The aesthetics of cheap breakfast

In my experience so far in SE Asia, you can get a cheap, tasty and filling breakfast at local food stalls or small bars almost anywhere. For 0.5 to 1.5 euros, you can leave behind the banana pancake trail and eat sweet bean filled pastry or chicken soup accompanied by green tea instead.

Another advantage of going local at the start of the day is the opportunity to peoplewatch shamelessly. No one is going to question your sleepy presence, staring into the void at 7am. That’s late already by the way, I have frequently seen people getting up at 4am and having three course meals at 5.

Sometimes you get the worst of the worst in terms of drinks, because all they have is instant coffee or Lipton’s black tea, two things that I simply cannot stomach any more.

Ideally though, there is never ending fresh green tea in a retro thermos, the mugs are tiny, the colors bright and everything mismatches in a very stylish way.

The best breakfast experience so far has come for free, in the shape of the nice lady preparing an elaborate meal every morning at my first homestay in Yogyakarta. Incredible. The food could have been enough for the whole day, had I been able to eat it all.

There hasn’t been any real culture shock so far but I do miss the good old bread and butter sometimes. The last chance to get that was in Penang, Malaysia, where I discovered freshly baked German sourdough rye bread at a local bakery and was instantly in heaven. Oh well. Off to Cambodia and Lao now, let’s see what the mornings serve there.

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