Japan will solve breakfast riddle

Fat slices of sourdough. Unsalted butter. Jam, marmalade. Croissants. Streaky, American-style bacon laid across a pile of pancakes and drenched in real maple syrup. Now that’s what I call breakfast.

You can have your oats, your porridge, and your bran (might as well eat glue). Muesli is tolerable I suppose, but only when I’ve made it myself and loaded it with chopped dates and crystallised ginger (a nutritional nazi might point out the sugar content). I’ve clipped a recipe for quinoa porridge (honey, a cinnamon quill, pear and orange juice), but have yet to try it and feel little enthusiasm for the exercise.

Breakfast, I’ve decided, is the problem child of meals; a meal without a happy medium. It’s either sugar/carb/fat-laden health-problem-in-waiting or grey sludge.

Unless you’re Japanese. And this week, as I’ve packed for a trip to Tokyo, I’ve been remembering the best breakfasts of my life – the spectacular, nourishing breakfasts at the wonderful Claska Hotel in Tokyo’s Meguro ward.

Each morning, a black lacquer tray of six-plus bowls was presented to us. Among the stalwarts on the tray was always a tremblingly good poached egg (served at room temperature).

A little square glass jug of dashi broth was at the side and, poured over the egg, a miraculous combination emerged.

There was always a brown rice (genmai) porridge with slivers of ginger and a pool of dashi broth. There were miso soup, pickles, and one other changing dish, perhaps grated potato with seaweed, cucumber and sesame seeds.

But it was the tofu dish that had me in raptures each morning: a neat cube of tofu, crowned with perfectly julienned ginger, a sprinkling of chopped chives, a paste that I believe was yuzu (a citrus) zest and green chilli, all served with warmed rice and soy milk.

It was luscious, heavenly, but, I think, all but impossible to recreate with any authenticity at home here.

So as I get ready to fly out, my excitement is building. I’ll be the one at the hotel buffet ignoring the streaky bacon and the pancakes and heading straight towards the tofu.

And when I get home, I might just start stalking a Japanese chef or two.