How to Spot an Australian

There are many ways to spot an Australia, but the easiest is to observe the manner in which they eat a burger .

I present to you a Bronte Burger with the Lot: pineapple, beets, fried egg, sweet chilli, truffle mayo served with fries.

Subject A: The American
Knife and Fork in FULL swing, shirt bottoned almost all the way up and I'm pretty sure that shirt is also tucked in :)




















Subject B: The New Zealander
Sheepish grin, shirt loosely done up, knife and fork in use.




















Subject C: The Australian
Head to tow in green and gold, attacking the burger like it may be my last meal.
Minus a few points for cutting it in half..........




















...........but Bonus Points for having a good laugh at myself in the process!

Australia Day

Wednesday was Australia Day......... Oi Oi Oi !

In true Australian spirit, we battled the snow storm and hit the Australia pub “kingswood” in the West Village. They put on a great spread with traditional aussie food, dessert , beer and even had a meat raffle!















Not off centre, just included the flag!

The menu featured all things Australia from rocket salad to barramundi to lamingtons.

The boys tucked into the Bronte burgers.........




















.............washed down with Coopers Pale Ale, we can finally get it here!




















Ruth was all class and got the rack of lamb....

And I joined in the burger fun complete with a slice of pineapple, beetroot and a fried egg..........ohhhhhhhhh yeah................I was Big Kev excited!

To say the place was PACKED would be putting it lightly, there was probably around 500-600 aussie's clammering at the bar.

That being said I was impressed that so many made the effort, in a snow storm and so far away from home, it made me very proud to be from the land down under.

There was a sea of green and gold, and fantastic to hear a familiar accent, although by the end of the night a few were a bit slurred.

The only thing missing was a "Thunder From Down Under" style strip tease by Hugh Jackman!

Dinner At Otto

Seeing Amy was in town, I thought it a great opportunity for everyone to meet.

Before heading down to the Village for dinner, we started with champagne at Chez Curtis!
















We had a huge table, including myself, Amy, Ana, Elise, David, Diane, Mary, Lorin, Nathan, Sinclair and Ruth, going clockwise.

There was lots of food, wine, story sharing and laughter!

A few of us kicked on and the shennagians continued well into the wee wee wee hours of Sunday morning.

Ice-Skating in Central Park

After a long walk we made our way over to the Ice Rink in Central Park.

This is something we have been wanting to do for a while, and seeing Amy is the more accomplished skater we thought it best to wait for her!





















We had a great time, despite David falling, and Alex even managed to skate away from the edge with the help of Amy.....















......awww
















Look no hands!

Snow Covered Central Park

After consuming our body weight in waffles and chocolate, a walk around the park seemed appropriate.

We wandered thru the snow covered hills before a game of "catch me if you can" broke out followed by a photo shoot!

Waffles & Dinges

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and made our way over to the park.

Living close to Central Park has its advantages, mostly in summer, but we discovered a reason to make the trip during winter - waffles!















Dinges are the toppings, and the topping of choice was chocolate!















Yum!















Not for sharing!

Buddakan

After a long day of walking thru the snow and shopping, we treated ourselves to a night out!

We made our way down to the very trendy and consistently fun Buddakan.

















We had a fabulous night out with amazing food, fun cocktails, good laughs.

Spotty Pig?

Friday we ventured out into the cold to explore the city.

After a quick side trip to grab some water proof wellies for Amy, we made our way down to the West Village for some lunch. We hit the Spotted Pig or the Spotty Pig , as Amy called it!




















After much debate we settled on ordering their famous Gorgonzola cheeseburger complete with rosemary fries.






















Walking thru the snow was totally worth it once Amy announced “These are the best fries I have ever eaten!” ....................... mission accomplished!

Amy in town

On Wednesday Amy arrived in town!! It has been almost 2 years since we have seen each other and I can barely believe how time has flown! She was on her way to Boston for work and popped in to NYC for a quick visit .















We made our way to El Centro for Mexican to celebrate her arrival, and Jay over from London joined in for the festivities.

Colder than freezing

The last few weeks have been freezing in NYC. Actually, it has been colder than freezing.

Here are some victims of this weather.


















brrrrrrrrrr

Jay in Town

This week Jay was in town from London so we headed up to Bocca di Bacco for a catch up.

We had a great time hearing about baby Gabby and new yummy mummy Erica!

New Year's Eve

This year we decided to stay indoors and out of the cold for New Year's Eve.

We had Ruth and Sinclair over for some shenanigans, and frankly we have just recovered, hence the late blog post :)















Gorgeous girls!
















We enjoyed french onion soup, sliced mozzarella with tomato and basil, and then roast lamb with roasted potatoes.






















Silliness by David.




















Soon it was time to get the champagne ready and watch the ball drop.....




















Happy 2011!

















After all the excited it was time to kick our shoes off and jump into bed!