Here’s your New Year’s Day game plan

Good Morning – even if it’s well past noon and you’re just starting to stir.

Perhaps you have a strategy for today, the first day of 2019. Perhaps you thought about it last week and made plans for queso and huevos at Mesero, then chicken fried steak and some old bourbon by the fire tonight at Haywire.

Perhaps you’re gathering with friends for Guatemalan coffee and buttery croissants at the just-opened San Martin bakery.

Or maybe you’re meeting still others for brunch at Doc B’s, whose spicy fried chicken deserves your attention on a day when the business crowd has mostly idled Uptown’s high rises.

You’ve thought through this. You have plans. (If you don’t, you’ll thank me for directing you to Two Mules, the casual restaurant inside Las Colinas’ new Texican Court hotel, for chef Patrick Hildebrand’s fluffy, from-scratch biscuits and spicy chilaquiles.)

Cheers to a year filled with good plans, great eating and close friends who double as family. As my people gather in Dallas and San Antonio, or wake up to more pleasant weather in Los Angeles and NorCal — foggy heads, clear hearts — here’s to a brilliant 2019.

Thanks for taking EscapeHatch along with you.