Hi
This may sound trivial to some of us, but breakfast is the most important meal of the day (blah blah blah).

Back home in Asia (Singapore), a breakfast can consist of a rather heavy meal of noodles with soup, or rice with some meat/vegetables. We also eat fried flour-based cakes and pastries (Indo style), etc. We do eat bread and butter too, but not so much like here.
There is also something like the nan bread (we call it prata) and we eat it with Curry (yes spicy stuff), early in the morning.

But now, in Switzerland all is changed.
We have to content ourselves with:
1. Gipfeli (croissant) /COOP/MIGROS
2. Bread /so many kinds I lost count
3. Jam / very nice and fresh here
4. Margarine / swiss cows reputed to be better than other cows
5. Nutella / viva italia
6. Birchenmueschli (not sure of spelling) / yoghart

Can you list what you used to eat, and what you eat now?
Stating your country of origin will also help us learn more about your country.

Can you also list where you can get your local breakfast now, besides the Frei Breadshop (common in Baden area)?


For me, it is 2 gipfeli from COOP / Migros in the morning and coffee from the Nespresso machine (office-equipment).

HAT

The breakfast I remember best was in 2002 in a hotel in Bangkok. Chicken curry. Yum. I stayed at an Indian friend's in Haringay for a few months. We would sometimes eat toast with a red hot chilli and garlic paste and some hot mango or lime pickle. And tea or chai.

The rest:

England.
Used to be nothing.
Now is a couple of rounds of toast cut from whatever random loaf I picked up (I resolved to never buy sliced bread while I'm here), butter and honey and a nasty instant coffee.
I get the brekkie from my kitchen as the bus stop is 17.25838 seconds (approximately) from the entrance to my appartement building.

England and Australia prior to here.

Usually a big bowl of cereal.

Maybe once a week (in particular with a hangover) i'd have a greasy spoon in England, or a McD's breakfast in Australia (bacon McMuffin with hash brown and pancakes - yum!).

Swiss McD's breakfast is an embaressment to fast food and you can forget greasy spoon, so hangover breakfast here is Birchermuesli and sandwiches.

My work-day brekkie hasn't changed for about 20 years - two slices of toast with jam or peanut butter with a coffee.

I rarely have a cooked "English" breakfast - but on occasional Saturdays get the bits from Migros and make a fry- (well these days grill-) up. The only thing is the regular Bratspeck you get here is pretty pathetic compared to the thick rashers I used to get at Crombie's the butcher in Edinburgh; and the single kind of Bratwurst is no match to the dozen or so types of homemade sausages Crombie's would have on display. Innkeeper's beef and Bordeaux wine; venison; pork, apple and tarragon. And you don't often see black pudding but there is a butcher in Basel where I think they make Blutwurst.

We have a breadmaking machine at home so generally I put the ingredients in the night before for fresh bread in the morning, still warm from baking. A couple of slices with jam or peanut butter.

My friends in Edinburgh once told me there is a traditional Glasgow breakfast. This consists of two cigarettes and a can of Sunny Delight or Irn Bru consumed in the back of a white van on the way to an illegal building job.

Cheers,
Nick

I picked up good habits from the Middle East, so I tend to have either muesli with skimmed milk or a poached egg on unbuttered toast, which I make at home. I have a doppio espresso from the cafeteria at work, which is pretty good value (CHF2.50 for a vast espresso). If I run late I get breakfast at work which is a tortoise-shaped brioche.

We have a pretty good cafeteria at work and there are lots of people who have a ‘proper’ breakfast, though there is nothing hot. I am sort of surprised that we can’t get a bratwurst or something, but I wouldn’t eat it anyway.

In the UAE my regime was:

Get up at 6:30, pull on swim shorts, a vest and sandals, grab the dogs and drive 5 minutes to the beach.
Swim 1,000 metres while the dogs exercised themselves.
Back in to the Jeep and home.
Shower.
Eat either plain muesli with fresh dates and camel milk or a poached egg on unbuttered toast.
Arrive at work at 7:45 and have a double espresso.

Occasionally I would lose some time (like the time when my Great Dane broke my toe) and pick up a chilli egg sandwich, which is a small pita bread with a one egg omelette with sliced green chilli. Damn! They were good.

I had a KPMG consultant working for me whose breakfast was a veggie curry with Arabic bread from a little hole-in-the-wall shop named Bhavna. It cost him Dhs 7, which is about CHF 2, and it sounds like a great deal, but it only needs to give you amoebic dysentery once to stop being a bargain.

just want to check that you've given us enough detail here?

Nice thread Hat. For those who are thinking about breakfast and where to go out for a decent one - here's a thread where we talk about breakfast spots in Zurich.

Hello Mark,
thanks for the link, I was kinda more focussed on daily breakfast choices, rather than a Sunday brunch or special day out.

Unfortunately, breakfast in CH adds to my "complaints" about the lack of decent food and limited choices.

HAT

Hello Hat,

I was only in Switzerland for 4 days but will be making a permanent move shortly. I must say, the biggest thing that stuck out in my mind was the lack of breakfast choices. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and I am not much of a bread/Pastry lover. So I spent my four days in switzerland trying to find a place in Zug that would feed me Ham and Eggs. I did not have any luck

When I lived in Frankfurt I often used to eat a Brotchen (small bread roll) with ham and cheese. When I'm out and about and have to have a Swiss breakfast (sorry, but coffee and a croissant don't do it for me) then I'd like to have both ham and cheese in my roll.

After six years of living here I've been able to locate ham or cheese, but never both in the same roll. Pretending I don't know this unwritten rule of not combining ham and cheese I always ask if I can have both ham and cheese - but I always get the same answer - "no". Perhaps the reason is that both are expensive commodities here and it would to outrageous to eat both at the same time?

Just one of those small little things that frustrates me - and I'm curious why I've never been able to find it after all these years.

For the record my normal breakfast at home (in whichever country I'm in) is a bowl of special K and yoghurt.

I don't think my breakfast habits have changed that much since being here to be honest....

In England, I'd have a couple of slices of toast with jam and the occassional, veggie, cooked breakfast

I still go for that and occassionally have Ready Brek - thanks britshop :P

For breakfast here I often have a pitta bread warmed in the toaster and the pocked filled with a couple of tomato slices and a piece of ham or cheese. It keeps me going on my early dog-walk! Two cups of coffee as well.

"a breakfast can consist of a rather heavy meal of noodles with soup, or rice with some meat/vegetables. We also eat fried flour-based cakes and pastries (Indo style), etc. We do eat bread and butter too, but not so much like here.
There is also something like the nan bread (we call it prata) and we eat it with Curry (yes spicy stuff), early in the morning."


mmmmmm prefer the above than the gipfeli from Migros.. or the bakery

Try the PW or Mr. Pikwick Pub most probably not open in the mornings but from 1100 hrs onwards

Back home I always had soya milk & fresh pineapples for breakfast (what a combination). Here, the soya milk are just plain & boring and fresh pineapples are expensive and you'd have to prepare it yourself.
What I love though are the fresh baked bread and pastries from the bakery, but I can't have them everyday or I'll double my weight in a few years!

I am moving over to CH in a couple of weeks and seeing this thread has answered one of the things that has been bugging me. What will I be eating for breakfast?

Now I can see that I will need to pack any spare space in the van with breakfast cereals!

From what I saw in the supermarkets I'll need to bring a year's supply of Yorkshire Tea with me aswell!

Breakfast in the States was usually coffee and not much else.
Here I have all organic...yogurt with pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds, a bit of muesli, and some fresh fruit. Free trade, organic coffee with cream. I am a happy girl.

When guests come from overseas, the flights usually arrive in the morning. I pick them up from the airport and treat them to a home-cooked breakfast of fried eggs, fried tomatoes, rusti, bacon, fresh bread with jam, and coffee/tea. I haven't had any complaints yet!

I don't think you need to worry, they have breakfast cereal in Switzerland.

Only if you go to Aldi. Coop and Migros suck for breakfast cereal. They also suck for bacon if you want a fry-up.

I'm sorry to all, but I am completely of the opinion that Swiss do not understand the concept of a hearty breakfast. Didn't somebody scientific (and hence more cleverer than myself) prove that it was the most important meal of the day?

Breakfast for me (and pretty much the same for the rest of the household)...

A nice big mug of hot tea (Tetleys only) and two or three slices of toast smeared with Marmite. Yum Yum. Hubby leaves the marmite out though, and goes for the Nutella instead.

We don´t do the typical German Grau/Vollkornbrot mit Marmelade or Muesli.

Cheers

Jane (originally from the UK but have been in Germany for the last 14 years)