Things to do in New York City this winter 

Enjoy the cold or escape it this winter in New York City. 

A few hours

Eating Australia

Long Island, cornucopia of the world’s many cuisines, is woefully deficient in restaurants specializing in Australian fare. The city, not so much. You might have trouble getting into Acru, an upstart from Tasmanian native chef Daniel Garwood that opened in October in Greenwich Village with a constantly changing menu that’s recently featured everything from damper bread to lamington cake. Luckily, however, there are at least two other Aussie stalwarts, the always-lively Ruby’s, which has four Manhattan locations and serves all-day brekkie for the Vegemite crowd, as well as sandwiches, salads and uber-refreshing draft cocktails like the Aussie cucumber mule. And then there’s the Ruby’s offshoot Dudleys on the Lower East Side, whose Down Under favorites include chicken schnitzel and bronte burgers, its patties goosed by sweet chili sauce.

Rockefeller rides

Is Rockefeller Center becoming an amusement park? First, there was The Beam, which straps tourists to a steel girder and lifts them several feet above the building’s observation deck, treating them to unparalleled views even as they create a reasonable facsimile of the famous "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" photo taken when the Rock was being built in 1932.

Now comes Skylift, a round, rotating vessel that slowly rises three stories from the roof, the contraption eventually looking like a wedding cake hovering over the 70-story building. Like The Beam, the views are matchless, the rush one-of-a-kind, and the experience certifiably terrifying for anyone afraid of heights.

Back at sea level, the Rock’s seasonal ice skating rink is open again, Santa is poised to return in December, and two newish restaurants are worth a meal: 5 Acres with upscale burgers and comfort classics, and Jupiter, which serves Italian fare in an attractive setting that includes an outdoor rink-side terrace.

A whole day

A 70s borough tour

Ah, Brooklyn in the 70s. Crime was high, rents were low, and everybody danced to "Saturday Night Fever" and skated roller disco. You can do both in a new way at Bushwick’s Xanadu Roller Arts, named for the Olivia Newton-John flick that skated its way into film infamy, and later, Broadway. The gorgeous maple floored facility — the city’s first new rink of its kind in years — accommodates all skating levels under its disco ball, even as it serves cocktails and doubles as a concert space. Elsewhere, few time machines will take you back like Slice of Brooklyn, a four-hour bus and pizza tour that visits such pie legends as Bensonhurst’s L & B Spumoni Gardens. And while iconic seafood restaurant Lundy’s closed in 1979, it reopened in December in Red Hook with a menu that’s sure to stir nostalgic feelings of tiered shellfish towers past.

A game of squids in Koreatown

Check out the "Squid Game Experience" in midtown Manhattan, an immersive activity in which players compete in a series of high-stakes challenges very much like the show (Tickets start at $29). The adventure unfolds, appropriately, not far from West 32nd St.’s K-town, easily a daylong adventure in itself. Indulge in Korean "school food" at Food Gallery 32, a tiny food hall that somehow accommodates a dozen vendors, peruse the stalls at Koryo Books, a decades-old shop whose name gives little hint that it’s the city’s premier spot for buying K-pop albums and merchandise (although don’t miss the tea room upstairs), and share one of the divine Basque cheesecakes at Grace Street. At dinnertime, you won’t be able to enjoy high-class Korean barbecue on a high floor at Gaonnuri until December (the entire building is without electricity due to a flood), but that just means it’ll be harder to get into Antoya BBQ, another superlative spot. End your K-day with — what else?— karaoke just across the street at 32 Karaoke, whose extensive Asian music catalog also includes 20,000 English and 10,000 Spanish songs. Rent one of several private rooms by the hour and croon the night away.

Take up a new (or old) sport in Brooklyn

Pickleball might be the rage in this country, but in much of the rest of the world, it’s padel, a sport that uses racquetball-size rackets and tennis-sized balls and is played in a squash-like enclosed court where the walls are fair game. It’s fun, fast-paced and open to all at Padel Haus, New York City’s only club of its kind, although one with three Brooklyn locations (Williamsburg, Domino Point and Dumbo) and another in Greenpoint on the way.

Those in the mood for something more leisurely might instead head to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, a 10-court, walk-in facility near the Gowanus Canal that’s particularly friendly to novice shufflers, offering a free five-minute lesson from a club pro, tons of shuffleboard slang on its website to get you up to speed (the discs are called biscuits?) and a nice selection of cocktails to keep the atmosphere light.

And while people have been throwing axes with alarming frequency for years, nowhere is it done with more seriousness than Kick Axe Throwing, where things also start with a tutorial on how to throw (and, more importantly, how not to), as well as instruction in Hyper Axe — throwing real axes at digital targets, aka the future of ax throwing — and directions to the bar for bites and beverages.

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.