As I have mentioned before, I am obsessed with the amazingness and culinary goodness of the Breakfast Taco. Here in New York that passion is one fraught with frustration due to the severe lack of options when I’m fighting a craving. But, this morning, my self and two good friends walked the Williamsburg Bridge to see if a new entrant to the Breakfast Taco scene in NYC might rival my previous conclusion that the best Breakfast Tacos in New York were at Lobo (see the original post HERE)

Whirly Bird (254 S. 2nd Street – Williamsburg) is a pretty simple place with only two things for your consumption: espresso and Breakfast Tacos. And, as their signs claim, both are top notch.

First up was the appropriately named “The #1″ which featured scrambled eggs, oaxaca cheese, homemade salsa on a crispy corn tortilla w/jalepano chips and some of the best chorizo I’ve had outside of Texas.

Secondly was the monstrosity known as “The Waldorf” which took “The #1″ to a whole new level by adding another crispy corn tortilla and swapping the scrambled eggs for a perfectly fried egg right in the middle of the yummy goodness.  It’s presentation was great, as was its taste, but the practicality of eating it was a little bit suspect due to its size, but the overflow of toppings made for a nice pool of scrumptiousness waiting in the basket to finish off with a fork.

Even though Jeff the owner isn’t from the south (he’s from CT), he is considering adopting the slogan of “Don’t Mess with Breakfast” and is doing his part to bring smiles to the faces of folks with a passion for the growing cravings of hipsters and southern transplants alike, the oh-so-wonderful Breakfast Taco.

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This video captures some amazing New York scenes are shares just a little bit of the amazingness that I have come to know and love as My NY.

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“Sorry I’m late, some plane hit a building in New York. Don’t worry, it will be a made-for-TV-movie by the holidays.” said Coach Lance Lowry as he arrived for my 8am handball class at Texas A&M. Little did we know how different the world would look when class ended 40 minutes later.

Coach Lowry arrived at 8:10 (CST) for class. I remember this exactly because for an 8am class, everyone pays a lot of attention to the 10 minute rule. If the professor doesn’t show after 10 minutes, everyone walks. But he did and we had a full class on the technic one should use to strengthen their weak hand returns. When class was over, I walked up to the gym’s juice bar and grabbed a banana and a smoothie. I sat down in the lounge area with the intention of finishing some homework. But, there in the front of the room was of a big screen TV tuned into CNN.

As I sat down, the first tower fell.

It was not going to be a normal day.

I walked over to the Memorial Student Center and used a land line (I didn’t have a cell at that point) there to call my family and talk briefly about what was going on. As I walked through the halls, TV from classrooms on rolling stands were being positioned for people to gather around.

Then the second tower fell.

I logged into to the main webpage for the school to see if there were any announcements about changes in schedules, or the all important, classes being canceled announcement. Nothing yet. I checked a couple more times throughout the morning, but ended up going to my 2:10 Economics class.

I did not want to be there.

“I know you don’t want to be here,” began my frequently rather grumpy professor. “But you know what, those evil people that took down the towers today, they didn’t want you to be here either. They wanted to mess with the life that you have as an American and change what it means to have the freedoms that we have. Don’t let them. Live the life with the freedom that you’ve been given as an American and don’t give those terrorists an inch. Now, onto the ways in which a demand curve indication of marginal utility…”

I knew a couple people that were in the Towers when they got hit, but they were on the 16th floor and made it out with no problem. I filled up my truck with gas because I was worried about the prices increasing the next day.  I went over to a friends house and had burgers that night by the pool.

Now, a decade later, I live in New York. I live just over a mile away from where the Towers stood. I can see One World Trade rising from the still gapping hole in the ground when I walk out my front door. I wasn’t a New Yorker when the Towers fell, but I am now. And this morning, I took full advantage of my proximity and the gorgeous sunrise to reflect on what has changed and what has stayed the same in the 10 years since the world stopped turning.

Early morning walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. Prefect way to start this monumental day.

Morning sun on downtown Manhattan and the empty sky where the Towers once stood

Tight security to get anywhere close to the 9/11 Memorial and Service

Big screen broadcast of the entire 9/11 Memorial Service

The FDNY and NYPD were decked out in their dress uniforms and brought a somber reminder of those that lost their lives in an effort to save the victims in the Towers

President Obama didn’t have any remarks this morning. He felt, and I agree with him, that the Psalmist summed up what needed to be said perfectly in the 46th Psalm:

¹ God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

⁷ The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.Tweet

“If you didn’t believe it before, and it easy to understand how you might have been skeptical on this point. If you didn’t believe it before you can absolutely believe it now, New York City is the greatest city in the world.” – David Letterman (opening monologue on first show back after 9/11/01)

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Since moving to New York, my timid declaration that I am an aspiring foodie has been exposed and I’ve seen I’m a foodie novice at best. But, there is one culinary delicacy that I’d be willing to go toe to toe with anyone in New York on: Breakfast Tacos.

The simplistic beauty of a perfectly prepared Breakfast Taco has yet to spread far beyond the borders of Texas. Some folks have asked if I mean a breakfast burrito (as they try and refer me to McDonalds) and others have suggested I get with the local culture and just start eating bagels with a variety of flavored cream cheeses.

But, with as much determination as I can muster, I’ve fought on. In the past two years, after sharing my quest with friends, family, and (perhaps most importantly) the internet, I’ve only found three Breakfast Tacos options in all of New York City.

Lobo – Cobble Hill (218 Court Street Brooklyn, NY – http://lobonyc.com/)

This was my latest find (yesterday) when Annie and I were finishing a 30+ mile bike ride. She suggested Lobo as a good Mexican food lunch since we were close by in Brooklyn. When I walked in, much to my delight, there was a huge Lone Star Beer sign hanging above the bar. That was the first hint that I might find a glorious surprise waiting for me on the menu. I flipped it over and line item number three on the breakfast menu: Breakfast Tacos! (pictured above)

I ordered one with chorizo (spicy sausage) and one without to gauge the difference. Both were wonderful, especially when dressed up with the pico de gallo, guac, black beans, and the house salsa. It is safe to say that I inhaled them.

Thus far these are by far the closest thing to a true Breakfast Taco that I’ve encountered in NYC.

Tacombi (at Fonda Nolita – 267 Elizabeth Street New York, NY – http://www.tacombi.com/)

This was the first Breakfast Taco that I found in New York. The restaurant is a fun open warehouse with metal folding chairs, plastic tables, and a couple different options as far as ordering. To get the Breakfast Tacos, go to the cashier on your righthand side when you walk in and purchase some tickets (like you’re going to the State Fair) and take them to the back chef’s hut.

There are three options for your Breakfast Tacos and I’ve had them all. And they are all good.  But, being a connoisseur, I would say that they’re not great. Being the first Breakfast Tacos that I’d found in the city, I was overly excited the first time I had them as they were like an oasis of goodness to my deprived taste buds. But, upon a second and third visit, the adjective that I find myself say in describing them: frou-frou.

Definitely better than not eating a Breakfast Taco, but not quite the awesomeness I think a city of this culinary achievement should be treating their palettes too.

La Esquina Taqueria (114 Kenmare New York, NY – http://esquinanyc.com/)

La Esquina, the much talked about restaurant, might be one of the more fun dinning experiences in the city if you can get a reservation. You walk into the unassuming and small Taqueria and, should the hostess find you name on the list, you are escorted downstairs through the kitchen to the best ambience you’ve ever seen in what feels like a cave.

But that is not the experience I had in attempting to try out their Breakfast Tacos. I walked to the Taqueria on three different occasions to attempt to partake, each time finding out that they either weren’t serving Breakfast Tacos because it was the weekend (strange but true) or that they wouldn’t be serving them until 10am because if was a weekday (really?). So when I finally made it on a day when they felt like serving me Breakfast Tacos, my biases against their offering were already pronounced.

And unfortunately, they green sauce smothered presentation didn’t restore enough moistness to the dried out corn tortilla for it to make me smile. But, I needed a third Breakfast Taco to make this blog post complete, so there you go.  Very disappointed by this one.

So all told, Lobo in Cobble Hill Brooklyn is the far away winner of the Breakfast Tacos in NYC culinary exploration SO FAR. But, the search continues and I am taking all suggestions and input that I can get. I am tired of having to fly to Austin to get my fix once a month, let’s remedy this situation here in NYC!Tweet

This weekend was a strange one with Irene’s impending doom and actually drizzle. But I just saw this video and thought it did an awesome job of capturing some of the hustle and bustle that exists on the streets of the city I love.

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Earlier this year I started using Instagram just to see what all the fuss was about. A few weeks later, I was seeing the world through a whole different lens. There is something so awesome about the simple social validation that comes from a couple likes and comments on your photos and allowing people to see the world through your eyes (with some cool filters.)

Then, while sitting at the Formula One track in Valencia Spain, John O’Nolan rocked my world when he told me to check out Camera+ app for cleaning up pics ever further. I did and have been getting even more amazing feedback on my photos across all of the places that I have been sharing them on the interwebs.

So, to answer the some what frequent question I’ve been getting of “How are you making your pictures look like that?” I thought I’d share a couple quick tips for using Camera+

1) Take the pictures with your normal camera app and then upload them into Camera+. For me this allows me to easily flip through the originals and take pictures faster as things are happening.

2) Upload your favorite pic to Camera+ and hit “edit.”

3) Immediately add “Clarity” to the picture. This will pull out the true colors and even out the bright and dark spots.

4) Have fun with the filters and make sure to toggle the intensity.

As an example, here is one of my favorite pictures of my neighborhood park on a summer day:

And here it is with a little bit of love from Camera+:

Hope this helps explain some of my current obsessions and gives you a clue into the fun that I am having with my iPhone4.

If that helps, post a link in the comments to your favorite pics that you take, would love to see them.Tweet

Last week Annie and I were in the Hamptons for her birthday and discovered some of the best Mexican Food that we’ve had in New York. The Hideaway in Montauk is aptly name and only determined foodies will find it on their first try. But the Black Bean Mango Salsa is a great reward for those that do.

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Last night, Annie and I went out with one of our favorite couples to The Smith in the East Village.  Our dinner conversation ranged from the insanity of extended families to politics to Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting (happy little trees!) The discussion also turned to the lists that we all wrote down as kids about what we wanted out of life when we grew up. We all recounted the categories and the hilarity of the details that we went into when describing our expectations of the future.   My favorite was the description of the perfect husband though the eyes of a 17 year old: “He must be good looking (if at all possible) and not go bald.”

This morning, still relishing in the glow of the great dinner (think beer battered green beans, bacon wrapped apricots, and a culinary piece of perfection:”Stout Braised Beef Short Ribs.”), I got to thinking: when do we stop writing down what we want out of life with the expectation that it is still something that can and should happen? When do our lists have more to do with this week’s to-dos and less to do with the biggest ideas that we can imagine? When did the lists we make change from our dreams and goals to a detailed account of this week’s groceries and bills that need to be paid?

My favorite book in the world is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Early on in the book main character, a young boy name Santiago, meets a wise king. The king exhorts the young boy to not believe the world’s greatest lie:

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised. The King responded, “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”

At a certain point we all run into a brick wall on our way to achieving what we committed ourselves to when we had the innocence of a child. That brick wall, the first failure or set back of our adult life, is the end of their pursuit of the much larger vision they envisioned for themselves before the toils and responsibilities of “growing up” were upon them. That first roadblock is enough of a disappointment for the majority to stop, slow down, and put away their childhood lists. It is enough to convince them to believe the world’s greatest lie.

But for others, like Santiago in The Alchemist, it is just the beginning of an incredible adventure up, over, around, or through that wall.  It is hitting that wall, and the next, and the next, that strengthens our resolve to go through this life with a resolve that we were made for the things of our dreams and the only thing standing between us and the life we’ve imagined is our own cowardice and willingness to turn our backs on the dreams of our youth.Tweet

When Annie and I landed at LaGuardia this morning, we must have pulled the winning lottery ticket and actually had our luggage come out within 3 minutes of arriving at the baggage claim. Our good fortune continued when we hopped in the back of the next taxi queued up and asked our driver to take us home.

When he found out that we’d just come back from a weekend in Texas seeing my family, he asked what we thought about Rick Perry running for President. We talked a little further as he zipped in and out of traffic on the FDR and found out that his son is a Spine Surgeon having finished up at Cornell Medical School and his daughter is a banker in Midtown having completed her degree at NYU Stern.

Our cabbie was 62 years old and moved to New Jersey 45 years ago after leaving Hungary as a young man. He waited in Italy for over 2 years to get his visa approved before arriving in New York and starting a new life in America. He met and married his wife of 35+ years and worked 7 days a week to put food on the table for his young family. He started driving cabs on the weekends to make some extra money and then realized he could own his own business. He took all the money they had in the entire world and took out a loan to buy an NYC Taxi Medallion. When he bought the Medallion, it cost him $27,000. He eventually bought two more and had a small taxi company of his own. This past December, he decided that he wanted to sell his business and only drive a couple days a week for a friend. He sold each of his Medallions for $910,000 and is now sitting on $2,700,000 deciding what he wants to do next.

He said something that really stuck with me: “Back then, everyone knew that if you work really hard to become really good at what you did, you could make a life for you and your family. You might not have everything, but with enough hard work, you could be happy. And I guess you could say that worked out for me.”

That is the kind of country I want to live in. That is the kind of truth I want to share when I’m in my 60s.

That is the reason I love talking to NYC Cabbies.Tweet