No.. Not idlis or dosas.. My breakfast from memory is related to bread and its avatars. Crisp rava toasted cheese sandwich, yellow (with onions) and white (without onions) bread up a or at my place pavachi bhaji. Bread was never in vanilla at my place but decked up in some avatar or other ( egg, kheema and chicken accompaniments included). Aai made a real good omelette with onions, green chilies and coriander , a full fry with/without chilly and turmeric. A half fry, a scrambled egg ( eggs I sadly never liked and never do even now) and bread toasted buttered or plain always accompanied them. My otherwise kitchen disoriented sister ( who is incidentally a good cook now if she actually decides to cook something than usual dal chawal) made a lovely bread roll with potato filling and flattened bread encasing. Aai makes a mean paovada which had bread,potatoes and green goodness of green chilies and coriender and cumin seeds, the small rounds were then shallow fried in oil. Bread actually ruled our kitchen because of availability (we had a bread loaf a week) and versatility.
These were actually never as Sunday breakfasts. Pavachi bhaji was on week day breakfast menu, mostly on Mondays as on Sunday dada got a good real loaf from the bakery. Bread roles were rarely made by my busy sister and paovada were made for guests. The simpler sundaybreakfast one that gave my mother a respite from cooking once in a while. Maybe because we're had so much availability, we were spoilt for choice. Along with ubiquitous slice bread from 'haria nana ( local baniya's name by my dada) we had paos ( a type of roll) from ahura bakery, loaf which was soft and sweetish with an awesome crust ( which was used for pavachi bhaji), the paos came in two forms naram paos ( soft rolls used mostly for flavourful pao bhaji, a mean missal pao , fiery vada pao or moping the juices of kheema or chicken gravy ( my sis favourite on Sunday evening)) and then there was the pao " kadak pao". A lot like French baguette, it was loved by sis and she passed on the love to me. Just like dark chocolate, cheese and spicy red banana wafers.
But ahura was a bit far off and Sunday morning made my dada extra lazy. But he had a solution to it. Lucky. That is not an expression but name of the nearby bakery. Which was more for Sunday breakfast ware than usuals which were at ahura. There was no special something but more convenience for dada, who went there in his Kurta / shirt and lungi. It was nothing special. Rather, one could actually see bakers caked in dough rather than ahura which was more shopfront and one rarely saw bakers. We had lots of other stuff from ahura as well like toasts (taste awesome in tea), kharis and their truly good elaichi fragrant masa cakes. Lucky was not not lucky that way as it was used for Sunday breakfast bread only. So dada used to slowly trod to the bakery where they would still be baking bread. Sometimes, he would get the newspaper covered bread ( it's called ladi pao as in bread cluster if translated crudely) , the moisture making the Urdu news paper a bit soggy. When we hungrily slit the pao and slathered salty amul butter, it melted right in the holes and crevices. It was always naram pao for me. But one day the then hidden foodie in me asked for a taste of kadak pao. I instantly fell in love with the way the pao crackled at a bite, the way the crumbs messily fell in the plate. The way the salty butter tasted with the bread and best, when amul cheese bits found your tongue. Naram pao was soon forgotten and it was always kadak pao, maska (salted butter) and chees (amul preferred) for me. Sometimes dada would get hot batata vadas from nearby shanty. They tasted equally good sandwiched flat between the hot bread. After this breakfast, tv would start and that would be just one glorious start to a Sunday.
These were actually never as Sunday breakfasts. Pavachi bhaji was on week day breakfast menu, mostly on Mondays as on Sunday dada got a good real loaf from the bakery. Bread roles were rarely made by my busy sister and paovada were made for guests. The simpler sundaybreakfast one that gave my mother a respite from cooking once in a while. Maybe because we're had so much availability, we were spoilt for choice. Along with ubiquitous slice bread from 'haria nana ( local baniya's name by my dada) we had paos ( a type of roll) from ahura bakery, loaf which was soft and sweetish with an awesome crust ( which was used for pavachi bhaji), the paos came in two forms naram paos ( soft rolls used mostly for flavourful pao bhaji, a mean missal pao , fiery vada pao or moping the juices of kheema or chicken gravy ( my sis favourite on Sunday evening)) and then there was the pao " kadak pao". A lot like French baguette, it was loved by sis and she passed on the love to me. Just like dark chocolate, cheese and spicy red banana wafers.
But ahura was a bit far off and Sunday morning made my dada extra lazy. But he had a solution to it. Lucky. That is not an expression but name of the nearby bakery. Which was more for Sunday breakfast ware than usuals which were at ahura. There was no special something but more convenience for dada, who went there in his Kurta / shirt and lungi. It was nothing special. Rather, one could actually see bakers caked in dough rather than ahura which was more shopfront and one rarely saw bakers. We had lots of other stuff from ahura as well like toasts (taste awesome in tea), kharis and their truly good elaichi fragrant masa cakes. Lucky was not not lucky that way as it was used for Sunday breakfast bread only. So dada used to slowly trod to the bakery where they would still be baking bread. Sometimes, he would get the newspaper covered bread ( it's called ladi pao as in bread cluster if translated crudely) , the moisture making the Urdu news paper a bit soggy. When we hungrily slit the pao and slathered salty amul butter, it melted right in the holes and crevices. It was always naram pao for me. But one day the then hidden foodie in me asked for a taste of kadak pao. I instantly fell in love with the way the pao crackled at a bite, the way the crumbs messily fell in the plate. The way the salty butter tasted with the bread and best, when amul cheese bits found your tongue. Naram pao was soon forgotten and it was always kadak pao, maska (salted butter) and chees (amul preferred) for me. Sometimes dada would get hot batata vadas from nearby shanty. They tasted equally good sandwiched flat between the hot bread. After this breakfast, tv would start and that would be just one glorious start to a Sunday.
