Breakfast

[Guest Virgilio]

I has been my experience in all my time in China that Chinese breakfast sucks really bad. Lunch and Dinner are usually exquisite but I just can't stand breakfast. Probably my least favorite early morning combination is that soy milk stuff 0(?dou zhong?) with that extra-oily fried bread dipped in it. Other options have proved unsatisfactory too.

My saviour for morning repast in Beijing turned out to be the jianbing stand down the street. Truly the jianbing is heaven for two kuai.

Anybody else feel strongly about Chinese breakfast or have any recomendations for platable breakfast foods in the middle kingdom?

[Guest Anonymous]

When I was studying in BCLU during last summer, my breakfast consists of a bottle of green tea and 4 baozi which costs me only about 4 yuan.

[LFCLOUDS]

I LOVE Chinese breakfast.

I'm no fan of that soy stuff either but most of it is great.

I do kinda miss cornflakes but the rest of the food here more than makes up for that.

[Guest Anonymous]

Cornflakes? You can buy them at supermarkets. BTW, what do you eat for breakfast?

[roddy]

You can buy cornflakes in some supermarkets in some cities.

I usually skip breakfast now, but we used to go for a decent breakfast at the weekends - baozi, hei mizhou (black porridge), pickles and fried eggs. The black porridge was much more enjoyable than the usual stuff, which I find a bit tasteless.

Roddy

[LFCLOUDS]

You might be able to buy cornflakes but you can't buy good milk.

I'm very picky about my milk, and even think the milk is shite in other European countries. If it aint Irish(most UK milk is good too) I just dont like it.

.....anal?

Yup!

[ChouDoufu]

I always enjoyed breakfast quite a lot in BJ.. Usually, I'd get some hei mi zhou (like roddy) and maybe a baozi or two. Sometimes when i was looking for something different i'd go with the huntun (wonton) soup. Chadan are often nice too, but I always wonder how long they sit out.

Obviously things like youtiao (the long fried bread things) are slightly gross, but if you use them to dip in a bowl of zhou then most of the oilyness floats away!

[Guest Anonymous]

What is "chadan"?

Youtiao isn't meant to be eaten by itself. You're supposed to mix it with something blend. There are two ways I know of to eat youtiao. One of them is to eat it with shaobin, which I personally prefer. Also, you can chop it up and mix it with zhou.

Speaking of food, I love chou doufu! I never realized there are so many ways to prepare it (stir fry with ginger and pepper, deep fry and deep with sauce, and boil in a hot pot with cabbage, garlic and green onion) until this new Taiwanese restaurant opened up in Houston recently... hmm... yum.

[roddy]

Chadan - 茶蛋 - tea egg, an egg boiled in tea so that the flavour and colour of the tea penetrates the egg.

Roddy

[Guest Anonymous]

Oooh... I've personally never heard of it being called "chadan" before. I've only heard of chayedan, literally tea leaf egg.

[confucius]

I pour two of those little green cartons of Milo in my Nampa Zampa.

[andreabt]

I don't like soy milk either (ESPECIALLY not warm, YUCK!), but I do love the you tiao (fried breadsticks). I had trouble getting used to rice porridge, but then I realized most people don't eat it plain, they put something in it...preserved tofu, you tiao, maybe some of those pickled veggies (though I'm not a fan of those much either). My favorite rice porridge is Guangdong style, with bits of pork, green onions, ginger, and diced thousand year old egg...MMMMMMMM....

Other things I've enjoyed for breakfast include those egg pancake thingies that are common in the Tianjin/Beijing area; baozi, meat or beanpaste (though meat is preferable), or even noodle soup or dumplings (jiaozi or wontons), though those are more of a "sit down" thing that you have to have a little more time for. Oh, cong you bing, those fried pancakes with green onion, are good too.

I think the thing that makes it difficult is that we Westerners want something we can keep in our home and eat on the run...a quick bowl of cereal, a poptart, frozen waffle, etc. I know I've never been one to want to "cook" breakfast. My breakfasts stateside these days tend to be coffee and a Slim Fast bar.

Oh, that makes me think of another great topic, which I'll try to post in a separate thread...

[niubi]

what's a cool breakfast? kickass spicy mi xian; i miss kunming/yunnan food!

soy milk rocks! i use it in my coffee and cappucino.

[senor boogie woogie]

When I am at home, I get two to three Baozi for .5 kuai a piece. The big ones with the meatball in the center. Wonderful.

Chinese breakfast is awful. Boiled sggs, greasy noodles, hot soy milk, what in the hell are these people eating? The cook will only make eggs one way, fried and sunny side up. Yes folkes, 1 billion Chinese people eat their eggs either boiled or sunny side up. I do like the crunchy little egg roll things. So, if I am out of town in a Chinese hotel (been to a lot of them) it's baozi (usually cold and greasy), and little crunchy thingies. No Ihop, Dennys or waffle House to get anyhting good, even the McDonalds here does not really have breakfast.

SENOR

[Guest Anonymous]

Chinese breakfast is awful. Boiled sggs, greasy noodles, hot soy milk, what in the hell are these people eating?

It's very easy to judge another culture through your own eyes. I know many people who find American breakfast quite repulsive. Greasy pork fat (bacon), blend powder eggs, sugar coated cereal soaked in milk. One who's not accustomed to American breakfast might say "What in the hell are these people eating?" Also, you might be aware that Asians, not just Chinese, prepare red bean as desert, meaning it's sweet. Imagine an Asian trying Mexican salty refried beans for the first time. I'd be surprised if he or she doesn't throw up in disgust. My point is, if you only see things through your own values, you will be close-minded and miss out on many wonderful things this world has to offer you.

[Tsunku]

I hate all breakfast equally. Except bacon. Yum.

The thing that got on my nerves about Chinese breakfast was the absolute insistence that I eat it. I swear, for my Chinese family (I lived with a professor's family for a month), if I didn't eat breakfast, it was a sign of the coming apocalypse. I'm not generally a food in the morning person, I need some time to build up an appetite before I eat. They were always stuffing my bags full of fruit and snacks covertly before I left the house. I guess parents will be parents no matter where they are.

When I moved into my own place with my boyfriend, I made him French Toast one day since he wanted me to make some Western Food. Ok, no problem, made French Toast, put out some sugar for the top, just like home. What does my boyfriend do? He proceeds to coat the French Toast in lajiao (hot peppers). Apparently we've been eating it the wrong way all this time -- it's much better with lajiao.

The point is, Kulong's right, these are entirely subjective categories. It doesn't mean we have to like everything -- we've got a perfect right to hate Chinese breakfast if we want to -- but just because we might not like it doesn't make it wrong. Of course, I think most of us here realize this already.

[Guest Anonymous]

The point is, Kulong's right, these are entirely subjective categories. It doesn't mean we have to like everything -- we've got a perfect right to hate Chinese breakfast if we want to -- but just because we might not like it doesn't make it wrong. Of course, I think most of us here realize this already.

Exactly. I know even after living in Texas for over 13 years, I still can't stand eating steaks. The idea of consuming a large chunk of meat just isn't appetizing to me. However, I know many people who do like steaks so just because I don't like it, it doesn't mean steak is bad.

[tetsuo500]

I'm officially converted to soy milk. And I'm back in Australia now. After drinking soy for a while, I find that dairy makes my throat and nose all mucossy (is that a word?) - gross.

When I was in Nanchang I used to eat different types of mantou... I like plain mantou and the one that is twisted. It's salty and has spring onions through it. I really miss eating mantou for breakfast - it's good with a little bit of butter on it! (if you can find butter in your city)

I also like xiaolongbao and jiaozi as breakfast food. Tea eggs are good as well. I read in the local paper a few months ago that eggs used to have high cholesterol, but that's because of the diets the chickens were being fed. But these days chickens diets have changed, so the cholesterol is low to the point where we can eat as many eggs as we like. Has anyone else heard of this?

Now that I think of it... I eat breakfast less and less in Australia - I think my tastes have changed.

[skylee]

I have coffee/tea and biscuits for breakfast. Very normal and boring.

[Quest]

Well in Guangzhou dimsum/drinktea for breakfast is always the best I presume in Hongkong also.