Put a pretty picture on a New York lunch

There’s a reason why people buy guidebooks. And why so many of us who travel buy them. It’s because when you’re moving around an unfamiliar city, or at least an unfamiliar part of a city, you need some direction. Some kind of help in choosing, hmmmm, a place to eat?

Today, for example. My wife and I were rambling around the Lower East Side of Manhattan , pushing a stroller carrying a 10-month-old in fact, and we started looking for a restaurant. Uh-oh, no guidebook. But we did have the Internet. And our phones. Which is how, thanks to Google, we found Alias , a nice little eatery on the corner of Rivington and Clinton.

And wouldn’t you know it, the place not only had room for two adults, a baby and his stroller, but it featured a menu that allowed me to eat one of my favorite meals: breakfast for lunch (the other being, of course, breakfast for dinner). So, that explains the buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, yogurt and currants served in a cored green apple, drinkable coffee, all of which came fast and served by the woman, Trina, pictured above.

So, if you happen to find yourself wandering around Manhattan’s Lower East Side — searching, for example, for the place where the original Milk Bone dog biscuit was created — and you get hungry, stop for a quick bite at Alias. Even if you don’t want breakfast food, you’re likely to find something worth eating. And inexpensive — even by Spokane standards.