04-007 Chinese breakfast

04-007
Chinese breakfast

I remember in one of the episodes of Castle, Richard was found eating Chinese food as breakfast by his coworker. She then asked Richard, “Who would eat Chinese food as breakfast?” “Chinese eat Chinese food as breakfast.”, Richard answered.

As a Chinese myself being grown up in an ex-British colony, I would say I rarely eat Chinese food for breakfast. Yes, there is such an option but certainly this is not my favorite. 

Chinese breakfast

We call them congee shops. They mainly sell congee, fried noodles and fried dough. But I prefer eating these as lunch. Food in congee shop is cheap. But because of high rental, congee shops were moved away from central business district. Many have an additional lunch or dinner menu but keep selling congee, noodles and dough all over the day. Yes, they sell all day “Chinese” breakfast. 

Chinese sandwich, with a glass of iced lemon tea

In Hong Kong, many locals turn to McDonald’s or KFC for their empty stomach in the morning. Chinese style breakfast is not really popular. For me? I prefer a sandwich and a cup of English tea for breakfast. I eat this almost every day. But the sandwich I eat is just a bit different from the one you can get in “Pret A Manger”. It is a hot sandwich, originated in England, but fusion with Chinese cooking style.

Many people said Hong Kong is a place where “East meets West”. I would say the other way round, it is the “West meets the East” here. We are the majority. But we are culturally influenced by the minority, the Western culture, and we dare to change it. Sandwich is an example. It is easy to make, cheap and tasty. An ideal way to prepare in the early morning while your eyes are still half-opened. But they are all cold, or almost, lukewarm.

We Chinese like eating things hot. Yes, there are several cold dishes in the Chinese menu, but the majority of our food is hot. When Mr. Sandwich first came to Hong Kong, we all like him. But he is just a bit too cool for us. We started adding some temperature upon him. So instead of boiled eggs, we use scrambled eggs, fried and serve while still piping hot. And we don’t use roasted beef slices but canned corned beef, again fried.

Chinese sandwich, hot and yummy.
There is normally no sandwich box for takeaway. Only plastic bag.

How does it taste? You can try this at home. Just get 2 pieces of bread, spread some butter on them, scrambled two eggs with a little bit of salt, fried them, put them in between the breads and eat. You will love them especially during the cold winter. But there is a drawback, hot sandwiches must be eaten within 10 minutes after made. Or else, the egg will cool down and the condensed water vapor from the hot eggs will soften the bread. That would make the sandwich very disgusting to eat.

 

Breakfast menu from a local Tea Restaurant

Another menu from a local fast-food shop in Wan Chai shows how our breakfast sets look like and how much they are. We locals call the restaurant “Cha-Chaan-Teng”, literally Tea Restaurant. And we call the breakfast “western style”. But you can’t hardly find the same breakfast in the western world, except in Chinatown maybe. They are completely fusion food.

I bought the “Western breakfast” set. It came with a piece of toast and baked beans. I picked the cutlet fish, sausage and egg. There is also a drink. I picked hot milk tea. This is how it looks like.

Cutlet fish with sausage and egg

It is cheaper to take away. The set only costs HKD $36, which is around USD $4.50. Is it expensive or cheap? I want to hear your comment.

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