Johnny’s Famous Reef Restaurant

A mere 50 minutes from smoggy, sweating midtown awaits City Island—an old fishing village cooled by the breezes off Eastchester Bay and Long Island Sound. Check your city-slicker attitude as you cross the 100-yard bridge onto what many call the Bronx's best-kept secret, and then promenade down the main drag until you reach Johnny's, a cafeteria-style seafood shack where you can snap up seaworthy fare like littleneck clams ($10 for a dozen), a cracker-meal-coated soft-shell crab dinner and a solid batch of French fries. After you've flopped down at an outdoor-patio picnic table, take great gulps of the salty sea air as your little ones listen to the honking gulls and pelicans; you may actually fool yourself into thinking you're on vacation.