It was back to work for me on Monday so I met up with everyone in the evening to go to a restaurant on the Upper West Side called Dovetail. It has a Michelin star and on Mondays, they do a special vegetarian or vegetable-focused tasting menu, which is a bit more accessible than their usual fare. I wanted to try it out before my vegetarian friend, Sophie, visits later this month!

We all went for the vegetable focused menu and started off with a series of appetisers before the tasting menu started. I had broccoli soup with clams, followed by cured carrots with duck breast, and then potato gnocchi with bacon. The portions were definitely American “tasting” sized, rather than UK ones, but very good all the same.

Nevertheless, we managed to make room for dessert: flourless chocolate cake with orange sorbet and sesame crackers -the standout course in my opinion!

It’s fun to do a bit of fine dining every now and then!

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off (hard life, I know!), so it was nice for us to be able to do some tourist things without the weekend crowds.

We didn’t have many plans for Tuesday morning, so I said what about breakfast at Tiffany’s? (sorry, couldn’t resist!). Lulu’s 21^st birthday is coming up so it seemed the perfect way to mark her visit to New York. The ground floor holds the “Fine Jewellery” section so that was slightly out of our price range, but we quickly found where we wanted to be. Lulu picked out a great ring and I managed to find a cheeky something for myself too – a little memento of New York for my charm bracelet:

Then it was on to another famous spot- Katz’s Deli, which features in When Harry Met Sally. We met up with some friends who were also in New York and headed in for their finest pastrami and bagels.

They don’t hold back on the memorabilia on the walls…. or the complimentary pickles…

I couldn’t let my family leave without seeing Central Park so we devoted Wednesday to doing exactly that. We had booked lunch at The Loeb Central Park Boathouse so we meandered over, stopping at this fountain (after getting slightly lost) where a jazz singer started playing and began his set with “New York, New York” – I tried to pretend it was all just part of my perfect sightseeing plan…

The Boathouse is an amazing place for lunch- you sit right on the lake while people row along in the background. The pretzel sticks they give you before you order alone are enough to make me want to go back! We started with a glass of bubbly to toast the trip, and then I went for classic steak and discovered how great caramelised mushrooms could be…

Full from lunch, we decided to take a couple of boats out on the lake, where we had great fun racing each other and narrowly avoiding collisions with other people.

Our cousins went off to Serendipity for ice cream (on my list to try!) and we whizzed round the Met before heading to the UN Delegates Lounge for drinks. No, I haven’t become a diplomat (yet!) but a family friend works there so she invited us as her guests. After getting through the many layers of security, we had a bit of a wander around, and stumbled upon this corridor where we couldn’t resist doing this….

A lovely way to round off a great visit!

Halloween post coming soon!