Steamed pork momo @ The Blue Poppy
Lovely minced pork stuffed dumplings. You can taste the garlic and ginger and green onions. Minimal spices but maximum effect. Served with a fiery chilli sauce and a pork broth brimming with umami. Never fails to warm the cockles of my heart.

Date Pudding with Dark Rum Caramel Sauce @ River Tavern
River Tavern introduced farm-to-table cooking to Connecticut fourteen years ago, and although many copied the format, it’s still the go-to for their daily changing menu and innovative use of locally sourced ingredients. While you’ll rarely have the same entree twice here, there is a dessert that their devoted customers would heartily protest if removed from the menu: Date Pudding with Dark Rum Caramel Sauce, otherwise known as sticky toffee. Warm, comforting and completely irresistible, the airy date cake sits in a puddle of caramel with a dollop of freshly whipped, barely sweetened cream. The combination of gooey sauce, steaming cake and cooling cream is a wonder. Sometimes we skip dinner and just order pudding, with a Vodka Pink (their signature cocktail) on the side. It’s on my short list of best desserts, ever. Plan ahead, each serving is made to order.

6oz rump steak @ The Ox
Perfectly cooked on their Josper grill, this 6oz rump steak from basement steak and cocktail joint The Ox is a treat not to miss. Served with skin-on fries and a choice of two sauces, our top tip is to head over early on a Monday night, where you can enjoy the dish - plus a glass of wine - for just £12.50.

Chicken Nuggets @ The North Left
These chicken nuggets are like no other you've ever had as a kid. These chunks of chicken are first soaked in buttermilk before they are dredged in flour and seasonings and fried to absolute perfection. The accompanying maple bourbon sauce leans towards the tart rather than sweet which makes for an ideal pairing for the delicious fried morsels.

Brick Meatballs @ Brick Pizzeria
An all in-house created menu, these housemade meatballs are topped with marinara and pecorino and served with foccacia baked in the wood-burning oven. Meaty and perfectly textured, these meatballs are better than mama's. Have them as an appetizer or add some house-made pasta for a meal.

Steak Frites @ Cafe Routier
You can’t beat Steak Frites for an indulgent meal (if you’re a carnivore, that is). And Cafe Routier’s version is the ultimate: a juicy and perfectly seared New York strip, dolloped with mustard butter and accompanied by THE best french fries on the CT Shoreline: served steaming hot and salty with a crispy exterior and creamy center. You can ask for ketchup, but here they’re served French style with aioli. A pile of watercress adds just the right, bright and peppery note.

Margherita with liuzzi mozzarella, stracciatella and basil @ Otto
Preparing a new, seasonal menu from scratch every single day is a complicated affair. So it comes as no surprise, that  River Tavern and Dinners at the Farm owner Jonathan Rapp, has launched a simpler concept for his long-awaited second restaurant: a pizzeria. But, as you can imagine, this ain’t no House of Pizza. At a preview this weekend, the team didn’t have many kinks to work out. Chewy, crispy, glorious pies, using only locally sourced ingredients, emerged from the 900 degree, wood-fired oven in three minute intervals. For me, always a pizza purist, the Margherita, oozing with fresh mozzarella, dollops of stracchiatella and strewn with basil leaves, was a slice of pizza heaven, but the more complex pies are beautifully executed, too (from sausage and peppers to shrimp, squid, mint and garlic). The only drawback? 32 seats. Get there early.

Picci with Cinghiale (Wild Boar) sauce and porcini mushrooms @ San Giuseppe
This legendary restaurant in Sienna is beloved by locals and travellers alike as the place to try local ingredients brilliantly prepared in local recipes. The signature pasta of Tuscany is the fat chewy Picci which is expertly prepared in one of the regions most revered recipes. The wine cellar is in a 200 BC Etruscan dwelling. Unmissable.

Fishball Noodles @ Fishball Story
Handmade fishballs using only fish meat and no flour, the way grandma used to make them. Young and passionate hawker Douglas Ng wakes up daily at 4am to beat, blend and press yellowtail flesh into fishballs and chill-scallion fish cakes. The fishballs are soft, bouncy and umami. They go incredibly well with the noodles that are coated with a moreish sambal chili dressing and topped with crunchy pieces of fried pork lard. The whole combination is an epiphany, at only S$3.50 (US$2.80). Open daily 9am to 5pm.

Sausage and Garlic Pizza @ Santarpio's Pizza
The pizza here is so old school you will forget everything you have ever learned about Pizza. The sausage and garlic is the house special and should not be missed.