A long weekend brunch is my idea of the perfect meal. Paired with a watermelon mimosa at Cafe Gitane's Jane Hotel outpost is the perfect way to do it.

A museum and sculpture garden in the Long Island City section of Queens, New York City, designed and created by the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

It's Christmas year-round at Panna II, as the walls and ceilings are completely covered with festive string lights. A great restaurant for a group dinner, Panna II offers small sharable plates in a fun and lively atmosphere. It's BYOB with no corkage fee so stop by the liquor store beforehand to pick up all the wine, beer and liquor you can carry.

I love how I walk around the city and bump into so many musicians. It's nice to see them rocking in the street and stopping busy New Yorkers from walking.

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.