New York, New York

This is a City which, along with San Francisco, always makes me feel at home. I know I am a Swansea lad (Wales not Massachusetts), but somehow New York captured my heart at my first visit and has kept doing so ever since. Maybe it is that it's iconic images have influenced my childhood viewing - Kojak, Starskey and Hutch and others - or maybe it is the melting-pot of the world and I love that melting-pot feel. I guess when I say New York I really mean Manhattan, as while I have travelled in from the airport via Queens and out to Connecticut via the Bronx and travelled across to Staten Island once or twice on the Staten Island Ferry, I've only really spent time on the island of Manhattan itself. In Manhattan I've been from the northernmost tip to the southernmost tip and much of the places in between.

My first visit to New York was back in 1997, when my sister, brother-in-law and I had planned a holiday travelling from New York to San Francisco via a northern route, some of which - between Ohio and Chicago - we will mirror this holiday. On that occasion we stayed in an hotel across the river in Newark, New Jersey and taxied it in to Manhattan for a meal at the Minetta Tavern and a day of travelling on a coach around the key sites.

My second visit was in 1999 when I really got to know this City. I travelled on my own and spent a whole week in New York. In those days we weren't familiar enough with the internet (hard to remember isn't it) so I booked through a specialist travel agent that I had used previously for an Australian trip. The quality of the hotels they sourced for that visit gave me confidence that I would be happy with their recommendation in New York, so I stayed for the first time in the Hotel Bedford. It was during this holiday, when being alone I needed someone to share my experiences with, that I began typing up thoughts and e-mailing them to my sister. Here lies the initiative which subsequently led to blogging these holidays.

In 2002 when Drew and I decided to do a US road trip we planned it to travel from New York to San Francisco using a Southern Route, like this time, we stayed for four days in New York before heading off, and Drew was so impressed by the city that we booked a week's holiday here in December 2004. Then in 2011 on a trip to visit New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada we used New York as the start and finish point. We spent four days here before leaving (I always like to be in the States for a few days, to get over jetlag which affects me worse coming this way than going home - unlike others who find the opposite) before driving and then came back here before heading back to the UK. It was this holiday that saw Hurricane Irene keep us in New York six days longer than scheduled. So we got to see even more of the parts we'd not visited before including walking from the north tip of Manhattan down to 1st Street. The Hotel Bedford again came up trumps making us feel comfortable both through the hurricane experience and after when we were stuck unable to fly home.

On planning this holiday, designed to pick up Drew's remaining 8 states, New York again looked like a good place to start. I tried to book the Hotel Bedford again, but though I could get to their website I couldn't book these dates. It took a further four months, and a series of e-mails to find they were shut for renovation across this summer. So I had to look elsewhere.

Drew remembered reading that a Kimpton Hotel (the brand that owns our favourite hotel in San Francisco) had opened near the Bedford. It was this tip that led me to book our first three nights here in Hotel 70, just two short blocks further from Grand Central than the Bedford, in the part of town we know so well.

It is a little more luxurious than the Bedford and is the most expensive of the hotels we will be staying in this holiday. Still it is really special.

The taxi from the airport came via the Midtown tunnel and cost $60 for the trip, only $10 more than when we were here in 2011, not bad. We arrived at the hotel, as mentioned in my last post and we were welcomed at the desk and told about their complimentary wine party at 6, the complimentary tea and coffee in the morning and a $15 discount off anything we buy from the mini-bar. I guess you can imagine the price of the mini-bar items if you realise this discount wouldn't cover two bottles of water!!

The room is comfortable and the beds are large - see Flickr for the images. So we settled in, I wrote yesterday's post and we headed out into town.

Our first stop was Grand Central to buy our metrocard, we always find a metro-card with unlimited travel for 7 days on subway and bus is easier than loading a card when you need it. We used to have a four day card, but 7 days is the shortest they now do. This was $31 each, so we will evaluate our usage levels when we leave on Tuesday, to see if buying fixed ticket prices (which are also loaded on a Metro card) would have proved cheaper.

Having bought the ticket, which Drew took lots of photos of Grand Central - it is an impressive building - we caught the S subway from Grand Central to Times Square, the iconic location where Broadway and 42nd street cross and the American's call the crossroads of the world. Well today it felt like that, everyone, but everyone seemed to be crammed in. Drew who doesn't like crowds at the best of time hated having to push past people who would suddenly stop to take photos, or wave their selfy sticks threateningly behind them without looking. It you wanted to experience the brashness of tourist America, this was it. As soon as we could we walked up a side-street to quieter parts. We continued up to Madison, so I could hear my sister singing "Walking down Madison" when we visited in the 90s, past Radio City, Rockefeller Centre, the banks and TV companies and down through fifth avenue to 42nd street and back to Grand Central.

We had decided to eat at a restaurant we first tried on our 2002 visit - Pershing Square. On that occasion we were so exhausted we just found the nearest restaurant and on the two subsequent visits Drew had made it a 'tradition' of ours to go there first. He does love his 'traditions' does a Drew.

Drew began with Cheesy French Onion Soup this was very, very cheesy, indeed the soup was capped with cheese as well has having more cheese and crotons in the bowl. Drew loved it and had fun with the cheese which became quite sticky and stringy, at one point I wasn't sure if he was eating it, or it was eating him. He said it was excellent, more cheesy than oniony, but that's not a bad thing. I had Lobster Spring Rolls with thai dipping sauce, these were lobster and beansprouts in a wonton wrapper, crisp, light and flavoursome. The thai dipping sauce seemed home made with lots of small cubes of chillies, spring onions (green onions as they say here) and lemon grass - absolutely wonderful.

The waiter offered us a bread basket with a wide range of breads, I opted for Onion bread the first time and sour-dough the second, Drew had a more traditional white roll.

For mains Drew opted for Grilled Pork Chop with apple chutney and whipped (mashed to us) potatoes. I've seen lots of Pork Chop, but this one must have been a very large pig, it was more like a dinosaur chop. The chop had cracked black pepper over it and was soft and juicy. I was allowed a taste and it was as good as any pork chop I have had, indeed even juicer because of the breadth of the cut. The chutney, which I didn't taste, was sweet, mustardy and appley which was what it was supposed to be. The mustard looked more like a Dijon mustard in texture, but with an English mustard colour. I opted for the Braised Boneless Short Ribs with whipped potatoes & market vegetables, these were a lightly saut‚ed selection of carrots, asparagus and courgette (zucchini for any American readers). These were a delight in themselves, but the rib was cooked so tenderly that it fell apart as you cut into it, a rich meaty flavour that evokes American cuisine to me.

After dinner we walked around for a while longer and then went back to the hotel, where by 9 pm we were tired enough to go to bed and to sleep. Of course this means I was awake at 12.30 (4.30 at home which is a common waking time for me). Still I managed another hour later and tried my best to do any typing quietly, not to wake Drew who slept on until 5.