone.
@Gotpassport – I think I had it in the US at a friend of a friend’s Burmese cafe!
I am now starving. Breakfast anyone?
I miss the juices available in Brazil, and as for American, you could get just as varied depending on where your at. Simply put NYC, LA, and Houston/Austin will all serve up something different on your plate.
I’m with you, Andy, if I could get a good healthy breakfast like the Turkish one every day, I’d go for it. The English breakfast comes in a close second, since it, too, offers vegetables. Why on earth don’t we cook vegetables for breakfast in the US? We need that good energy first thing in the morning. Some of my favorite breakfast buffets are those that offer a variety of vegetables for breakfast.
Mmmmm it will be bougatsas for me next week, cheese ones please, fresh from the van. Or greek yoghurt with walnuts and honey.
But hope we can manage a Turkish breakfast the week after. Before you go whizzing off !
I’m a Brazilian and I find it very funny that our fruit juices fascinate so much the foreigners who come to the country. Actually, it is not a huge thing for us, since we are really used to it, but i have to admit that i cannot imagine myself drinking only industrialized juice.
Tip: If you’re comming to Brazil don’t miss the passion fruit juice. It really is a hit and it has a calming effect!
Ok, I’m now starving again! Thanks for your kind comments, Isabella & Rhiannon.
As a tunneling eng. I visited India to install machines in coal mines. In the morning a boy would enter the mine, put a large green leaf in my hand (plate) then fill it with potatoes and cauliflower with fantastic flavours of chilies and herbs. I looked forward to it every morning! It was in East bengal. Fantastic!
Oh Shaun – what a lovely little story!
Ok, I know it’s perhaps not as adventurous, but for my money Holland’s hagelslag (aka chocolate sprinkles) wins hands down. I mean, it’s chocolate sprinkles – for BREAKFAST! (As you can probably guess, it’s a close race with some great pain au chocolat…)
OOh, good one guys. One of my favourites, I am afraid to admit
In Japan, the traditional breakfast is rice, fish, vegetables and miso soup. I enjoy all of it but can’t manage miso in the morning. It’s a great start to the day, though.
Yummy!!! You just made my month watery right now. Those breakfast choices are so delicious looking and I am starting to crave for it all. I always love American breakfast but what I wanted to taste is the Greek breakfast. I wonder how it taste.
These all sound delicious. My all time fave breakfast though has become the one they eat in Costa Rica and Nicaragua – gallo pinto, which is a curiously addictive mix of fried rice with red or black beans, served with fresh soft corn tortillas, slices of avocado and a fried egg on the top. YUM!
yum indeed!