O = Oysters

I'm ashamed to say after nearly five years of living in New York I've never visited the legendary Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.....well until now that is.

After a busy day at work I rushed into Grand Central, not to catch a train home like the thousands of commuters, but on a mission to get to the Raw Bar as quickly as possible.

As I bypassed the trashy chain yuck junk food stands I have to admit I was a little worried this was going to be a huge letdown but fear not my friends it turned out to be a wonderful gem of a place. If you've never been and fancy a visit, my advice would be to not sit in the restaurant area or the relatively new sushi bar bit, sit good and proper at the original oyster bar where the buckets of oysters in ice and freezing water are waiting for your eating pleasure. It's not glamorous, it's definitely overpriced and it's a little dirty but it's oodles of fun. I mean what is not to love about an Oyster Bar? Little small creatures who've given up their squishy little lives to let us wash them down with some crisp cold bubbly, bliss.

There's a big old list to choose from - 29 different oysters in total. Plus a list of over 30 Catch of the Day fishy items and a whole host of other scrummy snacks, including the obligatory Lobster Roll, which I can hand on heart say was fantastico, almost as good as Cyril's in East Hampton, not quite, but very close.

We asked our server to choose a selection of the best he had. We tasted a range of teeny tiny sweet ones which reminded me of a great day out at the seaside in good ol' Blighty, that great sea air taste. Others were huge, real big boys, a little intimidating but definitely tasty.

One thing you gotta love about oysters ladies is that they're a moment on the lips but thankfully not a lifetime on the hips! Lets face it there ain't that many tasty little morsels out there we can say that about.

 As we watched tired city workers rush to catch their commuter train home we pondered over our faves - Kumamoto (Oregon) and Wellfleet (Massachusetts) - polished off the
last of our champers and meandered home, feeling a little like tourists again. Brilliant.

N = Night Court

Sometimes 26 Weeks has led me to places I would love to revisit and other times the journey has taken me to places I'm glad to have experienced but thankful not to go back - this week was exactly that.

Night Court takes place every day of the week from 5.30pm-1am at the Criminal Courts building on 100 Centre Street, lower Manhattan. Under state law, the city only has 24 hours to get a criminal before a judge and with a juicy amount of crime going on in this crazy City, a virtual round-the-clock prosecution system is in order.

You enter the courts through security then walk down a long hallway to two rooms, we were told 130 was the one with the most action. However, we walked a little too far and were stopped and redirected by a nice security guard who told us "we were walking straight into jail", hmm must listen to directions better.

We quietly slipped in and sat in the visitors benches, sadly all the other people there seemed to be friends and family waiting to hear the outcome for their loved ones, there were all strikingly young and had a few unhappy and fidgeting kiddies in tow.

After a lot of sitting around waiting 4-5 men were brought out from the jail and the judge speedily went through each case. We had to strain our ears to hear what was going on and I had to remind myself this was real court, not TV or movie court, they don't have microphones handily dotted around so you can hear their every word and there's no sudden outbursts or dramatic explosions from the audience. Hollywood this most definitely was not.

The most dramatic case was for two brothers being tried for cocaine dealing, they looked about 17 years old, their girlfriends were watching from the benches, one had a newborn baby in her lap.

The least dramatic case was for subway fare dodging, we heard the man was homeless, I imagined him trying to get warm for the night but with no cash he thought he'd try and get in to the subway. I'm sure jail for him actually meant a meal and some shelter, I resolved to try and do more to help the homeless this year.

As we headed out into Chinatown afterwards to grab some dinner we noticed all of the bail shops around the court. One had a big flashing neon light screaming "ANY NYC BAIL ANY NYC JAIL CALL 212-608-6200. GET OUT OF JAIL FAST!" Now that's a little more Hollywood.

M = Mass Pillow Fight

This week is a short one, I was up and out on a sunny New York day to attend the Mass Pillow Fight in Union Square. This was part of the Urban Playground Movement, people all around the world staging mass pillow fights in their city. I commend anyone who gets off their bum and does something different with their weekend and doesn't care what people think of them. The pillow fighting commenced with a big countdown by the crowd hemmed in by metal fences with so many police standing guard it was like a controversial political protest. I definitely wasn't in the age bracket of most there, NYU was out in force and American Eagle PJs were doing a roaring trade. Feathers flew and heads were bashed, thankfully not mine. Not much else to say on this one really. Tick, done. Next week's "N" will definitely be a little more on the challenging side. 'Til then!