For my inaugural breakfast on this trip to New York, there’s a feeling that things need to be done properly, and so Alex suggests his go to bagel place, just round the corner from his apartment, Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company. The kind of bagels that are so loaded that you can eat half for breakfast and are still left with a healthy (so to speak) lunch. Neither of us needing that much, we split the New York classic of a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. It is perfect. Accentuated with onions, both spring and regular, and capers, every bite is fulfilling on a fundamental level. The smoked salmon - very generously proportioned - is smothered on both sides by the cream cheese, keeping the bagel itself - suitably dense with a hint of fluff - ably moist. It’s almost impossible to eat, but yet impossible not to. If I were a coffee drinker, I imagine knocking back an americano with that would be one of the great pleasures of life, but as it stands, I simply have some water to hydrate myself before a day of exploring the city, having been calorifically set up for the day ahead - at least until it’s time for lunch.