You stop at a Taco Bell. You don’t stay there. When you are between meals, between waking and sleeping, between high and sober, Taco Bell provides extraplanar respite. Wherever you travel, those paper sack provisions always make it through customs.

A good meal is your neighborhood dog, friend to all, easy to find and happy to see you. But a great meal is the fox you’ve glimpsed at a distance who decides for the first and only time to come sit next to you as you watch the sun set.

This is one such meal.

Manhattan Island is a living bone, and we are its blood.

This slice is not a typical Cali cut. It's got character, but it's not trying to impress. It's just doing its job, another grind in the service industry, sweaty but unstressed. Carry on, brother.

French Laundry is your rich friend, well-heeled and warm. A friend who places huge demands on terrified staff, who is blind to their fear. A friend whose displays of generosity may remind you of the limits of your checkbook, but never make you feel poor.

Your life is a warm bowl of curry on a nameless Rockridge corner, a telescope of histories on loan in a Wayfair-and-knickknack present.

Gin Gin, a constantly flexed bicep of a restaurant, has staked its territory in Roma Norte. The tempo is brisk, constantly a half beat ahead of your heart. Brace yourself and enter.

A warm hug from a cheek-pinching aunt.

Eat like a friend of the friend of the chef, sans chef.