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[MyTurnNow]

In another thread Pattyflipper No More asked me what was wrong with Chinese breakfast.

I want you to think of all your favorite breakfast foods....and then mentally kiss most of them goodbye. If you are in Beijing or Shanghai you'll have things slightly better, but the further you get from these cities the more bizarre the situation becomes. When I've relayed my 5 Bs list (Breakfast, Bathrooms, Bureaucracy, Bad medicine, Bogus pop music) to expats here several have opined that Breakfast was the worst one on it.

The Chinese eat very odd things for breakfast! At BEST they will have a glass of milk, a chunk of white bread, and maybe, just maybe, some form of egg. At worst they will eat a big bowl of white water with a few grains of rice floating in it. They also eat things that a lot of westerners find too challenging for breakfast- long noodles, hot peppers, garlic, cucumber, pickled cabbage, tiny whole fish, etc. I love strong flavors, and I am reasonably adventurous about dining...but NOT at breakfast.

You can buy oatmeal and some decent other hot cereals but cold cereals are hard to find and limited in selection (and often not very good) in many cities. Wanna eat gruel every day? I don't. Chinese stores will be loaded with tempting-looking pastries that will never, ever taste the way you want and expect them to. Donuts? What's that? I once encountered what appeared to be beautiful cinnamon swirl rolls in a small city in Hunan. I bought several and took them to my hotel...next morning I bit into one only to discover that the "cinnamon" filling was hot chili pepper paste.

Once in a blue moon you stumble across a toaster in a Chinese department store. Bacon (North American style- sugar cured and smoked) MIGHT be findable in a town with enough foreigners and/or money to rate a Carrefour, Auchan, Mycal, etc. And it's easier to buy real dragon's blood here than it is to find maple syrup!

Some 5-star hotels will serve a western breakfast, but the price can be 100 RMB or more- several days' food budget for many of us. A tiny smattering of other restaurants will serve western breakfasts, also at exorbitant prices. There's always fruit, of course, which in China is cheap, plentiful, and delicious. If I bother with breakfast at all it's usually just fruit. If you want more than fruit, bread, or cereal you will usually need to prepare it at home. Best breakfast I've been able to contrive with locally-bought ingredients: a sandwich with a fried egg, grilled ham, and cheese.

Make the most of travel opportunities and search out the tiny islands of pre-10am civilization- the basement restaurant at the Holiday Inn in Kowloon (Hong Kong) has great blueberry pancakes. Baca's Tex-Mex Scenic Cafe in Suzhou has scrambled eggs with chorizo, biscuits and gravy, home fries, etc. Once in a Pizza King in Dalian I got the waitress to combine the concept of a ham and cheese sandwich with the concept of a fried egg sandwich- both on the menu. It took 30 minutes of arguing and cost about 100 RMB, but I got my *beep*ing sandwich. In a Beijing convenience store I encountered the legendary Little Chocolate Donuts. I nearly cried.

MT

[gerard]

100 RMB for a western sandwich? I do miss a big old school "over easy" breakfast though. In theory you should be able to do it up since bread and eggs are available but you just can't. No decent butter or bacon. No decent coffee either but I like the tea. My last 2 trips I lived on the all you can eat buffet breakfast. As for the local stuff those steamed buns aren't bad and a bargain at .5 Y.

[wOZfromOZ]

Breafasts................

the rice porridge with pickelled vegetables, 'fu ru' and 'you tiao' washed down with lashings of hot soy milk............... took me years before I liked it but now I cant get enough!!!

there's always the lovely hot rasin bread toasted with blueberry or strawberry jams, orange marmalade.

those vegetable and meat dumping soups are great with fried egg strips and spring onions with that seaweedy stuff.

there's always KFC pancakes and maple syrup. or 'Mackers' if you're just plain desperate.

I'm partial to the 5 varieties of toasted museli you can buy at our local 'Le Gou' now (Hy Mart).

My supply of weet Bix just ran out so I'm using more of those 'breakfast
drinks' - sickly sweet though!!

We bought a microwave, a blender and a toaster - dont know how you'd be able to live without them here. Banana smoothies or lovely fresh strawberry milkshakes. now there's a treat!

mangoes, oranges, mandarines, apples, bananas, dried fruits,

boiled eggs, scrambelled eggs, poached eggs, fryed eggs, french toast
and bacon etc

There's stacks of good breakfast food ideas here - just gotta open your eyes and your mind - and maybe your wallet occassionally for that ***** breakkie.

[wOZfromOZ]

Breakfasts................

the rice porridge with pickelled vegetables, 'fu ru' and 'you tiao' washed down with lashings of hot soy milk............... took me years before I liked it but now I cant get enough!!!

there's always the lovely hot rasin bread toasted with blueberry or strawberry jams, orange marmalade.

those vegetable and meat dumping soups are great with fried egg strips and spring onions with that seaweedy stuff.

there's always KFC pancakes and maple syrup. or 'Mackers' if you're just plain desperate.

I'm partial to the 5 varieties of toasted museli you can buy at our local 'Le Gou' now (Hy Mart).

My supply of weet Bix just ran out so I'm using more of those 'breakfast
drinks' - sickly sweet though!!

We bought a microwave, a blender and a toaster - dont know how you'd be able to live without them here. Banana smoothies or lovely fresh strawberry milkshakes. now there's a treat!

mangoes, oranges, mandarines, apples, bananas, dried fruits,

boiled eggs, scrambelled eggs, poached eggs, fryed eggs, french toast
and bacon etc

There's stacks of good breakfast food ideas here - just gotta open your eyes and your mind - and maybe your wallet occassionally for that ***** breakkie.

[whitjohn]

I love the fresh fruit! I eat a couple of Mandarins after my coffee (Nescafe instant), then when I bike to work early I stop for a "crepe" with egg, chopped green onion and fresh coriander made into a rolled up thing which I haven't learned the name for yet. I also like what sounds like "gautier"..a dumpling which is sort of fried brown on one side. Kunming has many Moslem eateries which have a nice "chewey" noodle. Good and cheap.

[Roger]

I concur with wozzfromoz for the fruits, mueslis, milkshakes... In Guangdong, we have bananas and pineapples year round, my preferred vendor peels them expertly, and I get them for about 2 kuai a piece (maybe a friendship price as she always slips a mandarine or a handful of longyans into my trousers' pocket for free).
In June to July it is lychee time. Strangely enough, locals consider these fruits to be "hot" and thus not suitable to eat in the hot season.
Grapes come from afar, but I don't fancy them as they invariably are not ripe enough, and not juicy either. I prefer Turpan or Hotan raisins sold by itinerant Uygurs.
Instant coffee is not my cup of tea except as ice coffee in summer. I prefer freshly-ground bean coffee, no problem buying it now. If you can't find your LAVAZZA or MELITTA, ask for a Yunnan coffee! I have just sampled some of the most delicious Turkish coffee and espresso with Yunnan coffee beans! They offer a variety of different flavours now just like an international brand!

And in most big cities, local five-star hotels run a delicatessen or at least a bakery that sells German rye bread, French baguettes and croissants prepared by a Western chef or a Western-trained CHinese baker. A baguette at a CARREFOUR or PARK'N SHOP only costs around 3 kuai aand tastes absolutely exactly like a real French one!

[MyTurnNow]

Gerard, you must really be out in the sticks!
The availability of bacon here is patchy but even Changchun had excellent Australian or New Zealand butter. Real coffee can take a lot of exploring to find but I've always been able to find it...but often at a kingly price.

Woz, I envy you your raisin bread! The KFC/McDonalds thing must vary a lot with geography. I keep hearing that some outlets do breakfast but I have yet to find one. For those who are still about to come here for the first time, know that your location (sometimes down to the neighborhood level) can make a huge difference in the availability of foreign goodies in general.

When I MUST resort to Chinese food for breakfast, the baozi (steamed buns with meat and/or vegetables) and the egg crepe things are the most grudgingly tolerable things I've found. Breakfast is the one moment when I still feel a long, long way from home...

There are indeed solutions here that come with creativity, persistence, and luck. Most of them do involve home cooking, which I don't do much of for breakfast...when I wake up I need to drink coffee, smoke, and curse for several hours before I am ready to face much else. The BEST solution to breakfast here is to sleep until lunchtime whenever possible.

Well, enough of this, I'm off for scrambled eggs and chorizo....

MT

[Seth]

[arioch36]

No toaster? No bacon? Do you know any other foreigners there? I (God only knows why) have been in Zhengzhou for a couple of years. What? You have never heard of Zhengzhou? Not surprising. The best place to get such items is at a few hole in the wall shops. They sell mostly to restaurants pretending to serve "western food". If you are desparate, got to the fanciest hotel, ask them where they buy these things. It is probably just a matter of the local Chinese at your school having no clue about such things. Some of the things I have found on walkabouts still surprise me.

[MyTurnNow]

Hey, I've seen this too! Even Changchun had nondescript little hole-in-the-wall shops that turned out to have an unbelievable wealth of foreign goodies.

The one thing I absolutely cannot find here is maple syrup. I import it. I've so far found one (1) restaurant in all of China that serves it; _they_ import it.

One of my current teachers came from Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province. Boy, is he glad to be out.

MT

[MyTurnNow]

Sorry, I think that's Hubei province for Zhengzhou?
I still have trouble keeping all the He's and Hu's straight.

MT

[Seth]

Zhengzhou is definately Henan. I'm also a Henan refugee, I lived in Luoyang for a year. I don't know why Chris likes the place so much!

[hubei_canuk]

........

[Steiner]

That Brazilian place is fantastic!

[Seth]

The Brazilian restaurant chain is quite large, there used to be one in Luoyang but closed down for some reason. Churrabasca or something like that. It is quite good if you like meat, lots and lots of meat.