CROSBY STREET HOTEL, NEW YORK

One of my favourite New York spots is The Crosby Street Hotel in Soho. Out of all the Manhattan hotels I've stayed at it's my favourite one. I love their restaurant and bar too for lunch or drinks. The atmosphere is cosy and relaxed and the decor fun and colourful.

My celeb spotting continued when I had lunch there. Emma Stone sat in my direct view as I was sipping this Diet Coke and having my lunch for one. On another day when we had drinks at the bar Katie Holmes was enjoying a drink in a corner table and so was James Franco!

Crosby Street do the best tuna tartar ever. I'm not sure what makes it stand out from all the other tuna tartars... maybe the crunchy bits of cashew nuts they've thrown in the mix.

This is their spinach salad that normally comes with prawns but I swapped it to salmon paillard. So delicious. I really recommend if you need ideas for lunch around Soho!

Minna x

OMAN, SIX SENSES ZIGHY BAY

When we holidayed in Oman last month we stayed in a quite a special hotel called Zighy Bay. I know there are a few of you out there who'd like to know more about this place so here, finally, a more thorough hotel post. 

The hotel will organise a car to pick you up from Dubai airport on your arrival. After about 1.5 hours you arrive at Oman borders where the landscape changes into something rather rugged. You'll see beautifully impressive, rocky mountains, sand and goats. A lot of goats! Your car will first travel uphill over the mountains and once at the top this is the view that faces you. Pictures don't do it justice, it's very impressive. From the top you need to get all the way down again. The Zighy Bay resort is the green area that you can see all the way down there in the above picture. I'm no good on winding mountain roads but luckily our driver knew them well and drove slowly and carefully.

At Zighy Bay all the rooms are villas. There are bigger ones and smaller ones, beach front ones and non-beach front ones. It is part of Six Senses hotel and spa group and like all their hotels looks very authentic and blends in perfectly with its surroundings. 

Zighy Bay's beach bar.

They do a great caipirinha!

The roads within the resort look like this. Hence I hardly wore any footwear! Everywhere is covered in soft, white sand.

They have bicycles for the guests to use around the resort but they'll also whizz you around in a buggy should you wish.

We had lunch at their poolside restaurant called Summer House every day during our holiday and didn't get bored of it. The food was excellent! Some reviews that I read about Zighy before our holiday didn't speak too highly of the food. Maybe it has improved since as I couldn't fault one dish I had in any of their restaurants. The food was fresh, tasty and skilfully prepared. 

This was one of my Summer House favourites, the grilled king prawns.

And another one, a very yummy tuna tartar.

I had their sweet potato and coconut soup as my starter most days. Delicious!

A special of the day; seafood skewers. (I'm hungry as writing this and my mouth is salivating looking at these!)

One negative about Zighy Bay; flies, a lot of flies. These little pink fellas keep them away from your food. Them or burning coffee. A must at your table whilst lunching al fresco.

The hotel organises a traditional Bedouin dinner twice each week. The food consists of delicious, traditional starters (great for a hummus addict like me) and a main dish of lamb cooked in their underground oven. It all tasted amazing and it was quite special to be dining on the beach seated on the low sofas and cushions.

They can also organise a private dinner for you at the top of their wine tower (or in the wine cellar but I can't see that being a better option than dining under the stars!). We did that one evening and it was lovely. This was the view down whilst climbing up the stairs to get there... Very, very high! 

There is virtually nothing outside the resort so your dining options are limited to what the hotel has to offer. That is however not a problem as they have so many options to choose from be it one of their three restaurants (Sense on the Edge was amazing, Spice Market we didn't get round to trying and Summer House I already mentioned), dinner at the wine tower, barbeque at your own villa or one of their special Shua Shack beach dinners. 

If no footwear was needed during the day high heels were definitely not the choice for the evenings. Flip flops and flat sandals kind of place.

There are goats even in the resort but not to worry they are very friendly ;-)

Not sure they can read though...?

Kids had a great time too. Zighy Bay is a place for a very relaxed holiday whether you're a family or a couple. It caters well for children however it's a big enough place so that everyone can find their peaceful corner. They have a fun kids club however the actual facilities for it are small. That's the one thing I'd change especially as they certainly don't have lack of space.

To sum it up; I definitely recommend Zighy Bay and will hopefully be back one day. Right now it already feels like months ago even though we've only been back for a couple of weeks!

Minna x

WELCOME TO OMAN

Let's move on from Paris... to Oman. Some could call it an unconventional holiday destination. When we were choosing a beach holiday for this winter the duration of the flight was a factor that weighed quite a lot. Therefore we opted out of eg. the Caribbean or some Asian destinations. The reason for this is that Baby M is at the worst possible travelling age and whereas with just one child I never minded with two I do. Also having an older child I now know that this time is fleeting; next year this time I probably won't mind a longer flight again. 

To get to this particular part of Oman you take a flight to Dubai, which is six to seven hours from London. From Dubai it's a further two hour car drive but at least you break the journey up plus any young child is bound to sleep the whole car journey after being tired from travelling. So this is the view that faced us upon our arrival on the Oman side of the border. Beautiful but totally different to anything I'd ever seen before.

 

I'm glad we chose this destination. We've had a really lovely time. Quiet, relaxed, family time.

I'll tell you more about the hotel in a separate post but it's called Zighy Bay and so far I have nothing but positive to say about it.

Minna x

PARIS, HOTEL LE ROYAL MONCEAU

Let me introduce the hotel we stayed at in Paris; Le Royal Monceau. Upon checking in (after popping into the Alaia store on our way from the train station, of course) we were escorted in our rooms as you do. They took us to a private lift, which they said was only available to those who stayed in the private area of the hotel. I thought to myself that's strange as we had just booked the standard room type. When they then opened the door to our room my jaw dropped! Talk about an upgrade! We were given the Presidential Suite ie. a modest 280 m2 of pure luxury designed by Philippe Starck. All thanks to our friend who works for the Raffles group and a very kind General Manager of Le Royal Monceau.

Now the pictures I took of the room do no justice to it. Reason being that it was too messy to be photographed in the mornings (men!!) and by the time we got back to the room after it had been made up again it was dark... But you should get an idea. The rest of the hotel, its bar, the spa and all the communal areas were stunning too. Oh and one must mention the hotel boutique called l'Eclaireur. They have picked some beautiful items in there by Celine, Givenchy, Saint Laurent and many more. They had some colours in some of the Celine bags that even the Celine store itself didn't so if you're in a shopping mission it's worth a visit. The service was the friendliest and most efficient too out of all the Paris stores we visited.

Now that was a weekend I'd quite happily repeat many many times again! ;-) I still have some Paris pictures and tips to share so stay tuned.

Minna x