Smells of baklava, roasting coffee, and spices wafted through the air. Tables of friends already crowding the space, the laughter from tête-à-têtes mixed with Ottoman classical music from the background. It was 10 a.m. on a Sunday. Five university students, all exhausted after one week of writing papers, cramming for quizzes, and attending work meetings, found themselves smiling and inhaling deeply with immense satisfaction as if they were teleported back to Istanbul — -they just entered the Bosporus restaurant in Abu Dhabi Mall, ready to indulge themselves in a decadent kahvalti — Turkish breakfast.

In this restaurant, there is little need to consult the Breakfast menu with pre-designed options for either two or four people. Just settle yourself comfortably and let the friendly waiters guide your experience. We ordered Al Sultan Breakfast for four people. Trust me, this was more than enough food to satisfy five of us —- we are all physically healthy people with amazing appetites, and this breakfast made us so full that we were not able to eat anything else for the rest of the day.

Fried eggs with sucuk (beef sausage with cumin, paprika, and garlic), Menemen (scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers, and onions), and Börek with cheese or minced beef (bread rolls made from yufka dough) are undoubtedly the stars of the table.

A wide selection of bread is indispensable for any Turkish breakfast. Pide (pillow-like flatbread), açma (slightly sweet bread roll), poğaça (scone-like savory pastry) — Do not get intimidated by these new words! They are all inviting, fresh, and warm. Since my first bite of simit, I immediately fell in love with this bagel-shaped bread, the real star of the Turkish breakfast. Simit does not share the dense consistency as bagels, rather, it tastes so much airier and fluffier because it is baked instead of boiled. While the exterior is coated in sesame seeds, the inside of the simit is soft and pillowy. If you chew the simit slowly, you can feel a delicate stream of sweetness coming from grape molasses that gently run over your mouth.

Rip your favorite bread into smaller pieces and dip them into one of the endless platters of spreads. To satiate your sweet tooth, try pistachio cream or jams made from cherries, strawberries, apricots, and figs. If you want to begin with the savory side instead, go for herby cheese, cacik (a mixture of cucumber, yogurt, garlic, and water), muhammara (smoky bell pepper cream with walnuts), and the must-have of zaatar and olive oil.

My Turkish boyfriend´s favorite spread is tahini and pekmez (grape molasses). Turkish parents believe that this Turkish version of peanut butter and jelly can let their kids grow big and strong, not to mention, do well on their future exams.

Admittedly, I have a weak spot for kaymak (similar to clotted cream) and honey. I prefer the version my boyfriend's mom made to the one at Bosporus restaurant. The majority of the tens of thousands of tourists who flock to Turkey for vacation annually will probably find themselves dining out for every meal. But if they are lucky enough, they should try the home-cooked meals in local families. Believe it or not, they generally taste much better than restaurant food.

Halfway down the Aegean coast, I tried Turkish breakfast for the first time when visiting my boyfriend in Izmir this summer. Every morning (if you agree with the Mediterranean that 11:30 AM is still in the morning), we would gently wake up to another day of sun on the balcony with a cup of cay, while waiting for his mom to finish cooking the egg dishes (curiously, it is expected of women to assume the cooking responsibilities in most Turkish households). Meanwhile, a medley of cheese, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives quietly sat on the table, waiting to be eaten with the freshly baked simit from the neighborhood bakery. Sometimes, my boyfriend's mom would also prepare an energizing Black Sea dish called kuymak, a thick blend of melted cheese and cornmeal. In satisfied silence, we began eating breakfast around noon, our souls feeling fully at ease.

Some of my friends have begun to experience the toxicity of a hectic work culture firsthand: every morning, they would grab a banana from the convenience store or quickly devour a croissant on their way to classes. Whilst I still wake up for a proper breakfast, I normalize it as a thing that I need to tick off my daily to-do list, that digesting a salad bowl, boiled eggs and watermelons is just as necessary as finalizing my research paper on undocumented migration. But I still lack the same mentality as the Turks who throw themselves wholeheartedly into enjoying things as simple as breakfast to the fullest. I eat breakfast out of survival instincts, the Turks savor breakfast out of celebration of daily rituals.

It took me a while to realize this. Initially, I kept turning down the invitations to breakfasts at Bosporus Restaurant, secretly thinking that it would just be a waste of time. While now visiting this restaurant has almost become my monthly fixation, an imperative escape from the routines at university, and one of those rare breakfast places in Abu Dhabi where the correct action verb to use is not to eat, but to savor. After nearly two hours of non-stop savoring in Bosporus Restaurant, we finally started sipping one cup of cay after another (unlimited cay is served for free) before a bowl of fruits appeared with the coup de grâce: housemade baklava!