THURSDAY THE LONG WAY: 3 BREAKFASTS IN 1

Thursday the long way is a new feature I intend to use to highlight food from out of the way places including important food memories that have had something to do with forming the way I look at food today, both cooking it and eating it. They may be inspired by recent meals, by the food-media, or by anything at all.

Growing in Hong Kong my sister and I were fortunate to eat in some pretty fancy restaurants, some in the city's luxurious hotels. But as a kid it didn't matter so much where we ate or what we were eating so much as how much I was eating. I'm not saying I was a fat kid but I certainly knew how to eat heartily.

While we were fortunate enough to eat in fancier hotels like the Peninsula, I specifically remember the Sunday morning meals at the cafe in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (left, courtesy hotel-rate.com). As my mother, father and sister ordered their breakfasts, an omelet, french toast, pancakes, I would peruse the menu having difficulty narrowing down my options. The solution was simple enough-- still not having decided as the waiter took their orders I'd order the three dishes I wanted most.

Usually these three dishes consisted of pancakes, french toast, and eggs benedict. Now I wasn't the spoiled kid who got whatever he wanted-- this wasn't about tasting and picking from these three dishes. No, I was the hungry kid who was spoiled with three dishes each of which I would polish off completely, much to the amusement of my mother and father, who didn't mind me ordering them as long as they were finished.

You see, the pancakes were good and all, each pancake lifted and individually buttered in between so that the butter saturated them, melting sufficiently and evenly throughout, all covered by maple syrup. But I'd finish them when my folks were only halfway through their dishes. The french toast would usually be brought at the same time so I'd move directly on using the same butter and syrup strategy. By the time the waiter came round to check on my folks to make sure everything was okay they'd be almost done as I would be with my second dish. This was when I'd order the piece de resistance, my all-time breakfast favorite, eggs benedict. The waiter would give me a funny look but the dish would arrive before my sister was finished with hers (she was nicknamed the world's slowest eater by my father) and finally as I mopped up the last of the yolk I'd be full, and fairly incapacitated for a few hours.

Again, I wasn't a fat kid, awkward maybe sure, but not fat-- just hungry, and it wasn't as though my family didn't feed us three meals a day. I tend to think of this more as part of a continuing trend growing up in an Italian-American family especially at my grandparents home in Westfield, Mass., where as soon as you finished your plate you'd be told to have some more, to the point where again, I'd be incapacitated for a few hours in front of the television in my grandfather's large rocking chair-- the kind with the arm on the side that you'd pull to kick out the footrest.

I don't eat the three breakfasts anymore (and the Mandarin Oriental is supposedly under construction until this Fall, the cafe moving upstairs), that came to an end around the time I turned 12. t's a recurring problem I've had through the years, these huge servings. Not that any of my guests have every really complained, per se, but until I started cooking at the French Culinary Institute, I'd always cook for an army. I'm still of the philosophy that my guests should be well-fed but plating individual dishes for a prix fixe dinner in the restaurant, I'm tyring to vanquish the habit of killing them with too much food to the point of their discomfort, reminding myself that while I might not usually eat three dishes anymore during one meal, the guests are, and they don't need full plates full of food.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 5 Connaught Road, Central, Hong Kong, T: +852 2522 0111