bacon cheeseburger with an
egg. Others have exotic items
like fried cactus on them.
In my opinion, one of the
greatest breakfast cafés is
near Wicker Park in Chicago.
Café Con Leche, which as
the name suggests, has some
specialty coffee and droolinducing Mexican dishes.
Go there and get a chorizo
burrito with Café Con Leche
– you’ll thank me.
Of course the Windy City is known for its deep dish pizza. Most
folks will rightly tell you that Uno’s and Giordano’s are the jam for
deep dish, but my secret spot is Nancy’s because I’ve never seen it
busy and the pizza there is completely comparable to the big names.
This past August, the morning before Snake Island! was set to
play the Psychedelic Light & Sound festival in Denver, we were
craving waffles, so Urbanspoon guided us to Waffle Brothers, a
delicious and cheap breakfast place with some amazing breakfast
sandwiches using waffles as the buns. I had the Breakfast Sandwich
with Cajun spices and Jalapeño. I can’t recommend enough that
anyone reading this go to Denver and eat that, or at least get their
Original Waffle and cover it in toppings. There is a restaurant in
Denver called Illegal Pete’s who offers free food to touring bands
in exchange for the bands mentioning them on-stage and on
Facebook/Twitter, but we did not have time to actually go there.
Sometime last year, Snake
Island! landed in New
Orleans. We scheduled
ourselves to be in the Big Easy
for two days to allow for extra
exploration and engorgement.
After our show the first night,
inebriated, we stumbled
through the French Quarter
and found ourselves at some
unnamed bar and grill where
we had real deal po’ boys.
“In San Diego we enjoyed Rubio’s,
home of the original beer-battered
fish taco.”
Besides New Orleans, the
South in general was still
excruciatingly delicious. We
ate at the Majestic Diner in
Atlanta where I had the gyro
omelet. Birmingham, Alabama
had the Magic City Grill
where we feasted on chicken
and waffles. The bar we played
in Birmingham, called The
Bottletree, also fed us some
delectable food from their grill. The highlight of southern cooking
would have to be in Memphis with Payne’s Barbecue.
While going up and down the West Coast this last summer, we
discovered a fantastic meal for a touring musician called pho. It
does not make you too full leaving you groggy, it is mostly healthy,
and it’s CHEAP. There’s dozens of restaurants in every town that
serve it too.
The coast of course had so much more to offer than pho; in San
Diego we enjoyed Rubio’s, home of the fish taco. The original beerbattered fish taco was mouth-watering while the corn avocado fish
taco was glorious. I had two of each.
Up in Los Angeles we ate at Pann’s Diner – where the famous
Pulp Fiction robbery scene was filmed. They served enormous
portions for their omelets and we happened to arrive during
bottomless Bloody Mary and Mimosa brunch. San Francisco had
an abundance of nameless pho, hole-in-the-wall taco, and pizzaby-the-slice restaurants, but one thing we definitely noticed was no
fsmomaha.com
“The highlight of southern cooking
would have to be Payne’s Barbecue
in Memphis.”
They went down the hatch quickly, but definitely left us full and
satisfied afterwards.
The next day for lunch, somebody’s smartphone took us to
Mother’s Restaurant, a long-lived staple in New Orleans who was
apparently one of the first businesses to reopen after Katrina. We
loaded up on red beans and rice, gumbo, jambalaya and crawfish
étouffée and shared our plates enthusiastically; these were flavors
Midwesterners can only dream about.
The next night, we played at a venue called The Siberian which
served what they called “eastern European soul food” like pierogi,
kielbasa and beef stroganoff, which was something new and
unexpected.
Bringing Italy to Omaha for over 90 years
Take a taste of Italy home today
621 Pacific St, Omaha
402-345-3438
• Award-winning Sicilian-style pizza & bread products
• Deli with a variety of Italian cheeses & meats
• Imported olive oils, canned goods & pastas
www.orsibakery.com
Tues–Thurs 8:30 am - 8 pm Fri 8:30 am - 9 pm
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