Breakfasts - a good start

Irish breakfasts are called 'Fries'. Bangers and rashers (sausages and bacon), eggs, black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms and thick slices of soda bread (fadge potato bread if you're in Ulster) are all fried up in bacon fat.

For a St Patrick's Day feast any day, call Dairygold USA, 1-800 386 7577, to have Irish bangers and rashers sent in the mail.

For a fine French breakfast (or light lunch or tea) out, Patisserie Poupon is open Tues-Sat 8-6.30 p.m., Sun 8-4 p.m. Its tartes and cakes are a reminder of France. Take them home for a fête.

The Bonaparte Bakery, in Savage, MD, mkes what some say is the most authentic French bread in the area. It's carried by the Bethesda Co-op, and Wagshal's, Massachusetts Ave NW in Spring Valley.

The French like chicory in their ground coffee. For a taste of French cafe au lait, try the tangerine tin of ground Cafe du Monde, available from many supermarkets and ethnic delicatessens.

If you want a filling Soul Food breakfast, head for Saint's Paradise Cafeteria, in the basement of the United House of Prayer, 601-A M St NW, close to Mount Vernon Square. Serving bacon, two eggs any way, and choice of two sides, from grits, applesauce, fried potatoes or apples. (Hang around for the Soul Food fried chicken dinners.)

The Chinese eat Congee for breakfast, a rice porridge to which dried fish, tripe and pickles are added.

Vietnamese prefer Phô. Pronounced 'fur' or 'feu', the French word for fire, it's a satisfying, simple and healthy meal in a bowl that makes a great lunch for Westerners. Scented beef broth comes in a bowl filled with rice noodles, in which thin slices of different elements of beef are cooked. Enthusiasts pick a combination of cuts from a list ranging from flank, brisket and eye of round, to soft or crunchy tendon and tripe. Raw bean sprouts, coriander, mint, chilies, Asian basil and lime juice are added, along with Hoisin Sauce and the spicy garlic and chili Sriracha sauce that makes this a good hangover cure.

With the soup spoon containing a little broth held in the left hand, chopsticks in the right scoop up a mouthful of mixed ingredients, deposit them into the soup spoon, add dabs of hoisin and Sriracha hot sauce, then the spoon is conveyed to the mouth.

Robin Weiss recommends Marc's Duck House, Willston Shopping Center at Seven Corners, for "great Phô and Vietnamese roast meats." One of my favorites is Phô on Wilson Blvd on the first shopping strip in the right in Arlington. I don't think much of the Phô at the Del Ray Garden, an oddly country cottage-styled eatery at 4918 Del Ray Ave in Bethesda which has been tempered for American tastes. Nor of that at Nam Viet on Connecticut Ave opposite the Uptown Cinema, which doesn't have much flavor to its broth or anything else going for it.

Le Matin de Paris in the Annandale Plaza Shopping Center, 7326-A Little River Tpk. Annandale, 703-914-0088, you'll find, at breakfast time, a Korean-Japanese interpretation of how best to start the day: a sandwich made of black rice bread made by owner Helen Park and filled with potato, cheese and egg bound in mayonnaise. For the rest of the day you'll find other bakery temptations.

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