A while ago, I devoted a lot of words to the delicious Mac’n’Cheese at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, but this week I made a new discovery. Sorry Beecher’s, but you’ve been knocked off the top cheese restaurant spot by Murray’s Cheese bar in the West Village. The cold winter weather we’ve had recently just makes you feel like cosying up in an Alpine log cabin and eating cheese fondue, and while it’s no log cabin, Murray’s cheese bar certainly delivers on the fondue! There’s also a cute bar right across the street where charming bartenders will pour you a glass of bubbly while you wait for your table as an added bonus.

We went for the house cheese fondue, a goat’s cheese, fig and pistachio salad (the most amazing combo) and a cheese and meat plate:

A close up of the fondue… that pot was empty by the time we were done!

We had a couple of nights out with work on Thursday and Friday (Note to self: Tequila salt + dry winter hands = pain!), where I made it back to the Rum Bar which once again delivered with live music and great cocktails.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day so I met up with my friend Cristina at the MOMA to browse some of the pop art and other collections, while also taking in the great views the museum has.

You wouldn’t believe it was -8 degrees outside! The sky always lifts my mood here!

They’ve finally taken the scaffolding off St Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue. Here it is looking pretty spectacular in the late afternoon sun as I walked home:

Yesterday, New York rained, and when it rains here, it pours all day. What better to do then than head up to Harlem for some soul food at Red Rooster. The chef, Marcus Samuelsson, has Swedish and Ethiopian origins and mixes the two cuisines with great success. Two of us went for the “Fried Yard Bird” (below – beats KFC any day!) Our other friend had catfish with grits (still not convinced on these but I like the idea of eating catfish) and Helga’s meatballs are another popular dish! Live music adds to the atmosphere and almost helps you to forget it’s raining outside!

All at a loose end for the afternoon, we googled rainy day activities in NYC and decided on bowling! We headed to the heart of Times Square which boasts a bowling centre with 50 lanes and 5 different themes. Our area was “Chinatown” and we bowled the afternoon away…

Some of us even turned out to be quite good … not that I’m boasting or anything… 😉

I went to Hillsong church on Sunday evening which has branches all over the world. It’s much more modern than the one I had been going to here and had a great talk on how your reality reflects your routine, so changes in life often don’t come until you change your behaviour. The question we were left with was: What habits will you break and what habits will you make in 2015? Definitely a good thing to thing about as we start a new year.

Today was Martin Luther King day so I had a nice relaxing day off and have just got back from an amazing meal at Gramercy Tavern with Dara. I went for duck confit (I can never resist duck when it is on the menu) which was so tender and they didn’t serve huge American portions so we actually had room for dessert too. Turns out coriander sauce with lime cheesecake actually works!

I’ll leave you with a Martin Luther King quote to mark the day: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'”

Have a great week.