Having breakfast in Asia

Having breakfast in Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, China, India and Sri Lanka.

I love having breakfast. It’s one of my musts every morning of my life: It’s a pleasure for me to have a relaxed breakfast every morning while enjoying the sun or reading a nice book before going somewhere out of my place.

While travelling, I search for where or how to have breakfast wherever I go. And here you’ll find the types of breakfast I’ve found around Asia 🙂

• Breakfast in Myanmar

The traditional Burmese breakfast is a fish soup. Yes, fish for breakfast… If you don’t feel attracted by this soup while you are trying to wake up, try to go to «J’o donuts», a bakery-donuts chain with fresh donuts and good coffee for a fair price.

An alternative is to buy street food: from salty to sweet there’s a wide range of choices, for sure better than the poor toasts with eggs served at the most part of guest houses…

Special mentions to…

*Breakfast in Taungoo, Myanmar: At Myanmar Beauty Guest House they offer a complete (and exquisit) local breakfast: fruits as watermelon, apple, banana and others; pancakes with honey or mermelade; lots of local sweets made from rice with different textures and flavors (some of them, for sure, that you’ve never taste); local bakery; toasts; and obviously tea and coffee. Is this breakfast enough for you? 😉

*Breakfast in Inle Lake, Myanmar: Special mention to the breakfast we were offered at the guest house Aquarius Inn: every day they changed the breakfast menu, from the Spanish tortilla with toast, to crepes with different toppings another day, or Indian chappatis… Very tasty. Everything home-made with lot of love!

 

• Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It’s a tradition for malaysians to go early morning to Imbi market (close to the Golden triangle) and have breakfast there in the restaurants hidden behind the food market. There are lot of restaurants and you’ll find lots of malaysian food alternatives, most of them salty options, and local people enjoying there their breakfast time while market vendors are shouting their daily offer 🙂

 

• Breakfast in Thailand

The thai breakfast is rice with chicken, pork, prawns, garlic, and fried egg! Is it enough? wow!

Special mentions to…

*The extraordinary breakfast served at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, Bangkok: At Mandarin Oriental Hotel breakfast turns to be a luxury sky… fresh fruit, fresh fruit juices, cereals, eggs, sausages, pancakes, croissants… All you can imagine will be there, all with high quality products 🙂

*Breakfast while trekking in Chiang Mai: the local families which gives you a place to sleep in their traditional houses, will serve you toasted bread with eggs and tea. Simply as that. Nice as that 🙂

 

• Breakfast in the Philippines

In The Philippines, American food chains are a success. For breakfast it’s quite usual to go to Jolibee to have breakfast, where you can have rice, fried onion and eggs, or to the Mc Donald’s, where they have specific menus for breakfast like pancakes with rice and fried onion or rice with crispy chicken. Easily you’ll find places to eat something for breakfast. But the major part of the philippinos prefer to eat salty in the morning, as we saw while living with them in Cantilan.

Special mentions to…

*The breakfast we had in Cantilan, south of The Philippines:

While volunteering, we had the opportunity to live with a philippino family and eat what they ate. This is, for breakfast, they had fish soup, squid, lot of rice, fresh fruit juice, and, sometimes, peanut butter.

*Breakfast in Kaliboo, Panay Island:

Every morning, you’ll find rice with «longanissa» and coffee, or rice with corn beef and coffee. Not for vegetarians… So if you don’t feel attracted to this «special» options, go to a local bakery and buy a banana muffin or a cinnamon roll, they are delicious!

• Breakfast in China:

If you want to go local and have a chinese breakfast, be brave. We saw a complete chinese breakfast early in the morning in a restaurant and we start running to the exit. Lot of meals we couldn’t recognise, with a non-appealing smell, and rice soup instead of coffee.

• Breakfast in South India:

There are no specific places to have breakfast (except in cities where rich people live as Mumbai, where you can find French bakeries, Italian cafes, etc. and have an European breakfast for a forbidden price). But you can go to local restaurants and ask for a coffee (served in an original cup) and some sweets they have such as local cakes or local bakery. Street food is again another option. In fact indian use to have the same meal for breakfast and for lunch: rice with vegetables and curry.

• Breakfast in Sri lanka:

The same as in India but they add coconut. This is: rice with vegetables and curry… and coconut 🙂

• Breakfast in Indonesia:

The most traditional breakfast in Indonesia is masi goreng or mie goreng, this is, fied rice with egg and vegetables. Sometimes they have a «take away breakfast» like in the picture, where the rice and the noodle with vegetables are served inside a banana leaf:

Wanna more? Wait some days and we’ll post how is the breakfast in Africa, in Europe and in America! Enjoy your breakfast wherever you are 🙂