Twenty-four Hours a Day!

So my favorite meal of the day is breakfast!  And given a choice I'll choose it for any meal.  One of my favorite things about living in Manhattan is the prevalence of diners which serve breakfast twenty-four hours a day.  The Madison (on 1st Ave at 53rd) is my favorite and even having moved slightly uptown, I still head that way when I'm in the mood for great pancakes or fabulous hash browns.   There's also Sarabeths for upscale breakfast.  And recently I went to Balthazar's in SoHo for a Parisian style brunch that also delicious.   And of course the mainstay of New York breakfast

—the bagel—which is worthy of a blog all on its own (see www.themanhattanchronicles.wordpress.com ).

But Manhattan doesn't hold the key on good breakfast places.  Some of the best in the world can be found in the South and Southwest.   A trip to the Williamsburg area will turn up more pancake houses than you can possibly imagine.  Local eateries that feature—of course—pancakes as well as other great breakfast fare.   In Boulder recently, I was taken to a lovely coffee shop/diner that had great French toast.  And somewhere between Sante Fe and Taos JK and I stopped for an amazing southwestern breakfast complete with sopapillas at Rancho de Chimayo.  YUM!   And then there's my all-time favorite breakfast haunt–the Waffle House.  A divey place where everyone says hello when you walk in the door, you can enjoy some of the best (and cheapest) waffles around.

In Austin, my favorite breakfast places are the Magnolia Café and it's dysfunctional family twin The Omelettry and old stalwart, Kirby Lane.   There are also some fabulous pastry and coffee places that put Starbucks to shame.  And speaking of pastries…the coffee houses in Vienna, although not geared for breakfast, could make my heart sing.  Along with hot kipferls (the Austrian equivalent of croissants. Speaking of which…Paris in the morning…yum.  And Japanese pastries (inspired by the French) are a morning delight along with hot tea.  Oh and then there's Irish breakfast.  Eggs, sausages, blood pudding (yes… I'll admit, I love the stuff).  And thankfully, New York is full of Irish pubs that sell—you guessed it—Irish breakfast.  So we've come full-circle and I'm back to heaven on a plate for breakfast in NYC.

Anyway, you get the idea.  Wherever I am, I love breakfast.  What about you?  What are your  favorite breakfast haunts?   Favorite foods?  Do you like it any time of day  (breakfast that is)?

 

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