Alexander Nham

It was Easter Sunday, and I wanted to eat breakfast like I would if I were with family. So I trekked out to Kirin Court in Richardson for dim sum.

There's a lot going on during dim sum, carts racing around the dining room with waiters hawking their goods (usually in Chinese) and dish after dish of unfamiliar fare. I've been eating dim sum all my life, and there are still some dishes that I've never had. So for the wary diner, I present a dim sum primer based on this most recent experience. And don't judge, I didn't eat all of this alone.

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Alexander Nham

When you think of Chinese food, you think of General Tso's Chicken, Kung Pao Beef, Pork Fried Rice and a Cinnabun for dessert, because you are most likely in a food court. You don't, however, think about pastries.

Unless you're Chinese. Growing up, my Chinese mother would always tuck into a bakery in Chinatown and emerge with a big white box swaddled in a pink plastic bag. The treasures inside were all different, interesting, but always delicious. Now that I live in Dallas, I, of course, want to find a place where I can relive those memories and get some Chinese buns on the cheap.

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A full Ulster Fry (yes, on a Christmas plate.)

​Mark Cuban has caused me to completely rediscover St. Patrick's Day. Gratuitous party-givers with no strings attached plays well into the whole theme of "friendliest day of the year."

So I tracked down my favorite Irish lass, Theresa Magee, earlier this week to have her show me how to make a proper Irish breakfast, more specifically an Ulster Fry, which is a dish from northern Ireland. The most appealing feature other than bacon is that almost everything on the plate, even the soda bread, is pan-fried.

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Alexander Nham

Two La Tejanita tacos will set you back $3.62.

​​Alex Nham travels the globe, mainly the part with Dallas on it, in search of new places to eat breakfast.

In my search for Dallas' more interesting morning meals, tacos are the one obvious breakfast genre I have yet to explore. It's not that I don't eat them; I eat them by the pound. But that's the point: They're everywhere. I didn't know where to start.

So, drawing inspiration from Scott's brisket taco hunt, I went searching for some of the city's best cheap breakfast tacos. This is what I found.

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Alexander Nham

Still want a donut?

Alex Nham travels the globe, mainly the part with Dallas on it, in search of new places to eat breakfast.

Acting on a tip from fellow blogger Justin Bitner, this week I ventured out to Hypnotic Donuts -- but not for the donuts.

To say that this wacky donut shop's reputation precedes itself would be an understatement. Who knew that piling bacon onto a donut would make everybody in the blogosphere go completely bonkers? (Answer: Everyone). I didn't even know Hypnotic Donuts served anything but donuts, let alone what Bitner had recommended: chicken biscuits.

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Photo by Alexander Nham

Pocket perfection

It was early Saturday morning, and I had a lot lined up for the day, so I was looking for a fast portable breakfast. Nothing seems more fast and portable to me then stuffed pastries, preferably with eggs or meat or both. And one of my favorite all time stuffed pastries are gorditas; tacos' overlooked cousin. Some may be surprised to hear that gorditas were not invented by Taco Bell, so delete the image of that pita bread taco disaster from your brain. I'm talking about thick corn cakes made with masa that are split open and filled with all sorts of steamy stewed goodness. So where do I go for not only gorditas, but breakfast gorditas? I trust the namesake and head to Doña Tota Gorditas in Oak Cliff. They're a Mexican chain with over 200 stores in Mexico, and if they've jumped the border, I figure they've got to be doing something right.

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Alex Nham travels the globe, mainly the part with Dallas on it, in search of new places to eat breakfast.

My breakfast credibility may have been questioned for not coming here yet, but I just didn't want to spoil one of Dallas' oldest gems. The Mecca is Dallas', well, mecca for breakfast, serving locals since 1938 (as the window paint says). Much like other breakfast spots I like to frequent, The Mecca is home cooking through and through: hot coffee, traditional staples and good ol' boys from around the way.

I went in on a recent weekday morning and I was pleased to find that the restaurant was not just a weekend hit. Tables were filled with men with their names patched to their shirts and octogenarians assembling together because what else is there to do? Everyone was hanging onto a white mug and didn't really seem to know, nor care, that it was a Wednesday.

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The gnocchi.

​A suited staffer circled the room, his tray laden with warm slices of olive, rosemary and raisin breads, crusty and fragrant. He bestowed each of our plates with a different variety, and placed between us a ramekin of butter so pristine and smooth it looked like you could ice skate on it.

We surveyed the scene from our small round table, perched on cushy chenille chairs. We were the youngest ones in the room by roughly 20 years; a couple seated next to us celebrated a milestone of some sort. The décor was the epitome of tastefully neutral -- a massive crystal chandelier hung overhead, illuminating white tablecloth-covered tables set with fine crystal glassware and more silverware than my household goes through in a week. Brocade curtains with tassels the size of my head draped the floor-to-ceiling windows.

We were there to satisfy our Meatless Monday requirements by indulging in the seven-course vegetarian tasting menu, but Bijoux is certainly not a vegetarian restaurant. The regular chef's tasting menu reads like a carnivorous gastronome's fantasized last meal: sweetbreads, escargot, veal, rabbit, skate. Having spent an average of ten bucks on my previous Meatless Monday meals, I was intrigued to see how vegetarian cuisine could be elevated at the hands of a four-star chef, but also wondered if it would be worth the price of admission. Would we leave satisfied or wishing we'd gone out for steak instead?

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Coppell Deli's Stubbs: Your heart will thank you (when you put it down).

The Coppell Deli is a shack-like restaurant on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood of its namesake town. I walked in and was happy to see only four people in the cafeteria-style dining room, two of whom were behind the counter.

It's a really plain-looking space: surrounded by white brick walls, mismatching tables and chairs populating the center, and relics from the Cowboys glory years everywhere. The only noise at this hour was Sportscenter, which was up on the two anachronistic flat screens.

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Polish sausage. Polish sausage. POLISH SAUSAGE.

Alex Nham travels the globe, mainly the part with Dallas on it, in search of new places to eat breakfast.

I wasn't in search of anything particular to eat this week; the days were long and I just wanted some eggs and fat. I could have gone to some diner down the street to quell my urges with some bacon and eggs, but where's the fun in that? I needed something different, but identifiable and substantial at the same time.

Turning onto Blackwell on my way to Henk's, the scenery changed from local business storefronts to loading docks, empty parking lots and gray slabs of concrete in every direction. I thought I had surely taken a wrong turn, but there it was, Henk's European Deli and Black Forest Bakery, hidden just out of sight from Greenville. At first glance it looked like an old motel, with a tinge of a European ski chalet motif. I would have missed it if not for the large yellow sign out front.

Walking inside, I saw a market to the right and a dining room to the left. The walls were lined with ornate steins, glass boots and beer bottles of strictly Eastern European origin. Wooden crests and cityscapes of ambiguous European cities also decorated the walls, to an effect more cheesy than authentic. At eight in the morning, I didn't really care.

The restaurant was barren, so I grabbed a table and started racing through the one-page menu. The Polish breakfast seemed like just what I was craving. I'd never had a Polish breakfast before, and I don't know what Polish people actually eat in the morning, so for all I know what I ate could have been a cultural abomination.

When my monster plate of food came out, it resembled something from the kitchen of a Southern diner rather than a sausage house in Warsaw: a Polish sausage split in half lengthwise, two eggs over easy and a slab of hashbrowns, all accompanied by two biscuits (yes, biscuits). Authenticity be damned, the plate looked good, and it was. The Polish sausage was crisp and meaty, with pockets of salty grease squeezing out with every bite. Served with a jar of spicy brown mustard, it would seem to have been more fitting for a barbecue. But it all worked. The hash browns were crisp, the egg yolks were nice and runny, and even the biscuits were light and flaky.

This didn't seem like the most accurate representation of a Polish breakfast, but that could also be said about the entire restaurant. Although the menu was filled with items like schnitzel, broodje, pickled fish, and countless types of wurst, I maintained the feeling that this was a taste of Europe in Dallas, not a portal to that side of the globe. Just don't expect large German men clad in lederhosen clashing their steins together, and you'll be fine. Henk's has a prominent Southern touch, paired with some exoticisms of Eastern Europe, and it's a worthwhile alternative to your everyday diner.