A good flat white is hard to find but this is one place in NYC that has coffee that tastes like it does back in New Zealand.

Where New Yorkers escape when the heat wave hits the city. Easy to access with subway and buss but less crowded than Rockaway.

When I first got here my peers at work made me a list of places in our neighborhood. This restaurant was one of them and it's now one of my favorite local spots. This Italian restaurant has never disappointed me so far.

I'm a huge Japanophile: if there's one other place I'd like to live, it's Tokyo. I must have been there seven or eight times, most recently just after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Anyway, EN is a gem on Hudson Street, serving real Japanese cuisine. It turns out that EN is a chain in Japan; there are a lot of branches making lovely bosky food in cosy neighbourhood locations. But their New York incarnation is grand in scale and ambition, with solid, warm interiors (not unlike if the Whitney were a Japanese restaurant, oddly) - a remarkable hybrid of this city, and the other one that I'd love to live in.

My first job in the city. The family and friends and raised New York Megan. Also very good coffee. And lovely neighbors.