The Most Important Meal of the Day

This is a blog post I wrote a while ago but was unable to post because of computers too weary to peer into my camera and grab a few pictures. I can only apologise for what must have been a distressing wait. But now allow me to present in all it's multi-megapixel glory - Tim writing about some stuff he ate.

Thailand offers the discerning traveller a number of ways to start the day. Traditionally, Thai cooking doesn't particularly differentiate between which foods are suitable for the morning or evening like we do. A typical Thai breakfast would be something like rice soup, a good example of which looks like this:

Delicious. But that's not what I want to talk about. Because alongside these tasty authentic new delights lie another culinary sensation: the Thai approximation of a Western cooked breakfast. Typically labelled an English or American breakfast, these offer a slightly more expensive but not-terrible value way to kick your stomach into gear. Unfortunately, lack of ingredients, experience and interest for these hallowed Western dishes leads to some interesting 'plates', as the guys on Masterchef would put it. Consider this the good, the bad and the downright strange of Thai breakfasts.

This tasty morsel is the cheese omelet served up by The Rock in Ko Phi Phi. To be fair that is a very literal combination of a Thai omelet and the only cheese they have on that island, so maybe I should have seen it coming. The fruit was an unexpected bonus.

The American breakfast served at Bamboo Bar in Ko Lanta takes top place in this not-too-official survey. All the essentials included (plus ham), with the bacon being just right, and all for a decent price. The second one of these wasn't as good, because our minivan came an hour early and I had to have it cold out of a takeaway box. Still good though.

This was served at Dicko's in Ko Samui. Whilst the fancy grey-slate plate is a nice touch, it frankly could have been better considering it was an English expat place. You also had to choose between bacon and sausage, although I realised too late that Connie ordering one too and being veggie meant I could have had both, so I ended up with a double helping of sausages. This was the disappointing student of breakfasts, a respectable B, but could have been an A*.

Mr K's attempt in Ko Phangan is...well look at it. That thing at the bottom there is a sausage, apparently. The bacon had the texture of chewing gum you find under a bus seat and the beans appeared to have been overdone by about half an hour and a few thousand kilowatts. All in all a sorry affair from an institution whose chicken schnitzel sandwiches I greatly admired.

The Holiday Breakfast, served up by Coral Bay on the north side of Ko Phangan, believe it or not, is the most expensive breakfast of all these breakfasts. Your eyes will have immediately been drawn to the salad on the right hand side of the plate, which is fair enough. Lettuce, cucumber and onion are not traditional accompaniments to the cooked breakfast, they're not even cooked. But bring your eyes over the right hand side of the plate, and take a glimpse at what are, I kid not, cheese toasties. Cheese. Toasties. Pretty good cheese toasties at that, but nevertheless a good 2/3rds of that plate is filled with things that have no place there, That is what the BNP think a Full English will look like in 10 years time.

And with that, my ode to gluttony concludes. As does my research into this important field. Ultimately, this enterprise cannot be sustained by either my wallet nor my waistline.