This place is amazing. It's a short walk from our apartment and has an amazing happy hour including cheap guacamole and $4 margaritas. We can spend an hour or five hours here at a time because the environment is so casual, welcoming, and the food is just damn good. Get the lengua or the camaron al mojo de ajo tacos or hongos and rajas con papas if you are vegan.

Seasonal salads, sweet and savory treats, and great coffee. It's probably my most common lunch spot when I work from home and they also offer catering if I'm too nervous to cook but want it to feel homemade.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance. 

Somewhat off the beaten Williamsburg-track, Brooklyn Art Library is nestled on a mostly residential street. It’s home to tens of thousands of artist sketchbooks known as “The Sketchbook Project”. Over 100 countries are represented and their “collection houses books from small communities in Mongolia next to professional illustrators from New York.” You can donate one of your very own! All the sketchbooks have been cataloged for easy searching of their vast shelves, by artist and subject, and visitors are invited to browse what feels much like a hands-on museum. The Art Library also remains one of the few places to find art supplies (while limited) in the neighborhood, and if you’re in the market for a special gift (including books, totes and the cutest retro pennants) for your favorite art-lovin’ bibliophile, you might just get lucky here.

The oldest still-operating restaurant in New York City, still in the family of the original founders. At Christmastime, it's decorated to the nines. Go with a big group: portions are large and the wine flows liberally. Look for the little buttons on the walls: in the old days, the mafia would hang out in the back room, and if diners saw the cops come in, they'd press the buttons so the mafia guys could run out the back.