The Best Of……. Breakfast

Lots of travel blogs carry “best of” lists, like the top ten things to do in so-and-so, the top ten sights in wherever. We haven’t done much of that, so as we build up firstly to our next trip to Greece (16 days and counting) and secondly to our World trip next year, we thought we’d have a go at a few different ones. Best breakfasts? Here we go:

Stone Town, Zanzibar. Tembo House Hotel. Plantain curry, garlic spinach and hot spicy beans, washed down with ginger coffee. Amazing. The buzz as the spiced coffee sets fire to the curry flavours on your palate is an incredible start to the day. Ready for anything after that.

Oaxaca city, Mexico. El Biche Pobre. Grasshopper omelette and fresh Mexican coffee. Those chapulines just taste fantastic any time, but as a start to your day they are even better. It’s a bit strange looking at an omelette full of creepy crawlies, but once you’re over that the flavour is just to die for.

Krakow. Europejski Hotel. Buffet style breakfast, seasonal food for the New Year period. Where do we start? Pickles galore, pickled fish, roll mops, eggs stuffed with spicy cream sauces, black bread… the list went on. As did the buffet. As did our breakfast. Every day.

Asian quarter, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. After curry the night before, you think you wouldn’t want the same for breakfast the following morning. Until you smell it, that is. All your resolve disappears and you gorge on hot curry at 8 in the morning.

Budapest. Drum Cafe. They just called it “Hungarian Breakfast”, so of course we had to go for it. Would it be last night’s leftover goulash? Who cares! It was basically a bowl of the thick goulash mix but with no meat; it was topped instead with scrambled egg and a slice of cheese toastie, both dropped in and slowly soaking up the peppery goulash. Divine!

Ionnina, Greece. Pretty much any cafe around the lake. What made these breakfasts special was not so much the food as the price. They were free! Order a coffee, and get tiropita (cheese pie) or other pastries, as free accompaniments to your drink. Have another coffee, have another free breakfast. How can you go wrong?

Playa Santiago, La Gomera, Canary Islands. Brilliant, lively bar at the point where the square meets the seafront. Locals there day and night, the owner always there, working dawn till midnight, rushed off his feet, wife in the kitchen. Best breakfast? The American Sandwich, a toasted sandwich with meat, cheese, tomato, lettuce, fried egg, mayonnaise and ketchup. Sounds a mish mash, tastes fantastic. 

St Petersburg, Russia. Minus 27 and pitch dark till after 10am, breakfast cafe 100 metres down the road. At minus 27, you can’t run for breakfast in your T-shirt, so it was on with the layers of clothing, walk for a couple of minutes, then peel off each layer one by one as soon as we were in the cafe. What a pain. Took longer to faff around with clothing than it did to eat breakfast. Which wasn’t worth the effort.