Way back when I was a new teacher, I saved up and flew to London for a solo vacation, but had delays in airports late at night, which meant that all the restaurants were closed, and I didn’t land until dawn.
My hotel had never heard of me, so I ended up hiking with a heavy pack across West London to a new place. Woke the porter up, dropped my bags in his office, and since it’d be half a day before my room was ready, I set off to explore.
Suddenly, I was dizzy and light-headed, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten anything but an airline bag of pretzels in 24 hours. I can still feel that: barely stumbling into a coffeeshop that had a huge sign “The Big Breakfast! With Coffee, only 3 Pounds!”
I’ve never seen a bigger or more welcome platter! Piled high with eggs, mushrooms, grilled to-mah’-toes, three kinds of sausage, then inundated with baked beans and crispy french fries. I could feel life and health coursing through my system. Sigh…
On subsequent trips I’ve tried to find that shop, but never could…
I hate going out to breakfast; it’s a complete waste of time, & if I’m going to have to wait in line & then wait to order & then wait to get food I’m going to eat a snack beforehand anyway so why just not eat at home.
That being said, I obviously go out for breakfast when I’m on the road; my go to is an egg & cheese sam’ich; usually from a convenience store & eaten in the car so there’s less time wasted & I don’t need to get up any earlier. (This weekend I was out of the hotel by 7am both days & Sun that included packing stuff up & getting it back into the car, & that was kind of late for me to be out.)
When I do have to go with others for a sit down, it’s usually eggs, taters & rye toast.
Sunday mornings I tend to cruise round different Trash and Treasure markets and pick up something to eat for Brunch while I’m there. This morning had a Lamb Souvlaki, Cypriot style.
Chunks of seasoned lamb on a skewer, cooked perfectly over coals, put in a Pita bread with lettuce, tomato, onion and tabouleh, squirt of lemon and slather on garlic sauce. Yum. Breakfast of champions.
Do you get Souvlakis in the US? Souvlakis and Doner Kebabs (the Lebanese version with the slabs of meat cooked on a vertical spit and shaved off the outside as it cooks) are the late night go to when leaving the pub, bar or nightclub, but they’re just as good for Brunch.
I’ve seen a lot of pita places (not saying about authenticity, but they exist) and a few other Greek places, but they’re normally lunch / dinner places, not late night places. And for various reasons, lamb isn’t a popular meat critter in the US, although I like a well cooked lamb shank or (if gifted or I have an occasion) a frenched rib roast or leg of lamb!
So, souvlaki is a much more uncommon dish, although for myself, well:
I usually hit fast food for breakfast and eat at my desk work-days. The last couple of weeks I’ve been mixing things up by getting my iced tea from Del Taco then going down the block and picking up a modified #1 Breakfast burrito (no potatoes, add rice) at Aibeto’s. Slightly more expensive that way, but my burrito is on a hand-made tortilla and filled with hand scrambled real eggs, cheese, thick-cut bacon and killer Mexican rice instead of a corporate, chain, loaded with salt burrito from Del Taco.
I suspect it is because the price has gone up. When I was a kid in the '60s lamb chops were a standard part of our menu. Now they are rare and relatively expensive.
We once won half a lamb at an auction. It was amazing.
I gather lamb doesn’t take well to factory farming. If you buy pastured meat, the lamb costs about the same as the beef and pork. But conventional beef and pork are much cheaper, and chicken is cheaper still.
So it’s really that the price of other meats has gone down, relative to the CPI, i believe.
I myself have a slight allergy to eggs. I can eat them with little to no problem, but it’s significant enough that my doctor doesn’t want me to take flu shots or anything. So I usually try to avoid them.
When it comes to breakfast/brunch, I’m generally a carnivore. Bacon/sausage is almost a given, though I will go with chicken and waffles if that’s on the menu. If not, then I’ll usually go with pancakes or waffles, toast (preferably with cinnamon and sugar instead of jelly/jam), and whatever meat is available. Bacon over ham. Ham over sausage. Sausage links over sausage patties.
Point of order though, pork is absolute the cheap meat king in-store these days, and lamb isn’t ever (In my experience) on the sort of sale that makes it cheap, buuuuut…
Beef has become so pricey now that it’s a lot better comparison than in years past. For example, my local Kroger mega-mart has packaged, frenched rack of lamb for $16.99 per pound. Not cheap, no.
But, a boneless NY strip (not on sale) runs $14.99 a pound right now. Granted, I’d bet it goes on sale for $9.99 or so a pound at least every other month, but the default price on beef is now comparable at least to lamb, rather than lamb being the huge outlier.
Still doesn’t mean I’m buying EITHER much anymore, but beef is, and has been in a different realm of cost for some time now.
People keep talking about meat prices having “doubled” but wholesale beef prices have gone up 37% in the five years from January 2019 to January 2024. Meat (beef, poultry pork and lamb combined) are up 29%.
Meat prices have doubled in the last 23 years (since 2001).
Thankfully, none of us in the thread are saying that, but everyone acknowledges the increases, and sadly, it affects those who can least afford it the most. BUT, and back to the thread, we can say that egg prices have in some sense doubled in the last 5 years!
Still, I absolutely don’t mindlessly buy a dozen eggs anymore just because I’m out. And I wonder if it changed any ones breakfast preferences (The Thread Boss, the thread!). I doubt it, since eggs are still pretty cheap, but maybe someone in thread did.
Back to breakfast favorites though, I did also want to mention that it’s so very regional as well. I mentioned upthread, that if I’m in an area where chicken and waffles are a local tradtion, it’s one of the things I enjoy, but since I’m planning a trip to my more-or-less hometown in a week, it brough back memories of getting a chile relleno burrito from a cart for breakfast or brunch on a hot saturday morning in the old downtown of Las Cruces NM. Damn those were good - hot (!) well roasted chile, minimal breading unlike the abominations I normally find here in Colorado, light on fillings, a smear of refritos, and a touch of limed rice in a griddled tortilla made fresh that day.
Depends where I wake up and if I still got my wallet in my pants, or whoever’s pants I happen to be wearing. Or if they allow me in without pants.
This is a joke. If I’m not there to let the dogs out at 7:48 sharp, they will revolt and tear up their beds and Teddy will probably drop a deuce in the box. So, no breakfast delicacies for me.
I used to want hash browns with my corned beef hash with eggs and toast too. But since the hash already has potatoes in it, and since I love carbs too much, I now skip the hash browns.
