Breakfast is in a sorry state. Few of us would eat the same thing for dinner every night. So why do so many people wake up to a tired old bowl of cold cereal every morning? It doesn’t have to be this way–especially in Chicago, where there are breakfasts from all over the world served every day. Here are just a few of the alternatives:
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Restaurants around the city serve variations on halwa poori chole, the traditional Pakistani breakfast, but you can get a representative version at Shan Restaurant and Grocers (5060 N. Sheridan, 773-769-4961). Tang-colored farina, or sooji halwa, enriched with ghee and flavored with sugar and cardamom, is thick enough to be picked up with pieces of poori, a fried wheat flatbread. The accompanying chole, a spicy chickpea-and-potato stew, contrasts nicely with the sweet halwa, plus there’s yogurt raita and funky green mango pickles to cut through the richness–and all for $3.99.
The bacon buns–freshly baked yeast rolls stuffed with a generous amount of pork–at Healthy Food Lithuanian (3236 S. Halsted, 312-326-2724) sell out quickly. But if you’re too late, you won’t be sorry you settled for the kugelis. This potato pudding cake, sort of like a juiced-up latke, is studded with bacon and onions. The pudding is baked in a pan, meat loaf style, then sliced into slabs and fried in lard. Crispy on the outside with a creamy center, it’s the perfect platform for a couple of eggs over easy.
Mexican
