I might have had this Big Breakfast at either Bras Basah, East Coast Park, Siglap or Bedok- it has been a few months now and I don't really remember- but the location where I had it pales in importance to the fact that I woke up early enough on a weekend for breakfast at McDonalds.
I am not an early riser, in the sense that unless I have an important appointment, or if I have a plane, bus or train to catch, you won't find me bright-eyed and cheerful at the crack of dawn all ready to start the day. I don't even wake early when I'm on vacation- unless I have to.
But tell me that we are going to McDonalds for our morning meal and I *would* actually wake up early- like half past six maybe.
Trust the power of warm memories, nostalgia, holidays, and hot cakes slathered with butter and sweet syrup.
Sure, I know it is junk food, and everything on the Styrofoam plate is as artificial as one can imagine, but just as it was for me when I was growing up, having a morning meal here is a very rare thing. As a child, having a meal here was a luxury- the meals here weren't as affordable as they are now and we were prudent in our finances- so I think I had breakfast here like maybe five times a year.
If my family came here, it meant that it was a holiday, or it was a weekend where we had gone cycling at East Coast Park and they had decided to splurge at the McDonalds there instead of going straight back home.
Now as an adult, even though the price stands within the safe range, it has become a lil of a health thing where one just has to control the intake, and so the times I've had morning meals here are more or less the same, perhaps lesser still.
What remains the same too is that if I had to share my order with my family when I was young, I continue to share my meal with my dining companion now. For entirely different reasons, of course, but hey, no difference there!
So kindly don't be a prig about healthy eating and begrudge me the joy of having hot cakes, scrambled eggs, the muffin, the hash brown, and the sausage patty.
Don't begrudge me the joy of being able to slather the (butter) all over the hot cake and then cut it up into triangular shaped and rectangular shaped pieces before dipping it into the (maple) syrup.
Don't begrudge me the fun of seeing the butter ooze in between the crevices of the English muffin and the pleasure of its thick, salty taste lingering in my mouth after every bite.
There're just so many ways to have the meal.
I know of someone who eats the top layer of the scrambled eggs on its own and then balances the rest on top of the hot cake and eats them together. I also know of someone who orders an extra hash brown because potatoes are his thing. And then there's someone who puts jam on her hot cake and her muffin but without the butter.
Me, I love the butter on the hot cakes which I then eat with the (syrup). I love the butter on the muffin which I then eat on its own. The jam I have it sometimes with the sausage- I cut it up then knife a little of the jam on it, but sometimes I have it with the hash brown. If there's no jam left, I dip the hash brown into the syrup. Yeah, it is both sweet and salty at the same time, but that's just the way I have it, and that's just the way I fancy it.
For what must be many years now.
I am not an early riser, in the sense that unless I have an important appointment, or if I have a plane, bus or train to catch, you won't find me bright-eyed and cheerful at the crack of dawn all ready to start the day. I don't even wake early when I'm on vacation- unless I have to.
But tell me that we are going to McDonalds for our morning meal and I *would* actually wake up early- like half past six maybe.
Trust the power of warm memories, nostalgia, holidays, and hot cakes slathered with butter and sweet syrup.
Sure, I know it is junk food, and everything on the Styrofoam plate is as artificial as one can imagine, but just as it was for me when I was growing up, having a morning meal here is a very rare thing. As a child, having a meal here was a luxury- the meals here weren't as affordable as they are now and we were prudent in our finances- so I think I had breakfast here like maybe five times a year.
If my family came here, it meant that it was a holiday, or it was a weekend where we had gone cycling at East Coast Park and they had decided to splurge at the McDonalds there instead of going straight back home.
Now as an adult, even though the price stands within the safe range, it has become a lil of a health thing where one just has to control the intake, and so the times I've had morning meals here are more or less the same, perhaps lesser still.
What remains the same too is that if I had to share my order with my family when I was young, I continue to share my meal with my dining companion now. For entirely different reasons, of course, but hey, no difference there!
So kindly don't be a prig about healthy eating and begrudge me the joy of having hot cakes, scrambled eggs, the muffin, the hash brown, and the sausage patty.
Don't begrudge me the joy of being able to slather the (butter) all over the hot cake and then cut it up into triangular shaped and rectangular shaped pieces before dipping it into the (maple) syrup.
Don't begrudge me the fun of seeing the butter ooze in between the crevices of the English muffin and the pleasure of its thick, salty taste lingering in my mouth after every bite.
There're just so many ways to have the meal.
I know of someone who eats the top layer of the scrambled eggs on its own and then balances the rest on top of the hot cake and eats them together. I also know of someone who orders an extra hash brown because potatoes are his thing. And then there's someone who puts jam on her hot cake and her muffin but without the butter.
Me, I love the butter on the hot cakes which I then eat with the (syrup). I love the butter on the muffin which I then eat on its own. The jam I have it sometimes with the sausage- I cut it up then knife a little of the jam on it, but sometimes I have it with the hash brown. If there's no jam left, I dip the hash brown into the syrup. Yeah, it is both sweet and salty at the same time, but that's just the way I have it, and that's just the way I fancy it.
For what must be many years now.