Breakfast at McDonald's Manggahan

It was an overcast early morning on the 15th of August,* 2012 when I left home and set on my mission: to eat breakfast.

I used to eat out for breakfast when I was teaching part time at a satellite campus of the university where I teach. Before classes I would eat out at Jollibee SM Marketmall (a.k.a. SM MOA, "Mall of Area", a jab at SM Mall of Asia) where my favorite breakfast is their corned beef  with fried egg and garlic rice. Or I would go to a 7-Eleven and get a microwaved tapsilog.

Then I was introduced to having breakfast at McDonald's by a former student student of mine, Jane Castandiello. (A bright, pretty girl with a kilometric name: I remember on the first day of class when her name wouldn't fit in my class record. I peered over my class record to look at the name’s owner. She would then transfer to another school but we stayed in touch through social networking. We would have a many interesting conversation on geek stuff.) She once posted on having a Sausage McMuffin with hash browns and hot chocolate for breakfast. Since I pass by McDonald's Manggahan every morning when I go to work, I decided to give it a go.

A sample of the crazy stuff we talk about.

I decided to get a "Big Breakfast" (since I'm a big guy) and this is what is what I got:

A sausage, scrambled eggs, two muffins, a hash brown, and a cup of hot  chocolate. I also got a free newspaper to boot. (The headline was about the burial of "Comedy King" Dolphy the previous day.)

I was surprised that the sausage was not hot dog-shaped but rather patty-shaped. I later looked up in Wikipedia (link here): lo and behold, there is such thing as a round sausage. So there I was, enjoying their tasty round sausage, reading the paper, browsing my phone, and watching people catch their ride to work or to school. Like a boss.

But this time, I decided to get sausage with garlic rice and scrambled eggs, hash browns and hot choco. (I wasn't given a newspaper this time.) It was rainy because of a southwest monsoon so I was wearing a jacket and brought along an umbrella. My kodachi-hilted umbrella can be seen in the background of this picture:

The sausage is hiding under the generous scrambled eggs.

Then I reached the state my friends and I call "Enlightenment", a state where one's stomach feels so full and one's head feels so light. Yes, food is my comfort.

 

*The Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos according to the Orthodox tradition