Chavela's makes delicious authentic Mexican food and its around the corner from my house, so I come here a lot. They make a mean margarita, and you can't beat their happy hour prices. $2 tacos? Yes, please. The decor is bright and lively, and the bar is made of beautiful Mexican tiles.

An awesome, and sometimes free, ferry that links Manhattan at the Financial District to Ikea in Brooklyn via Red Hook. Very great views of the city and if you end up having to pay it's redeemable for a monetary discount towards an Ikea purchase. I think of it as a treat and an investment.

Summertime in Bushwick, means the locals will be barbecuing on the sidewalk, and playing in the hydrants. It's the perfect time to grab some shorts, and run down the street. If the one outside Mckibben isnt going off, one of the other 15 hydrants in the neighborhood will be.

Be warned: you’ll want to buy everything in this beautiful, minimalist store.

When I first moved to New York, enamoured by its parks and museums and design firms and restaurants and bars, I never imagined that there could be much more to its geography than that. How wrong I was. My first drive across the George Washington Bridge was jaw-dropping - the cliffs of New Jersey are astonishingly tall, covered in a dense thicket of trees. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Drive up 87 to the Catskills or the Adirondacks and you'll witness the Hudson River winding its way through spectacular scenery and unforgiving seasons. Now I can't get enough; just two hours up the road, it's like the city never existed. Perfect recuperation after a long week.