Doha's Breakfast Central

Where: Salwa Road, Next to Crepaway

When: 9 am to 11:30 am

What’s on the menu: 
Omelette, Omelette Croissants and Manakeesh. QAR: 8 to 35. Pretty diverse, ain’t it?

What we ate:

Hani:
Okay, before I start talking about the food, I will talk about their service.
Snail pace food preparation and serving time. The waiting staff also have a penchant for getting orders wrong. I ordered a Pizza Manakeesh but what I got was assorted manakeesh instead. No way did I have any hope for the food. When I had my first bite, it was a total game changer. Soft bread with a little less amount of toppings quantity but warm just to the right degree.

Kavi: As soon as you walk into Brazilia, the stench of a horrible mistake hits you. It is a mixture of cigarette smoke, terrible music and shady patrons. No this is not a seedy night club. Just a terribly managed cafe. I ordered an item named intriguingly “Brazilia’s Omelette Croissant”. What I had imagined I would get was this or this or even this. After having waited for what felt like a week, our food finally arrived. As you can see, the croissant was nowhere to be found. We decided to wait a few minutes, given Doha’s traffic; it is understandable if the croissant was stuck in a jam (see what I did there?). But it never showed up. We reminded the waiter about the other promised half of my ordered food and he shook his head and pointed in the general direction of cold stale croissants in a plastic box sitting next to last week’s cakes and pastries in the display.

The weight of crushing disappointment ruined the taste of what appeared to be a rather delicious omelette. I am hard pressed to justify another visit to this dark hole (no, it was literally dark in there).

Verdict:
Hani:
Go when you have a lot of time on your hands and laze around till your food arrives.

Kavi: Delumptious food but Swatchwallop service

Where: Villagio Food Court

When: 8 am to 11 am

What’s on the menu: Boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, falafel etc. Photos below for full view of what’s available.

What we ate:

Hani and Kavi: Since we both ate pretty much everything, we’re doing a joint review this time. There’s no beating the price, at QR 19 you’ll never see this much variety anywhere else. But but but… they dish out limited quantities, no seconds. Worst part? Every item you see in the photos including the falafels, the beef bacon, sausages and mashed potatoes are stone cold. Yep. If you don’t mind wolfing down such a vast expanse of food at a low price, head to Wrap It. The warm service of the staff may do what the food can’t.

Verdict:

Hani: Sometimes when something seems too good to be true, it actually is.

Kavi: Bunkumhouse

Where: Gino Panino, ASAS Tower

When: Saturday-Thursday: 9 AM

What’s on the menu:
Eggs, Pancakes, Croissant-jam and cheese, prices from QR 7 to 49.

What we ate:

Hani:
Ordered myself a french breakfast priced at QR 39. Also not in the picture is a
toasted baguette. The menu said it comes with coffee or tea and a juice.
Our server upon asking twice said just one drink. Ordered myself a carrot
juice which I heard from the juicer was freshly prepared.
There is nothing on my plate on which I can talk about because I could go out to a hypermarket and get myself some turkey and cheese and eat it.

Kavi:
When I look at the photograph, I wonder if we’d maybe dreamed up this place and we’d actually just eaten at home. The amateurish presentation goes with the tasteless food. I am baffled as to how one can go wrong with scrambled eggs. The small ray of hope for me personally is that even I, with no culinary experience whatsoever, can cook up this breakfast and make some money on the side, when all else fails.

The absolute deal breaker for me is smoking indoors. There was someone smoking  right under the water sprinkler and the waitress said that “that area” was a smoking zone. I am selfishly glad that the alarms didn’t work - I’d not wanted a wet-breakfast experience.

Verdict:

Vallath: Double whammy: Disgusterous+bunkumhouse
Hani: Painless breakfast preparation, served with a smile

Where: The Gate Shopping Centre, adjacent to Salam Plaza and opposite City Center Doha

When: Breakfast served 8 AM to 11.45 AM on weekdays and 8 AM to 3 PM on weekends

What’s on the menu:

Toasts, Eggs, Porridge, fritters and muesli. Qar 16 to 49

What we ate:

Hani:

I ordered myself sweet corn fritters, that are served with cherry tomato relish (a first!), poached egg and rocket salad all of which cost QR 38. The food was well prepared. And despite including fried items, I still felt light after finishing it (can also be attributed to small quantity). There was a bit of an extra salty aftertaste because of the fritters. My palate although was neatly cleared by the good coffee I had with my breakfast. The environment is lively to the scale of Ric’s at mid morning but with an upmarket ambiance. Jones also has a unique selection of staff from different parts of the world who will come and give you personal attention.

Kavi:
I went the safe route and ordered omelettes and sour dough bread toast. I was already getting excited when the waitress asked me if I wanted it medium or well done (no one’s ever asked me that before!). The hot chocolate I ordered was dark and creamy. It didn’t taste Nesquicky or thick and syrupy like Italian chocolate. It was so good, I ordered two. When the eggs came I was just ever so slightly disappointed that there was so much empty space on my plate.I usually like for it to be brimming with food. But all of my disappointment vanished when I bit into the eggs. It was perfectly well done and delicious. The best part was the toast. It was soft without being soggy and yet had the crispiness of a toasted bread. My cutlery didn’t need to wrestle with it to cut it down (as usually is the case most of the time). Overall, the food was wonderful.

Verdict:

Hani:
Small portions, must eat 2 portions of each, attentive staff with good tasting food.
As the name suggests this is also a grocer(y) so you can buy interestingly sourced food items and kitchen appliances for domestic godliness after your meals.

Kavi: Scrumdiddleyumptious. It was so good, we went there again the next day. But be warned, it is priced slightly higher than average and the ambiance on weekends is super noisy. Unless you get there early (around 8 or 9 am), expect to wait for 10-15 minutes before being seated.