Breakfast of champions

As any casual reader of this blog may know, I really like breakfast. Not only is it 'the most important meal of the day', it's also a lot of fun! Breakfast offerings in international hotels are particularly delightful, and up until today the breakfast buffet at the Taj Samudra in Colombo, Sri Lanka, was the most sumptuous I'd encountered. Right now, though, we're staying at the Shangri-La in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and their brekkie options are both incredibly diverse and a tad bizarre. I’m a huuuuge fan of the Malaysian Indian favourite roti canai, so started with a plate of roti canai and palak paneer this morning.

Roti canai, eggplant curry and palak paneer ... bliss!

The breakfast bar was enormous and catered to every imaginable taste. It was loosely categorised into Continental, American, Malaysian (with Malay, Indian and Chinese subsets), Japanese, Healthy and Vegetarian and had (just to provide a few examples) Chinese dumplings, spring rolls and egg tarts, donuts, sushi, kueh (bite-sized Malay sweets), fried rice, omelettes, French toast, lots of different fresh juices, and all the usual 'Western' breakfast stuff. (Except bacon. This is an Islamic country, after all.) I felt utterly overwhelmed by choice, and ended up eating three 'courses': roti and curries (above), various Chinese foods, and some pastries. Fortunately we have one more night here, so can try some more of the huge variety of food tomorrow morning!

Andrew and I are actually on a six day culinary tour around Malaysia, so ... if I can summon up the enthusiasm ... there may be some more details of our adventures posted here over the next week. Anyway, selamat malam [good night].

The silliest item on today's breakfast buffet. Chocolate fondue ...