Breakfast Paella Recreation Attempt

There's this fantastic café in Vancouver called the Medina Cafe.  It has waffles with toppings that make you weep with happiness (orange & fig marmalade, milk chocolate & lavender, etc.) and coffee that's as good as anything found in Europe.  My husband and I ate most mornings there on the Vancouver leg of our honeymoon.

One of his choices was a breakfast paella that used curried orzo instead of saffron rice, and included tomato, avocado and a fried egg.  Not your average paella.  After having a couple weekdays off this past week, it made me realize how rare it is to eat breakfast out.  To me, it's more of an indulgence than a fancy dinner.  Maybe it's just because I usually feel so sluggish in the mornings that my usual breakfast is a peanut butter & jam sandwich, or a naan bread toasted with cinnamon sugar on it (eaten on the go, the both of them) or something I pick up at work and eat at my desk.

Anyhow.  This morning I set out to recreate the breakfast paella.  Here's how it turned out:

I boiled up the orzo, shook a bit of curry powder and a small touch of garam masala on it, then stirred it up.  Added avocado, tomato and some roasted red peppers (from a jar), then some crispy bacon and corn.  I'm not a huge fan of corn, but I tossed it in the frying pan after the bacon (after draining most of the fat out) and it toasted nicely with a lovely flavour.  Bacon is a miracleworker. 

Now, I only ate half of this, or I would have burst, but it turned out very nicely indeed.  The bacon was actually a substitute for the chorizo sausage that is near impossible to find here, and there was no fried egg on top, but it was a very good and very filling reproduction to start the day with.