Tea and Bagels: Food, drinks and more food! (March

The 'real' Little Italy is located north of Manhattan, in the Bronx. Arthur Avenue is home to a large Italian community, which of course means some great food.

This is the Arthur Avenue indoor market:

They make hand-rolled cigars here too, since the surrounding neighbourhoods host a large Latin American contingent.

The second cat is less noticeable!

In early March Matt, Hayley and Gracie arrived for a short stay. Gracie loved the cats...and their wheel!

We showed them our favourite soup dumping spot in Chinatown.

The snow was still on the ground, much to Gracie's delight.

No visit to NYC is complete without a hearty breakfast at a diner.

Winter seemed to hang around a long time this year...

At least the cold weather meant hearty food. This is the prime rib roast lunch at the Dead Rabbit. Anywhere that brings Colman's mustard out with lunch is good by us. Arguably better than any Sunday roast that we have had in the UK!

Gemma and I finally decided to brave the 30-minute long queue and try the Levain Bakery cookies, which have a reputation for being some of the best in Manhattan.

Warm and gooey. We can't deny they're probably the best cookies we've ever had.

We'd been meaning to try a small Georgian restaurant in SOHO for ages. First up was a tasty salad in a Georgian walnut sauce and mixed platter of cold vegetable-things.

The main attraction, however, is the khachapuri. It is a large cheese-filled bread with an egg yolk dropped into the middle before serving. You pull the bread apart from the outside and work inwards on the cheesy, eggy molten mess. It's as good as it looks!

In the same manner that Arthur Avenue is the 'real' Little Italy, Flushing in Queens is the 'real' Chinatown. One of the most revered eating spots is found (if you know where to find it!) via this unobtrusive door leading down a stairwell into a maze of tiny shacks.

These lamb and green squash dumplings were easily some of the best dumplings we have ever had. They're up there with the soup dumplings!

A lot of the food vendors come from the Szechuan province, famous for it's numbing Szechuan pepper. The spice from the chilli combined with the lemony-numbing effect of the Szechuan pepper makes for a unique flavour - very intense. This was a flatbread filled with spicy lamb.

Tripe and tongue.

Rabbit.

We stopped off for a cup of tea and some matcha green tea crepe cake.

Walking over the Williamsburg Bridge:

Homemade hot cross buns for Easter (the piping needs to be improved!).

The 'tramway' takes you over to Roosevelt Island. Not a whole lot to see there; you can walk around the whole island in an hour, but the ride over was nice.

We spent an evening listening to a live jazz band with our friends, Mike and Sarah, in one of New York's most famous bars. Bemelman's Bar - inside the Carlyle Hotel - is named after Ludwig Bemelman, the creator of the Madeline children's books. Bemelman painted the murals on the walls in exchange for a year-and-a-half of accommodation in the hotel for himself and his family.

We finally got round to trying Papaya King, famous for its papaya juice and hot dogs. Tasty.

May brought some warmer weather and it is finally starting to look like spring.

We took the train to Newark for the annual cherry blossom festival.

Greenwich Village is a nice area to wander around.

We picked up some fresh bialys and Jewish flatbread from a cute little bakery.

You have to visit the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop in the West Village. It's famous for its concoctions...

...this one is a Salty Pimp. Soooo good!

We went to a piano recital at Carnegie Hall for our nine-year anniversary. A good performance, though it was a tad long for some people...a fair number of the audience started nodding off after the first hour!