new york | kennyw.com

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When visiting New York City, we have a few regular pit-stops. One is Ess-a Bagel, a long-time haunt of my family that serves hefty, chewy, delicious bagels and sandwiches. Conveniently enough, the India Visa office is located around the corner from Ess-a Bagel’s 3rd Ave location, so it was very easy to pass the hour wait for our appointment with bagel sandwiches. We also fought jet lag with a “regular” sized black coffee that I could swim in.

Usually we get to squeeze in one visit to Ess-a Bagel, or two if we’re lucky. This time we had a week-long stay, so we had three times to make our way through the list of bagels with a variety of family members. For the record, my favorite sandwich is a whole wheat everything bagel with either egg or tuna salad depending on the time of day. Their cream cheese is also delicious, especially on a pumpernickel or sesame bagel. Yum!

Tuna salad on a whole wheat everything, washed down with lots of coffee

Everything bagel from their extensive “egg” menu – requires big bites!

Ess-a Bagel
831 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212-980-1010

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This morning we took a leisurely walk from Tribeca to Cousin David’s office in SoHo. We took care of a few errands along the way, and I was already getting a little munchy, though it was barely 11AM. As luck would have it, the next block we stumbled upon a taco truck setting up for the lunch run. I’m always a sucker for mobile food preparation, and the menu looked good, so we queued up in the line that was already starting to form.

I found out later that we had stumbled upon one of the more famous street vendors in NYC. At the time though, all I knew was that Calexico Cart dispensed delicious carne asada and black bean tacos. The hearty portion of steak was well-marinated, tender and juicy. The black bean taco was also addictively flavorful, assisted by their chipotle “crack” sauce and avocado crema.

Since we were meeting Cousin David for lunch, we held back from trying the burritos, but it wasn’t easy (they looked amazing).

Hard at work in the little truck kitchen