Breakfasts are an institution here, especially when you're a school or college kid and your mother forces you to have some kiribath, porridge, or something like that instead of a quick energy bar and oatmeal. Sadly, there reaches a point in life where you cannot always have home-cooked meals and can get sick of those pastries or overpriced sandwiches. Thankfully, wallet-friendly breakfasts are easily available in most petti-kadeys around the country. Best part? It's intensely filling and will only cost you between Rs. 30 – 50 in most cases.
Here are a few popular ones!
Pol Rotti and Miris Sambol
A palm-sized pol rotti is generally around 15 rupees. It's also a universal favourite, thanks to the lunu miris or kochchi sambol which accompanies it. You'd cry tears of happiness at how good this is, and not only because of how much chillie there is in it.
1/4 Stuffed Bread (aka Sambol-paan)
This usually comes with a seeni-sambol, but there are variants like the one pictured above. That's a potato and leek curry, and it's pretty good. Not to mention that it's quite a mouthful since it's a loaf of bread that's been quartered and then stuffed.
Roast Paan and Pol Sambol
Nothing like freshly baked bread and pol sambol. You can't really go wrong with either of these, really. It's great to live in a country where coconuts are everywhere.
Fried Noodles
Honestly speaking, this is my least favourite meal because of how oily it is. It's a filling meal nonetheless, with chopped up vegetables swimming in oily noodles. It sometimes comes with a boiled egg.
Kiribath
The crowning glory of kiribath is, to me, the lunu-miris sambol again. Honestly though, it's like sambols give spice and life to otherwise relatively bland meals. Not that kiribath is bland, but it's literally rice boiled in milk, so yes, the sambol improves things by x100.
Chickpeas aka kadala
Chickpeas tossed in tempered onions, chillie, and mustard seeds, wrapped in a lunch packet, and sold at your roadside shop = breakfast. For people who like their pulses — mung-ata, kawpie and the likes, this is perfect.
Have we missed anything? Let us know what your favourites are, and where we could get them.
