Breakfast in Rio
Breakfast is undoubtedly my favorite meal of the day! I always look forward to getting that first morsel of something tasty that inevitably lays the ground work for the day. On a quick hop to Rio (nope not Rio de Janeiro – the other Rio, what we (the cool kids) call Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I had a fantastic traditional Saudi breakfast with two girlfriends in a corner restaurant. Wadek Restaurant and Café.
The breakfast tradition of any given country and culture, is telling. It would be a fallacy to think that the larger world looks to a combination of eggs (scrambled over easy, benedict etc.), breakfast meat, fruit, probiotics, sprinkled with granola and or pancakes for breakfast. Not knocking these go to breakfast foods but there is such a wider variety – and its yummy nutritious variety of breakfast foods in many cultures and regions around the world. Here is Saudi Arabia, and throughout the Middle East, we look to foul for a filling a nutritious breakfast. Foul or ful or fuul is boiled dried fava beans mixed with chopped vegetables and spices. Before I dive into the goodness that is foul, more about Wadek.
Unassuming as the outside appeared when we entered on the side of the building we took a winding hallway which opened into a garden conservatory, replete with yellow birds in suspended aviary’s hopping back and forth on perches. A mix of rich marble table tops, light grained wooden floors, exposed hardware woven with breathing greenery and window shutters created the perfect indoor outdoor setting.
Living well for me sometimes means letting go and trying new things, know better or best by others. So I frequently encourage my friends/dining companions to decide on the menu for the table. Try it sometime, pleasant surprises abound! In animated Arabic, my friends ordered a table full of breakfast goodness! Adani foul, adani adas (lentils), beidh makhsoos and tamees or tameez (plain and cheese).
Foul and adas both prepared in the Adani (Yemeni) style meant, both the lentils and fava beans were cooked soft and presented in cast iron skillets and infused red bell pepper, coriander, cumin and dosed with olive oil to finish. Diving into just these two dishes with tamees – the traditional flat bread which is stretched into a round the size of the moon, sprinkled with water and then stuck to an oven’s walls for baking, would have been more than enough but nope; We, the greedy and fabulous, went for beidh makhsoos a special egg dish also presented in a skillet but on a base of flavorful crushed tomato and red bell pepper topped with a light cheese with the eggs slightly broken on top and I imagine baked to perfection. Oh yes… and then we enjoyed a platter of honey, olives, cucumber, tomato and feta cheese. Just because.
By the way, if you haven’t taken a moment to smear some soft feta atop flat bread and top it with honey – well you haven’t truly lived your best life yet. LOL!
Sharing these beautiful plates, chatting about business, bossing, beauty and boys filled our leisurely breakfast. A morning that I was sad to see end but as we parted and I dashed off to the airport and the Riyadh girls continued the weekend activities at the nail spa, we made plans for the next time. Oh yes! Life is lived well over breakfast in Rio.