When people ask me when they should visit New York City, I never hesitate to tell them "October or November." Which happens to be right now.

When I was a teenager going to school on the Upper East Side, I loved all seasons equally because everything was magical all the time. In the fall, there was the start of school, the changing of the leaves, the early nights and creeping chill. In the winter, there were the snowball fights with school crushes, snow angels, anticipation of a snow day. In the spring, love was inevitably in the air as we all sat outside under the blooming trees in the schoolyard, little petals of pollen sticking in our hair and to our backpacks. There was always romantic drama as May turned to June and summer vacation loomed heavily over us ... and then there was summer, which to me was never the most wonderful time of year. It meant not having any excuses to see my crush, long and weary days spent either at summer school or somewhere doing something that was not remotely close to what I wanted to do, which was hang out with my friends. Imagine that!

Well, summer is still my least favorite season in New York City: it's hot and humid, cramped with very little breathing room. To me now, late fall is the time of year New York City is the most beautiful and the most tolerable. The cold isn't yet unbearable, and there is no humidity to deal with. There is a lull in tourist volume until about Thanksgiving. The sun sets early and masks much of the dirt and grime that daylight strips naked. And the nippiness in the air is just enough to give the city that extra spark of magic and romantic glamour that so many associate with New York City.

So I'm especially sad about leaving New York City in the middle of my favorite season here. I'm going to miss the Christmas markets, the hot apple ciders from farmer's markets, the Christmas decorations at Macy's in Herald Square, the unveiling of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, the way Central Park looks during the fall and winter ...

This is the way I want to remember my hometown, even though I don't always love the city:

Another restaurant off my checklist! I've only got 2 left, and I have a feeling I'm not going to make it to either one. But we'll see.

The latest visit was to Blue Water Grill, for brunch. Blue Water Grill is only about a block away from Mesa Grill, the last restaurant I checked off my list, and along Union Square Park. It specializes in seafood and the like.

I made reservations for Sunday brunch, which comes with a complimentary drink (it purports to offer you an alcoholic beverage and coffee or tea, but we were only offered coffee or tea ... I wonder if we had to ask for the cocktail) with your brunch entree. Anyway, we were running very late for our reservation, so I gave the restaurant a ring on our way there and they were able to push us back half an hour.

Once we arrived at the restaurant, there was no wait and we were shown to our seats towards the back of the restaurant, by the raw bar. Right off the bat, I loved the ambience of the restaurant. Unlike The Stanton Social, the place was fresh and bright, flooded with plenty of natural light. Its interiors have a sort of mixed theme -- it's one part New England schooner with its white wood-paneled walls, one part luxe Manhattan penthouse with its studded gray leather back chairs, and another part Europeanish with its warm asymmetrical wall sconces and lighting fixtures.

Our server approached us a few minutes after we were seated and asked us for our water and drink preferences with a friendly smile. I knew and had known exactly what I was going to order before the moment I decided I was going to eat at the Blue Water Grill ... the Lobster and Shrimp Benedict ($18). My father ordered, to my surprise, the Seafood Cobb salad ($22).

While we waited, a basket of pumpkin raisin bread and caraway raisin bread was set down at our table, with a little pot of strawberry butter. I would have liked some plain bread to test out the strawberry butter, but the caraway raisin bread was surprisingly delicious. It was just the right amount of sweet and spicy (and soft), though I don't think I could've eaten too much of it.

Our entrees were brought out very quickly. Immediately, I split my dish with my father. Hollandaise sauce buried the poached eggs, which rested atop shrimp and lobster meat laid on top of avocado and toasted English muffins. Homefries came on the side. The dish wasn't overly rich or overwhelming, though I did find it to be a touch salty and the English muffin a bit burnt. The shrimp were noticeably overcooked, but the lobster meat, coupled with the buttery hollandaise, was good. The real winner of this entire dish was the creamy, perfectly ripe avocado.

My father's Seafood Cobb salad was less of a hit. I was shocked, when it arrived at the table, that it cost even as much as my Lobster and Shrimp Benedict -- nevermind more! It looked like your basic Cobb salad with 3 jumbo shrimp and a portion of crab meat. The shrimp did not taste good -- it was chewy, a little rubbery and positively overcooked. It had been slathered with some sort of lemony herby marinade which I found to be too sour, and I think it also served as the dressing for the salad. Again, the avocado was superb and the roasted peppers were good. I would advise against ordering this dish.


Overall, the restaurant was fair-to-good. I wouldn't order either dish again, but I wouldn't be opposed to visiting again. The service was fantastic -- friendly without being overbearing. We visited the toilets downstairs before we left and found that the jazz brunch was located on the lower level. It seemed like a classy affair with good music, if you're into that sort of thing.

Blue Water Grill
31 Union Square West (at 16th Street)

I think if you live anywhere long enough, you develop a love-hate relationship with the place. That's definitely how I would characterize my relationship with New York, and sometimes how I describe my relationship with Massachusetts.

When I was in elementary school and fascinated with U.S. history, Boston seemed like a dream city. And when I found out about Harvard? Forget about it! I had it all figured out: I was going to move to Cambridge with one of my friends from elementary school, and we were going to share a studio split down the center with a bookshelf -- my room was going to be a shade of purple and hers a shade of blue.

My first visit to the Boston/Cambridge area was when I was in the fourth grade. We did some of the walking trails, visited Faneuil Hall, the Museum of Science, and The Paul Revere House. We paid my "future school" a visit, and I think I even rubbed John Harvard's (statue's) shoe, in hopes that it would get me into the university (it didn't). I visited again when I was 13, and this time I got to see the more "normal" parts of town, like Newbury Street and Long Wharf. And then I visited a couple more times during the college process in high school.

When I did finally go to college, it was in the suburbs of Boston. While I didn't exactly think Boston was going to be the magical city I once thought it was, I did imagine all these beautiful New England college scenes. You know the kind I'm talking about -- paths leading to beautiful colonial academic buildings, covered in red and orange leaves. And I'd watched enough Gilmore Girls that I imagined that maybe life would resemble Stars Hollow.

It was nothing like that. Before the end of my first semester, I was living vicariously through friends who had chosen to attend NYU or Columbia instead of an out-of-state college. I missed the coffee shops that stayed open until 1 a.m., the all-night delis. And by the end of my first year, I pretty much hated Massachusetts.

My greatest grievance then (and now): for a state that gets so much snow so regularly, it sure does not know how to handle snow. Unlike New York City, anytime the state was struck with 4 inches of snow or more, the school system shut down. Another grievance is that winter lasts about 6 months there. And yet another was the hostility (sometimes playful and sometimes not) I got for being from NYC ... even though I cared not an iota for baseball or sports in general, many of my MA friends told their friends of some imaginary rivalry with me over sports. That wasn't fun. For a time, it seemed that almost everyone I met who had been born and raised in Massachusetts was very close-minded and set in their ways ... but then, maybe so was I.

The bus rides back up to school after a school break were torture. Four-and-a-half hours of readying myself to return to a school I hated, nine hours after the Thanksgiving weekend.

I spent the entirety of my third year of college away from my school (which was probably the cause of my hatred of Massachusetts more than anything else), and when I returned for my final year, I had distanced myself enough from the school that I began seeing the charm Massachusetts had to offer all over again. I met some open-minded people and saw a completely different side of the state. In the end, I had most of my worst times and most of my best times in Massachusetts.

I miss little things about it from time to time. Like how ice cream is its own food group in Massachusetts, and is eaten in any and all weather. I miss taking the T with its strange characters, and knowing the Red Line like the back of my hand. I miss South Station's old train schedule board, the one that was made of wood and would send a thunderous series of claps as it was updated (I noticed it was replaced with an electronic board during my last visit, which was a bit of an eye-opening experience for me). I miss Marathon Monday. I miss Rosie's Bakery and J.P. Licks, and that you can pretty much find anything you need on Newbury Street. I miss how desolate yet freeing the city felt, especially on the Mass Pike at 3 in the morning. I miss the small-town feel the city sometimes had. And autumn in New England really is incomparable.

Commuting to and from my internship at The Boston Globe, I would pass through some of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, and I always saw beautiful houses with a warm glow radiating from the living and dining rooms. Weston was always my favorite town along the route -- I'd make sure to stay awake as we passed through just so I could marvel at the beauty of the town.

Today, I feel I know Boston better than I know New York City. New York City is so big and changes so much and so quickly that it's pretty much impossible to keep up. Boston is a manageable size and moves at a slightly slower pace. The four-and-a-half hour trip is a breeze now, without all that emotional baggage. For many years after college, I thought I couldn't go back -- partially because I'd had as much of Massachusetts as I could handle, and partially because I didn't think I wanted to "ruin" the little good experience I'd had. Now I'm okay with the idea of going back, maybe for graduate school. And maybe I'll finally get the studio I've always wanted with purple walls.