Tre è un fascino (Three's A Charm)

So given the fact that my fiancee is Italian, of course I am going to be biased and say that there is no food better than Italian food. But, in all seriousness, there really isn't.

I was lucky enough to be taken to Tuscany last summer (my first time in Italy) and I can say without a doubt, that it was the best vacation I had ever had. I ended up staying for a whole month and I ate out - breakfast, lunch and dinner - every single day. I put on quite a few pounds that's for sure.

After returning to New York you can imagine my cravings for real Italian dining. This is when my fiancee introduced me to a trio of restaurants, which have saved my life. I feel it is my duty to make these restaurants even more well-known than they already are.

They are all owned by the same Italian Stallion and all reside on the Upper East Side, within blocks of each other. These restaurants are;

1) Bella Blu - 71st and Lexington Avenue
2) Per Lei - 71st and Second Avenue
3) Baraonda - 75th and Second Avenue

I will first give you an insight to Bella Blu. This is the more sophisticated and traditional restaurant. It is always crowded and full of animated chatter, which also comes from the waiters and bus boys! There is a beautiful, rustic Pizza Oven in the center of the room, which is made out of brick and decorated with colorful mosaics. The food is literally a masterpiece and I sincerely recommend the Branzino, it just melts in your mouth. The atmosphere is warm and engaging, the perfect place to take your inlaws, have a friendly dinner and be with those you sincerely love.

Now for Per Lei - my favorite of all three. I cannot begin to describe the decor of this place. It's just fantastic and incredibly modern. 'Per Lei' means 'for her' in Italian, and it is the perfect place for a romantic date. The paintings on the wall are of beautiful women and a few in particular are actually of the owner's wife. So this restaurant is quite literally per lei. There is always such an electric atmosphere and the wait-staff have always been amazing to chat to when your dinner date goes to the bathroom! I adore everything on the menu but if it is your first time, take the veal and porcini raviolli and indulge!

Baraonda! This final restaurant is just pure, Italian, crazy, fun! The seating hostess is always dressed in elaborate and colorful outifts which completely set off the rest of the decor in the room. Its colorful and festive, and the ideal place to bring the girls (and the boys) for a night out of drinking and deleicious food. When it turns 10.20 pm the lights dim, the volume of the music increases, and you can continue partying and dancing with the entire restaurant- including the staff! There is also kareoke on particular nights, which I love, and makes a huge change of scenery from the dire, kareoke dive bars that swamp the city. Oh, and before I forget - the creme brulee is better than any creme brulee you will find in a French Restaurant - believe me I would know.

---- And if you want to take Italy home with you, all three restaurants sell the original, true Italian, Tuscan olive oil, used in both cooking and dressing. SOGNO TOSCANO; Super Tuscan Olive Oil.

Brunch At The Plaza

When it came to deciding what my first review should be about, I had a small checklist to keep me on the right track. Firstly it had to be something that epitomized New York. Check. Something that would kick off my blog with a boom. Check. Something that illustrated in some way what kind of person I am. Check. Something that you couldn't read about just anywhere. Check. And finally, something that mixes what my blog stands for; British In The City. Check. 

Perfect. So today, my friends, I want to take you with me on my very first, and hopefully not my last, Brunch At The Plaza. "So what?" you may be asking. Big Whoop, an expensive brunch of eggs Benedict, ridiculously over-priced, in a pink dining room surrounded by pretentious people, when quite frankly the diner over the road does the same eggs Benedict for an eighth of the price. 

Fair enough, and I am not exactly disagreeing with you. 

But I am not talking about just any old weekend Brunch, in the city, in one of the most famous hotels. This isn't just any brunch, where anyone can go. No. This is the famous and fantastic Plaza Brunch that starts exclusively at 2.30pm and finishes at 6pm. This brunch is by invite only (unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars for a table).

Here is where I will mention that I am not some breeding, socialite of New York where I am exclusively invited to every fabulous event happening in the city. As I have mentioned before, I have been lucky enough to experience all of this quite frankly due to the people I have met. I don't know why God has granted me with such fabulous friends, but I must be doing something right. It is my model-beauty of a best friend who has an endless list of connections who invited me to this brunch along with her. 

Enough of my rambling; let me set the scene for you. 

You walk up the red, velvet carpets blanketing the stairs leading up to the Plaza's main entrance. You glance around you as you carefully try not to fall over on those new heels you bought last week. There's the wealthy, Russian couple in head-to-toe fur stepping into their white Mercedes; over there is an Asian family taking photographs of the immense building, as well as that Russian couple as they must think they are famous. The doors are opened for you in men dressed impeccably in gold and black. You make your way through the palace-like lobby and make your way to the Oak Room. There you see a long, long, line of beautifully dressed individuals. The smell of various colognes and perfumes make you feel rather nauseous (as you haven't even had your morning coffee or bagel in anticipation for today’s brunch). These people are in line for a table and glare at you as you walk past, all the females giving you the up-and-down to analyze and judge whatever designer you are wearing (It’s a mix of Club Monaco, Forever 21 and Zara ,dah-ling, but I can make anything look expensive!). You hand over your coat and in a flurry of air kisses you are suddenly whisked past the line and you've entered the Oak Room. It's straight to the bar. Free cocktails - I'll have your signature Walt Disney, please. Another flurry of air kissing as more people arrive. The air is buzzing with chatter, there's the clinking of champagne glasses and the clonking of Manolo Blahniks on the wooden floors. There are Louis Vuitton bags and Chanel clutches placed on the tables and hanging off the shoulders of an Alexander Wang dress. You are mesmerized by the wealth and the fashion in this one room. And then I spot the security guards blocking the entrance into the back room. Somehow you manage to mesh in with this glamorous crowd and enter this room with pure grace and style (well done me, I deserve another drink for that).  A new sight is upon you. Huge, round tables covered in white and pink tablecloths. In the center of the table are huge buckets filled with Rose, Champagne and other various alcoholic delights. The room is filled with stick-thin models and rich looking men. This crowd is beautiful. The music starts, and you sit and glance over the menu - lobsters, tuna tartar, sweet delights, salmon, lobster again, French toast, eggs Florentine... you name it, it's there. Taking advantage of the fact you are not paying a dime, you order the most expensive thing on the menu (don't judge me, who wouldn't do that?!) The music gets louder, the lights get dimmer and you notice a huge DJ Booth in the corner of the room. This is the Plaza, people; a Royal Family, elderly aristocrats, Upper East Side princess’s maybe.... but a DJ Booth?

Scantily, but elegantly clad, waitresses carry ridiculously sized bottles of Rose on their shoulders, quickly intoxicating the happily, munching crowd. You're diving in to your Lobster Salad, just listening to the chatter of skiing, runways, fashion shows and clubbing stories all around you. A man and his girlfriend sit down next to you. You notice his accent is British and decide that this is an opportunity to make some conversation rather than just sit there pigging out on the food. You introduce yourself and ask small talk about where they are from. The girlfriend happily chats along, while the boyfriend with his velvet blazer and slicked back long hair looks like he's bored. "And what's your name, again?" I ask politely. "Philippe" he replies in this terribly pretentious English drawl. "Phillip" I repeat, the Rose beginning to kick in to my mischievous side. "No. Phill-iiii-pe", he says again and then turns his back to me. 

You turn to the rest of your table and slowly build confidence. It is then you realize that all the girls on this table are struggling individuals with lucky contacts and they too are reaping the rewards of Promoters, (although you do get the impression that this isn't their first Plaza brunch and they are more than used to this luxury!)  Then a rather handsome man has stood up on the stage by the DJ. He announces a very exotic female name and a dark-haired, tanned beauty appears with her electric violin. This was my first experience of House music being played over violin. It was incredible. I couldn't even dance. I just stared in awe. 

The eating stops. The dancing starts, and for the next couple of hours you are dancing wildly like it's 3am in the meatpacking district. 

Its now 5.30pm and the Plaza needs to get ready to go back to their sophisticated, traditional, quiet self for dinner and the sweating and hyped up crowd leave the Oak Room entrance. You expect it to be dark outside and a struggle to find cabs. But it's light out, the day is young. You still have a whole evening ahead of you.http://www.oakroomny.com/ 

And with that, I slip off my shoes, get into my Uggs and head to the subway!

Why would you want to read me?

Hello World!
I have wanted to be a writer since I turned 19 (that's only three years ago) when I realized there isn't any other career that I was interested in, and in turn would be interested in having me! I attempted to start a blog a year or so ago and to be honest, had a momentary lapse of confidence and thought "who the hell would be interested in what I have to say?"
Then, this semester, part of my Media Writing course was to start a blog. Perfect! An excuse to have my opinions and ramble splattered over the web! Who could ask for a better starting point? The assignment of the blog is pretty much anything, as long as it incorporates the media.
I don't know if the following is my weakness or a strength - but my best writing comes out when I am writing about something I am passionate about. I want to write for a magazine, online, print, whatever I am given. I have a few areas that I would like to think I am bordering on experienced; they include; fashion, travel, food, night life, luxury, lifestyle, and female issues. I think the most interesting for other people to read, and that people can gain or learn something from is my experience in food and nightlife in New York City.
I think here is the perfect point to insert that I am a middle-class, traditional British woman who has lived all around the world, but has found her niche in the Big Apple. Whether it be restaurants, bars, clubs, lounges or cafes, I find and enjoy their offerings. I have a particular taste that has only become more enhanced due to luck I have had being welcomed into an Italian family through my fiancee. In blogs to come I will tell you about what I have been exposed to and I think it will be enjoyable reading - it certainly was enjoyable for me to experience it! My friends have recently compared my life to that of a movie and I am more than ready to admit that none of that is down to me, but purely down to the wonderful people in my life.

In short, this blog will be reviews of the dining and night life style in New York style, where I will provide you with the most honest and descriptive detail I can. I will incorporate my experiences and antidotes in the hope that you, as readers, can feel as if you are really there with me and will be encouraged to experience it yourself.