Feb 04
2010Serving Breakfast at Work Today
Filed Under: Company Culture, Google, Google Shanghai
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When I got to work this morning, I saw caterers busy in the kitchen preparing various trays of food! I was surprised because they usually come around 10ish to prepare for lunch, but today, it was only 8 and they were already preparing food! I asked what the occasion was and they said as part of our Chinese New Year treat, they’ll be serving breakfast today and again next week. Wow!
Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day since it’s about the only meal that I’m able to eat without feeling sick. Ironically, “morning sickness” strikes me all other times of the day, so I usually eat A LOT for breakfast and barely eat much else for the rest of the day. Typical breakfast for me is like eating a box of Chinese egg rolls (蛋卷), two pieces of bread/pastries, 2 cartons of whole fat milk, yogurt, and some fruits — all from the mini kitchen at work.
But today, it was a real treat to have prepared breakfast — your typical Chinese breakfast, including BBQ pork buns (叉烧包, rolls (馒头), Chinese pancakes （葱油饼），porridge, soy milk, various Chinese pastries, vegetables, fruits, and chicken feet. Yes… they served us chicken feet for breakfast!! Then in the mini kitchen, I discovered another treat! Imported fruits from Taiwan!! The ahyis prepared cut up 凤梨释迦 (not sure what the exact English translation is, but I’ve heard of it referred as “custard apple”) and 莲雾 (don’t know the English name). These are Taiwan’s specialty fruits and usually pretty expensive to buy in Shanghai.
So I got myself a tray full of food — and yes, I got some chicken feet too. 
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I could tell the first fruit (from the photo) as sweetsop in English, also called sugar-apple. Custard apple is a different fruit, from a different family, but the same species. In some parts of the globe, though, sweetsop is also referred to, indeed, as custard apple.
The second fruit probably doesn’t have a “real” English name as it’s native to Southeast Asian tropical countries. The most common English name for it may be wax apple. It’s called “makopa” in my mother tongue (and we don’t pay for it).