I know I haven’t posted anything in a while and I don’t really have a good excuse, I need to work on improving the frequency of the posts. That being said, my wife and I spent last weekend in New York to celebrate our 1-year anniversary. It was a quick but quite enjoyable trip and now I have something to write about!

As both my wife and I have been to NYC a few times each we spent most of the time there just enjoying ourselves with no set schedule.  I love this way of traveling, it provides for such a relaxing time.

The pictures from this trip are not the best but they are serviceable (taken from iPhone) so I will include them with some restaurant and one hotel review below. Enjoy!

Beautiful day in Central Park!

Looking north on 5th Avenue from the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (I must recommend going if you haven’t before, rivaled some of the best museums I have seen in Europe)

NYC Public Library

Hotel Review:  New York Hilton Fashion District (W26th Street & 7th Avenue)

Price: $$$$$ (We used HHonors Points)

This is one the of the newer Hilton Properties in NYC so I decided to give it a whirl for our weekend anniversary trip.  The entire hotel has a “hip” vibe from the check-in area to the restaurant (RARE) all the way to the rooftop bar.  It wasn’t exactly “our scene” but nonetheless my wife and I enjoyed the hotel.  The hotel is located in Chelsea and is within easy walking distance to the subway and reasonable walking distance to Greenwich Village.  The rooms were average size for NYC and all features within the room were new and fresh.  I am fairly indifferent as to whether I would choose to stay here again.  There was nothing specifically or even generally wrong with the room or the hotel at all but nothing really connected with me, or my wife, as I think they have a different target audience.

Restaurant Review: Dell’Anima (Italian)

Price: $$$

We used Yelp to research restaurants and chose this restaurant based upon the great reviews and proximity to our hotel.  After finding the restaurant we wanted, we used Opentable to book reservations for our Saturday night anniversary dinner.  We arrived a little early for the reservation and chose to have a glass of wine prior being seated.  There is a small bar right at the entrance of the restaurant with a very good wine/beer selection.

After finishing our drink we were seated in a corner table for two and helped immediately.  I can’t compliment the service enough, it really makes a huge difference when the wait staff appears to actually care about the food/presentation.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals.  The restaurant does VERY well with fresh takes on Italian classics.  Overall, I would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting NYC or to anyone that lives in the city.  The food was fantastic and the atmosphere was great. (The price was average for NYC, but expensive to me!)

Restaurant Review: Cookshop (Meatpacking District)

Price: $$

Again, we used Yelp and Opentable to find and book this restaurant for brunch.  We were not let down this time either!  This was one of the best brunches (not even sure that is a word but I am going to use it anyways since this is my post) I have ever had and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone in the NYC area on a Sunday morning.  The restaurant has a nice outdoor patio and very open inside and the wait staff were very attentive for how busy it was.  (As a side note – Make Reservations for Brunch.  We were able to skip past a 45-minute wait when we arrived.  Also, order the fried egg breakfast sandwich – you can thank me later)

Hope you enjoyed my first official trip review!  I expect to improve with each one.  The next big trip we have planned is for Ireland this fall but in the meantime I am sure we will have a couple more weekend trips.