Breakfast in Restaurants and Cafés of Tehran

(TEHRAN) - Most people, who have to wake up early in the morning all through the week to go to work, will probably prefer to get out of bed later on Friday mornings [which is the official holiday in Iran]. They may also want to have their breakfast, say, at 11:00 a.m., and dine on a single meal as their lunch and supper, or at least, suffice to a light lunch.

Having breakfast with one’s family is one of those blessings of which most of us are deprived as a result of the new urban lifestyle that we have adopted since we began to live in the cities.

You can allocate one day in every week, for example, on the weekend, to have your breakfast with your family. For the sake of more diversity, you may

even take your family out to some cozy place and have your family breakfast there.

Up to a few years ago, having breakfast out of house was limited to traditional forms of breakfast which were offered by certain shops and cafés. An exception to this rule, of course, was various hotels that served their own menus, which were different from traditional breakfast. In recent years, however, some restaurants and coffee shops in Tehran have taken steps to offer breakfast in addition to their other services.

These cafés and restaurants are open on Friday mornings and serve breakfast. If you have any plan to eat your breakfast in the company of your family or friends and out of house, you may consider one of the following restaurants and coffee shops.

Nayeb Saei Restaurant offers separate menus for breakfast, of course, at different prices. Omelette, pancakes, boiled eggs, and scrambled eggs in addition to natural fruit juices are various items on this restaurant’s breakfast menu. You can have breakfast by either paying the cost of a full buffet, or just by paying for a special menu. The breakfast is served from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. A complete buffet includes warm and cold varieties of breakfast, including various kinds of drinks and breads.

The breakfast menu also includes a variety of toasted breads, scrambled eggs, sausages, fruit salads and so forth. Nayeb Saei Restaurant is situated on Vali Asr Avenue before Saei Park. Before having your breakfast, you can also spend some time at the park for morning warm-up exercises.

Lebanon’s Bride Restaurant is located on Beheshti Avenue before its intersection with Sohrevardi Avenue, on the corner of Andisheh Street. It serves its breakfast menu from 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The restaurant offers a complete breakfast buffet which includes various kinds of jams and cheeses. Different kinds of green and black olives, thick yogurt, a special kind of eggplant pickles, and chocolate milk make the differentiation between this restaurant’s breakfast buffet and that of other similar restaurants.

The fragrant smell of fresh bread should be added to its attractions because two traditional kinds of the Iranian breads; that is, taftun

and sangak covered with sesame seeds are freshly baked at the restaurant. A big dish of additional boiled water has been considered for every table which is a welcome blessing for those who are accustomed to drinking tea. Various kinds of leavened bread can be also tested at this restaurant.

The breakfast served at this restaurant is made up of very simple elements. Several plates (about 12 to 13) have been arranged in two rows near each other and in parallel to the counter.

They start at the entrance of the restaurant and continue in tandem across the tables. The plates contain various kinds of foods which are special to breakfast, such as ordinary cheese, triangular cheese, butter, walnut kernel, and dates, in addition to several kinds of jams such as fig jam, flower jam, and carrot jam, cream and honey and many other things.

There are also special items which have

come from Lebanon and include Lebanese cheese, fennel, and a jam made of a greenish eggplant, which is so small that at the first look it may seem to be a kiwi fruit.

The restaurant attendant, however, is there to explain that this is a special kind of eggplant, which like most other foods served in that restaurant, has been imported from Lebanon. There are also some articles of breakfast food which may seem strange to us, Iranians.

They include thick yogurt or olive. However, when they are looked at from the viewpoint of a Lebanese, they would seem ordinary items of breakfast. Freshly baked sangak bread with sesame seeds on it as well as taftun bread is supplied in plenty. Another part of the breakfast service in this restaurant is packed milk, chocolate milk and orange juice. The customers are also supplied with a large number of glasses in a row in addition to a big dish filled with extra boiled water.

Iranshahr Café Gallery is located at the Artists’ Garden and on the second floor of Iranshahr Playhouse. It serves breakfast from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. In this season, it will give you great pleasure to sit on the terrace of the café gallery and watch the garden and its trees beneath as you are having your breakfast.

This café offers three different breakfast menus: special, classic and French. The best and the most complete menu is the special one, which in addition to an ordinary breakfast includes bacon, eggs and warm beans. The main feature of the classic menu is the plentiful vegetables that it offers. You may have a free tea or coffee on every menu.

There are playhouses on the lower floor of the café gallery and some of which are places where the best Iranian and foreign plays are acted out by the Iranian

artists.

Art Garden and Museum is located in Tajrish neighborhood, north Tehran. To reach there, you should take Maqsoud Beik Street and continue all the way down to Hesabi Street. It also offers a breakfast menu. It has a wide open space and a beautiful perspective.

However, the breakfast buffet is very much similar to that of hotels and compared to the quality, the prices are, of course, steep. The café offers breakfast service from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. You can also use the tables and chairs which have been set up around the garden. The breakfast is offered as self-service.

Blue Duck Restaurant is located on the first floor of Tandis Complex, which is situated at Tajrish Square in north Tehran. On every Friday morning, the restaurant is crowded for its breakfast service. Throughout the week, however, it is a relatively calm place and offers self-service menu. It has two kinds of cold breakfast menus. However, when you buy any one of those menus, you can use its buffet with no limits and all kinds of foods and drinks can be found on every breakfast menu.

The breakfast table at Blue Duck Restaurant has been divided into cold and warm foods.

Of course, it also offers some kinds of drinks as well. The cold breakfast consists of sholeh zard (a yellow-colored variety of Iranian traditional porridge), various kinds of canned fruits, dates, honey; various kinds of cheese, walnut and jams in addition to olives and maize; various kinds of jambon, tomatoes, cucumbers; different types of cornflakes, boiled eggs, fruit salad, warm and cold milk, cold chocolate milk; and various kinds of bread.

The warm breakfast consists of a variety of thick Iranian soup,

which is called aash-e shole qalamkar by the locals, lentil soup, beans and mushrooms, marmalade, potato chips, various kinds of omelet and scrambled eggs, various kinds of sausages, as well as different kinds of freshly baked breads and pancakes. There are also drinks which mostly include tea, coffee, and orange juice.

You can choose from a number of bread varieties all of which can be found close to the bread basket. You can warm or toast your favorite bread. This restaurant serves breakfast from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Leon Restaurant is one of the oldest restaurants in the area of the intersection between Vali Asr and Karim Khan avenues.

This restaurant has a limited space, but an expanded, and of course diverse, menu which includes delicious foods and special drinks. This restaurant has come up with an interesting idea for its dinner service on every Sunday for ladies: lady customers can avail themselves of 50-percent discount every Sunday night.

Also, from Saturday to Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 08:30 p.m., all customers can receive one free cocktail for ordering each cocktail. This restaurant also serves breakfast which consists of various items. The main items on the Leon Restaurant’s breakfast include: Iranian breakfast (fresh bread, feta cheese, walnut, raisins, fresh vegetables, honey, jam, butter, cucumbers and tomatoes); British breakfast (bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, baked beans); American fantasia (scrambled eggs, jambon and cheese roll, vegetables and fried potatoes); crepe (vanilla crepe, Nutella, honey, jam, walnut, fresh fruits); pancake (cinnamon pancake, cream and caramel sauce, honey, fresh fruits); Iron Panini (Panini with sesame, fresh spinach, special sauce, mozzarella, as well as cheddar and gouda cheese) and cornflakes.

If you are looking for an interesting place away from motor traffic and the hustle and bustle of the street, Breakfast at Bagh Ferdows (Ferdows Garden) cinema caféthere is a cinema café close to Tajrish Square which can be a good option for you. This cinema café is located inside Bagh Ferdows (Ferdows Garden) along Vali Asr Avenue which is among big cafés of Tehran. It has 130 seats and apart from the internal sitting space, which has a roof, there are also two green spaces for the customers.

After entering the garden, you will have to walk for a short distance to reach the café which is located on the right side of the garden. If you are willing to have your breakfast at a café, cinema café can be a good option to consider in view of the internal space that it provides you. Bagh Ferdows cinema café, like many other cafés across Tehran, is equipped with wireless internet. Its menu of drinks is also remarkable and diverse.

The names of various items on the menu of the cinema café have been mostly taken from cinematic elements. As put by the manager of the café, a television screen will be set up inside the café in a few months in order to make it a better place for movie buffs.

Of course, such a step will be compatible with the name of the café (cinema café) and its location, which is inside the Cinema Museum of Iran.

Stand Food Restaurant is located on Khamoushi Street in Narmak neighborhood, east of Tehran. It is a newly established restaurant and offers a breakfast menu consisting of cheese, walnut, cucumbers and tomatoes with freshly baked bread. In addition, it also serves lentil soup and a sandwich of scrambled eggs. The suitable price put on these items is of special import to customers.

Okhra Café (located on the 10th St. of Yousefabad neighborhood), Viona Café (at Park de Prance in Vanak neighborhood); and Zaman (Time) Café in Za’feraniyeh neighborhood of north Tehran are other

places of interest which can be used to have breakfast all through the week, including on the weekends. These cafés and restaurants are usually open to breakfast customers from 9 a.m. to 12 at noon.