Breakfast as (un)usual

We can identify the smell of bacon from yards away. We can intuit the rate at which syrup drips from a bottle. We could make waffles in our sleep. We are Americans, and we know breakfast.

Not quite. Chicago’s ethnic enclaves offer early morning foods that stretch the boundaries of what we like to think of as breakfast. For instance, at Iyanze (4623 N Broadway, 773-944-1417), a recently opened cafeteria-style African restaurant in Uptown, a plate of eggs and pancakes might look familiar, until you spot geisha, dried smoked fish, mixed in with the eggs, or realize the pancakes are really moi moi—deep-fried bean cakes made with wet corn flour and shredded dried fish. While traditional West African breakfast may have been difficult to find in Chicago, Ethiopian coffee certainly never has been, and it’s available here, too.

Fish is the breakfast protein of choice in Japan, as well. Some of the higher-end hotels in Chicago serve a (pricey) traditional Japanese breakfast, but so does Yoshi’s Café (3257 N Halsted St, 773-248-6160), once a week at Sunday brunch, with a grilled fresh catch accompanied by pickled vegetables, steamed rice and miso soup.

Anyone who’s done the Rick Steves thing in Europe knows the fear factor that is the hostel breakfast: Creepy bunkmates are nothing compared to scary cold cuts. But true European continental breakfast is luxuriously simple and hearty, like the plate of rustic prosciutto, sliced Gruyère and a flaky croissant served all day at Pierrot Gourmet (108 E Superior St, 312-573-6749).

Try looking for breakfast in Chinatown, and you’ll have to tool around until dim sum service starts around 10am. The few places that do open early are bakeries: In the back room of Chiu Quon Bakery (2242 S Wentworth Ave, 312-225-6608), you can join the aging Chinese men sipping tea and eating sweet, fluffy, egg-washed pork buns. For something more substantial, order the simple, comforting rice porridge called congee dotted with chopped preserved eggs at any number of Chinese restaurants, including Shui Wah (2162 S Archer Ave, 312-224-8811).

Chinatown’s pretty sleepy for breakfast, and you’d think the industrial stretch of Pulaski a few blocks north of Fullerton would be, too. Thanks to El Cubanito (2555 N Pulaski Rd, 773-235-2555) though, you’d be wrong. The unmarked, hole-in-the-wall Cuban place is the Starbucks of the outer Logan Square reaches: Commuters pull up outside and run in for café con leche, and the smart ones grab a breakfast sandwich of juicy steak rolled into an omelette between two slices of toasted French bread, too.

Steak and eggs for breakfast? We never said ethnic meant healthy, and we’re subscribers to the principle that the first meal of the day should be heavy enough to send you right back to sleep. For that, there’s Bridgeport’s mysteriously named Healthy Food (3236 S Halsted St, 312-326-2724), where the breakfast specialty is kugelis—grated potatoes combined with bacon bits and baked in a sheet pan, then cut into brick-size chunks and served with sour cream. You can take the cuisine out of the ordinary, but you can’t take the bacon out of breakfast.

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