LITTLE THINGS MAY BRING DELIGHT, BUT NOTHING LIKE BREAKFAST

Then there will be seconds and thirds and . . . .I have at least 10 more items to taste!

Amy and I have always wondered what Koreans and Japanese and Chinese eat for everyday breakfast. So here’s one answer.  The breakfast buffet here at the SJTU Faculty Club probably has something every vegetarian can eat.   There were over 18 items as I counted them Sunday, and I notice there is also bread and a toaster today, when a tall Laowai  walks over to put toast in the big machine.    But otherwise it’s a vegetarian delight of sorts.     There are separate plates of beans, broccoli, squash, sliced raw tomatoes, toasted squares of sticky rice, a dish of greens with black fungus and slices of mochi (thought they were potato), French Fries, I think Fried Chicken—thought it was chicken but I look closer today and it is a not green vegetable deep fried (this was today, and yesterday it may have been chicken), small pieces of corn on the cob, something else that’s like a spring roll but white and deep fried—maybe it’s vermicelli stuffed with some vegetable or a sausage, white rice, purple potatoes, fried rice with very little bits of egg and green, a couple kinds of eggs that make me nervous—one looks like it’s been cooked or boiled in soy sauce, and the other looks like eggs that really are more than a hundred years old in name, some pickled vegetables, always Shanghai noodles, and get this--a pan of sato imo with the skins on! which I ate whole (I notice on subsequent days that some of the skin has been removed, and a deep fried ball about an inch or two in diameter that is filled with dark sweet bean paste, with the wrapping being a thin layer of sticky rice or mochi—really good tasting. 

Most of the veggies are very plain.   Just cooked, placed on a plate or left in a pan.  Notice the bow-tied kombu?  It is new on this day.  There's also soup for everyone, but I spot a few people with huge bowls of soup most likely filled with dumplings.  They get these at the counter, but have to tell the cook what they want. The advantages of speaking the language are very clear.

There are two kinds of congee (okayu or juk.  depending on who eats with you) and  today I notice some taste bud awakeners on the side  to add to the congee (green onions, what I originally thought were small shreds of chicken that ended up being baby shrimp a quarter of an inch long [brine shrimp?], and some dried seaweed) and some oils, hot sauce and soy sauce.  There is a pan full of a variety of bao, the one I had yesterday was a mixed meat bao, but today I find what I pick has no filling.  So in addition to the eggs, there's a touch of animal protein.   I usually see some kind of sausage that looks like a little-fingered-sized wiener, which I have yet to try..

So breakfast is the good meal of the day.  There also are juices, soy milk (I think), and yogurt.   (I am told the coffee is awful, but it's China, so I would expect tea to be excellent.) 

About 38 Yuan.