The Breakfasts of Asia: The Food of Long Ago Is This Morning's Feast (Published 1992) (2024)

WHEN an Asian wakes up in the morning and wants to eat the breakfast of his dreams (and of his ancestors), it's usually not bacon and eggs.

A Chinese reaches for a bowl of porridge of soybeans or rice, a Japanese sips miso-thickened broth and a Korean might eat beef dumplings in broth. On the side are little dishes of pickled cabbage, lettuce and radish. Breakfast, washed down by tea, is savory, not sweet; seldom greasy, and to an Asian palate tasty. It is a meal thousands of years old.

But to the Western palate, an Asian breakfast is an acquired taste.

After 24 years of marriage, Stuart Bloch, a lawyer in Washington, is still astonished by what his Chinese-born wife, Julia Chang Bloch, has for breakfast. Watching Mrs. Bloch, the American Ambassador to Nepal, eat Chinese rice soup with pickled lettuce and slivers of dried pork, he said, "I wouldn't touch that stuff with a 10-foot pole." But by noon, he was ready for Chinese food.

Theodore Bestor, an associate professor of anthropology at Columbia University and a specialist in Japanese culture, said: "It's a personal observation, but people's food preferences are the least flexible parts of their culture. People will experiment with dress and child rearing, but with food, when they haven't woken up yet, they want something familiar."

In Manhattan, at the Essex House Hotel Nikko, Japanese guests order a foreign -- Western, that is -- breakfast on the first morning of their visit, said Kazunobi Takita, the assistant general manager. "Then on the second day their ethnicity comes out, and they order a Japanese breakfast," he said. "They must talk to the rice. They cannot talk to the bread."

In Manhattan, a traditional Japanese breakfast is also served at the Plaza, Hilton, Marriott Marquis and Rihga Royal hotels, as well as at Menchanko-Tei, a restaurant.

What Japanese eat in restaurants and in their homes, whether in New Rochelle, N.Y., or in Tokyo, is what their ancestors ate at least as far back as the seventh century, said Elizabeth Andoh, an anthropologist and cookbook author whose books include "An Ocean of Flavor: The Japanese Way With Fish and Seafood" (Morrow, 1988). The typical breakfast, she said, is soup, rice and pickles. "Anything you have in addition, like grilled fish, relates to circ*mstance -- wealth or geography -- rather than an era," Ms. Andoh said.

The soup is usually miso based, and may include cubes of soft bean curd, slivered seaweed and scallions. The pickles include white radish, cucumber, cabbage, seaweed and carrots.

Beyond those basics, Essex House also serves grilled salmon; a dumpling filled with minced carrots, seaweed and fish cake, and side dishes of Japanese omelet, seaweed flavored with sesame oil, and julienne strips of burdock and carrot.

At Menchanko-Tei, the basic dishes are augmented with grilled mackerel and fresh bean curd topped with shaved bonito flakes and sprinkled with soy sauce. On the side is a tiny packet of five slices of seaweed to wrap around rice and pickles.

China has two traditional breakfasts, northern and southern, dictated by local agriculture. The breakfast of northern China, where soybeans and wheat grow, is eaten in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan and, authenticity intact, in Flushing, Queens.

On a recent Sunday morning, Chinese families were lined up at the People's People Restaurant in Flushing to eat a northern Chinese breakfast, served Tuesday through Sunday. The restaurant, which seats 90, was packed. Most of the patrons were from Taiwan; it was for them that Chung King, the owner, opened the restaurant in November.

Until he opened his restaurant, Mr. King said, "they ate Western breakfasts, fried a couple of eggs, or ate dim sum." (Dim sum is southern Chinese steamed, boiled and fried dumplings and buns.) But what they really wanted, Mr. King said, was soy-milk soup. And so each day his chef makes 100 gallons of it.

The bowls of soy-milk soup being served at People's People had flecks of white soybean curds drifting in a broth whose surface was dappled with floating droplets of hot chili oil. An assortment of fried and baked breads was served alongside.

What looked like a bread-and-bread sandwich was a deep-fried nonsweet cruller tucked in a toasted envelope of bread sprinkled with sesame seeds. The crisp sesame bread was flaky, while the cruller was soft, airy and faintly chewy inside and crisp outside. It is best piping hot.

There was su bing, flaky buns filled with slivered cooked white radish, or with scallions lightly sauteed in lard. A fried bun contained chives and scrambled eggs; other buns had minced pork and cabbage. The food, Mr. King said, can be made at home, but making it is time consuming.

Peter Kwong, the author of "The New Chinatowns" (Hill & Wang, 1987), said that "in China, you dash out, and stop at shops, and eat it on the way to work."

The southern Chinese counterpart of soy-milk soup is congee or jook, a soup made by cooking rice for two hours, until the grains amalgamate into the broth. Because rice is scarce in the north, the soup there is served thin, but in the south, where rice is plentiful, the jook is thick.

Jook is to the southern Chinese as chicken broth is to Jews. "Jook is truly ancient, and dates at least to 171 B.C.," said Bruce Cost, the chef and owner of the Monsoon restaurant in San Francisco, and the author of "Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients" (Morrow, 1988). He added this somewhat bland soup, sometimes cooked with chicken broth, is a medium in which the Chinese boil bits of beef, chicken and pork balls. Some people eat the jook by itself; some with side dishes of peanuts, pickled lettuce or slivered ginger.

"What's great is that even in one simple little meal, you get different little taste sensations," said Nina Simonds, the author of "China's Food" (HarperCollins 1991).

Although dim sum is part of a southern Chinese breakfast, the starting point is jook, served at tea parlors from huge cauldrons on rolling carts. It is made plain, but diners add to it tiny balls of fish, pork or beef; slivers of beef or chicken, or sliced preserved duck egg. Condiments to sprinkle on top include flakes of dried preserved pork, pickled lettuce, pickled cucumber and finely slivered scallions and ginger. By 11 A.M. the jook is usually sold out, confirming its place as a breakfast food.

In Manhattan, devotees of jook can be found at the two Big Wong restaurants in Chinatown, where people line up five deep at the takeout counters, shouting out their orders. The jook is offered with preserved duck egg as well as pork, chicken and beef balls. Long twists of fried dough are eaten with the jook, either cut up and dropped into the bowl, or on the side.

Although the Chinese and Japanese have special breakfast food, Koreans do not. "We eat the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said Young Choe, the manager of Woo Chon Restaurant in Manhattan, which is open 24 hours a day. What makes Korean meals special is not the foods, but the ritual, where family hierarchy prevails. "The eldest person takes the first dish," Mr. Choe said, "and then it's passed."

The meal can be as simple as a bowl of steamed rice, a side dish of pickles and a bowl of beef broth. Or it can be more elaborate, with dumplings floating in the broth, and many little dishes of pickled vegetables.

"If you have breakfast in a Korean inn, you get the rice, the soup, a bit of fish, often grilled, and as many side dishes as people have the imagination to give you," said Laurel Kendall, the associate curator of Asian ethnographic collections at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. In Korean kim chi, or pickles, she said, "there are pickled cabbage and, in the summer, pickled cucumbers, little red beans preserved in sugar and soy, and pickled bean sprouts." Not to mention radish, bell flower, carrots and seaweed. Then there are the soups, which come with beef or pheasant dumplings, beef ribs, crab, clams or fish.

But when Mr. Choe eats a Korean breakfast, he eats an austere dish, seol rong tang, a beef broth with thin wheat noodles and rice. Why? "It is very gentle and soothing," he said. TO FACE THE RISING SUN

THESE are some restaurants and hotels that serve Japanese, Chinese and Korean breakfasts in New York. Chinese

BIG WONG, 67 Mott Street (Bayard Street), (212) 964-0540, and 157 Mott Street (Grand Street), (212) 966-6808. These restaurants offer takeout containers of excellent rice congee, or jook. It can be ordered seven different ways, with things like pork balls, fish balls, beef, chicken or preserved duck egg, for $2.25 to $2.85 a quart. Fried crullers of unsweetened dough, 70 cents each, can be dipped into the congee.

MANDARIN COURT, 61 Mott Street (Bayard Street); (212) 608-3838. This friendly, bustling restaurant serves rice congee with slivers of preserved duck egg and shredded pork from a huge covered enameled pot on a rolling cart; a small bowl is $1.65, and a large one, $2.95. Dim sum is served daily from 7 A.M. to 3 P.M., but the congee is usually gone by 11 A.M.

PEOPLE'S PEOPLE RESTAURANT, 38-08 Prince Street, Flushing; (718) 460-8686. This 90-seat restaurant serves a classic northern Chinese breakfast; outside, people stand in line waiting for a table and bowls of soy-milk soup ($1.35). Flaky buns to eat with the soup are $1.85 for two. Breakfast is served from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. Tuesday through Sunday. Japanese

ESSEX HOUSE HOTEL NIKKO, 160 Central Park South; (212) 247-0300. At the elegant Cafe Botanica, with views of Central Park, a breakfast including grilled salmon and a Japanese omelet costs $19.50. Served 6:30 to 10:30 A.M. Monday through Friday.

HILTON HOTEL, 1335 Avenue of the Americas (54th Street); (212) 586-7000. At the Cafe New York, a buffet with grilled salmon, pan-fried dumplings, miso soup, rice and pickled vegetables costs $14.75. From 6 to 11 A.M. Monday through Saturday; until noon on Sunday.

MARRIOTT MARQUIS, 1535 Broadway (45th Street); (212) 398-1900. The Encore restaurant, on the eighth floor, offers a breakfast that includes broiled salmon with ginger and steamed vegetables. It costs $18 and is served from 6 to 11:30 A.M. daily.

MENCHANKO-TEI, 39 West 55th Street; (212) 247-1585. This small, plain but extremely popular restaurant serves Japanese lunch and dinner, as well as breakfast. A meal of grilled fish, soup, pickles and rice costs $9.95 and is served from 7 to 9 A.M. Tuesday through Sunday.

THE PLAZA, Fifth Avenue at 59th Street; (212) 546-5310. In the paneled Edwardian Room, which faces Central Park, the Japanese breakfast has a slight twist: the eggs are scrambled American style. The breakfast, at $23.50, is served from 7 to 11 A.M. daily.

RIHGA ROYAL HOTEL, 151 West 54th Street; (212) 307-5000. Japanese breakfast is available only through room service, for $16. Korean

WOO CHON, 8-10 West 36th Street; (212) 695-0676. This spacious restaurant is open 24 hours a day, always serving the same menu. A bowl of seol rong tang (rice and wheat noodles in beef broth) is $6.50, and sulak sanchae bibim bag (rice with shredded carrots, mung-bean sprouts, mushrooms and other vegetables) is $9.25. -- ELAINE LOUIE