I had the Full English breakfast, which featured both sausage and bacon.

Eliza had the grilled three cheese sandwich with house smoked ham.

But why should the “out of box experience” be limited to technology? What about the experience of unpacking a few pounds of smoked meat? In this post, I’ll answer that question with a few photos. I finally got around to ordering some of Allan Benton’s famous country ham and bacon. I decided to document the “experience.”

Of course, the real experience is putting a few slices in the skillet and making breakfast. This morning was my lucky day. (I usually cut my bacon in half because my skillet is only ten inches wide.)

I overcooked the bacon a little bit, so it was a tad brittle. But luckily I’ve got four pounds of this stuff. Practice makes perfect.

The restaurant is in a 1920s Kullman Diner car. Very cozy.

Our waitress sat down next to us and wrote the daily specials on the table. Nice touch.

Add this to my list of New York food surprises: finding one of the best biscuits I’ve ever had. This one ranks up there with this one and this one.

Eliza had the ham sandwich, which was served on a scone.

I loved not only how our meals at Diner tasted, but also how they looked: elegant, but effortless. Whenever people talk about “presentation” in the context of food, it always seems overly fussy to me. On the other hand, I suppose it’s not actually the idea of presentation that bugs me, just fussy presentation. It’s not about an oddly shaped plate or a random squirt 0f some mystery sauce, but just about letting the ingredients shine. And that’s exactly what’s so great about Diner. It’s simple, fresh and satisfying. All in all, a great way to avoid death by hypothermia while visiting New York.

Inside, it was warm and empty. This was one of the few meals we had on this trip with no wait, so the empty chairs were a nice change.

I had the Eggs Valdostana – brioche with eggs and asparagus and a nice little salad. Delicious.

Ben had an omelette with goat cheese and maybe onions. (Looks like that anyway. Maybe mushrooms, too. I knew we should have written this stuff down.)

Leah and Chris joined us at the end of our meal for a cup of coffee.

Then we bundled up and marched off to attempt the impossible – lunch for 11 at The Spotted Pig.

This converted hardware store has my favorite breakfast in town. And this is no irrational obsession. Sun In My Belly seems to do everything right, from the mason jars on the table to the warm and cozy design of the room to the Boursin cheese in the scrambled eggs. Everything about the place is thoughtful.

Here it is: the Kirkwood breakfast. Scrambled eggs with Boursin cheese, thick and sweet honey glazed bacon, and a biscuit with butter and jelly. Perfection. Putting the jelly and the butter in the little spoons is a nice little touch.

Ben had the daily omelette special – bbq pork.

Their holiday decorations were beautiful and simple. This giant branch was suspended from the ceiling over our heads. It had fabric leaves and gold ornaments dangling from invisible filament. Lovely.

I love these old lockers in the sitting area. I need some of these to put things in.

Colored lights, holiday traffic, and that dreadful (ED. NOTE: awesome) song, Must be Santa leave me feeling crazed and exhausted. One Kirkwood breakfast enjoyed in Sun In My Belly’s thoughtfully designed and wonderfully cozy space and I’m back on track, ready to jab elbows with the best of them at Lenox Mall.

On Jeff’s recommendation, Eliza got the country ham and cheese sandwich.

I had the creamed spinach with corn cakes and poached eggs. I like eating poached eggs because when they’re placed in front of me, they tremble. They know what’s coming.

The next morning, we considered returning to Mother’s for breakfast, but decided it would be a shame not to try something different during our time in New Orleans. We opted for a little diner across the street from our hotel (the pet friendly La Quinta) called Majoria’s Commerce Restaurant. It ended up being one of my favorite meals of the trip.

I am serious about breakfast. Any day I can start with eggs is a good day in my book. The Commerce Restaurant, at the dawn of our last day on the road, was the beginning of a very good day.

Eliza wanted to use this picture, in which you can see an empty window pane just above the restaurant. Sadly, much of New Orleans still resembles a bombed out war zone, even years after Katrina.

Eliza files her nails as we wait for our grub. A convention was in town, presumably for the Association of Chubby Guys in Shiny Shirts and Black Pants. Zing! (Yes, there’s a girl with them and she’s not chubby at all, but she’s probably an intern or something).

Breakfast arrived and it seemed pretty standard. The fried eggs had little pools of butter in them, like at Waffle House. This was not a bad thing, but the meal didn’t seem to remarkable at first.

But after tasting the biscuit, everything changed. As you can see here, the bottom of the biscuit was done just shy of the point of being burned, which gave it a nice crunch and a hint of sweetness. But the real revelation was still to come.

A biscuit of this caliber needs to be taken advantage of. And victimize it, I did. I piled two alternating layers of bacon and egg on it and went to tasty-town. Look at this mess. If you’re not jealous of what I experienced at this place, you might be too virtuous for your own good.

A menu so big, they had to double up.

There was also a chorizo, egg and cheese taco, but I ate it before Eliza could get the camera out.

At this point in our journey, Jaxon was still a little confused about what was happening.