Breakfasts From the Far East

Nation's Restaurant News, July 12, 1999

Asian-style breakfasts are light and nutritious, but are they too far out for American-style customers?

Americans go out to dinner expecting big flavor and new taste experiences. Dining adventures for dinner, yes; but will diners accept them at breakfast time? Breakfast, in fact, may be the most protected, hardest-to-change meal for many customers.

While early morning dim sum or noodles aren't for everyone, Asian breakfast items are flickering onto menus across the country, adding to the "globalization of cuisine" in the big American melting pot.

Among the key findings in a major operator survey, conducted by Strategic Foodservice Solutions of Tampa for Nation's Restaurant News earlier this year, more than 90 percent of operators report that ethnic foods are popular with their customers, and two-thirds say that ethnic foods help increase traffic flow and distinguish their operations from the competition. Perhaps ethnic-style breakfasts are the next frontier for operators seeking new ways to lure in business.

Naturally, operations that have Asian customers are more likely to include Asian options on their breakfast menus. Nomura Securities, for example, is a Japanese bank in New York City's financial district where Restaurant Associates provides foodservice. On average, 850 breakfasts are served daily in the employee dining room. The menu is diverse, according to foodservice director John Green, because the largely Japanese clientele enjoys Western foods as well as their traditional breakfasts.

A popular breakfast at Nomura Securities is dashi maki tamago. The dish consists of eggs beaten with dashi, or fish stock, soy sauce and a little sugar, all of which is then cooked like a very thin omelet in a rectangular skillet. The omelet is rolled and served with small bowls of condiments, including tsukemono pickles, which may include pickled apricots, plums, beets or carrots. The kitchen also produces shoyaki, or salt-grilled fish, to serve with the dashi maki tamago. In-house executive sushi chef Yuji Gomikawa salts fatty fish, such as salmon or mackerel, then layers it in a deep dish and compresses it with weights overnight before grilling' it minutes before service.

"One of our kitchen employees, Chen, is Chinese," foodservice director Green says, "and he tells me that the Chinese eat no eggs or dairy for breakfast. Their favorite breakfast is lots of hot tea and dim sum, especially shrimp rolls that are wrapped in crepe-like rice paper then sauteed or steamed."

Across the country from New York, Hotel Nikko San Francisco offers both a Japanese buffet and an American buffet every morning. The hotel restaurant, Anzu Nikko, opened last January and employs one of only 10 master sushi chefs in America, according to general manager Klaus Assmann.

"We designed the buffet especially for our Japanese guests," Assmann says, "and I expected to see only Japanese people using it, so I'm surprised that probably 15 percent of the people who go there are American and European. But it's very light and healthy food." The Japanese buffet includes okayu gohan, or rice porridge, as well as sliced fish cakes, sliced omelet, taro potatoes with steamed vegetables, broiled salted salmon, spicy seaweed, soy and miso soup, pickles and bamboo shoots.

In much of Asia, breakfast foods are not as distinctly different from the foods of other dayparts as they are in the American and European traditions. In the northern Indian province of Uttar Pradesh, for example, a leisurely breakfast might include kulchas, or flat sourdough breads, served with nahari, a spicy lamb shank stew that simmers all night over hot coals. Spicy fried liver served with rich, whole-wheat flatbreads would be another north Indian option.

For more than a third of the world's population, rice is the staff of life and thus is included in every meal. In the West, however, we menu other grains for breakfast, especially wheat and oats, but rarely think of rice as a morning possibility. While we can't describe "Asian" food in one big lump -- every region of every country has its own traditions and indigenous ingredients--it is safe to say that Asians have found very palatable ways to serve rice for breakfast.

In central China and Taiwan, for example, fried rice is not the brown, salty dish most often served in American restaurants. Authentic fried rice, in fact, is a fine breakfast or brunch item, especially for buffet service, since it looks better than it might sound to American ears. It's made by quickly cooking beaten eggs in a skillet, with cold rice then stir-fried with the egg and some scallions just until heated through. Protein, such as shrimp or pork shreds, also can be added.

Congee is a hot rice porridge served in south China and accompanied by several salty, highly seasoned, cold side dishes, including preserved eggs, vegetables or fish. In fact, throughout China thin porridge often is eaten for breakfast, but in the northern provinces, wheat, barley and cornmeal might replace the rice.