Banking Assoc. or consulting EM

Career dilemma. I'm in my late 20s in NYC and started out in the tier 2 consulting world (think LEK / OC&C / OW), developed an interest in PE as plenty of my colleagues exited to it (pre-COVID). By the time I got to mgr and tried to break into PE though, the job market was seizing up and ex-consultants weren't so welcome.

Took a LMM corp dev job in the meantime - lots of responsibility and learning, but really wild-west culturally. Liked the role, disliked the reality of the job (culture, politics, too much slow 'value creation' work and not enough dealflow). Saw it as interesting in itself but also a possible platform to break into PE. However now the PE mkt is awful for hiring (though improving all the time, recruiters tell me...).

I have offers to 1) go back to the consulting / CDD world at another tier 2, at EM and 2) join a LMM (<$100m EV deal) bank, as associate.

(1) feels like a reliable if slightly boring option. I don't know if I really want to be a consultant for the next 10 years. (2) feels exciting and new, and *possibly* a good platform to launch into PE. But I'm concerned by their low dealflow in recent years, and scared of the prospect of having to leave and having 2 short-duration jobs on my CV in a row.

Not asking for the answer here - but any helpful frameworks / perspectives on similar decisions would be appreciated. Ultimately I think I would still love to break into PE, but this avenue to get there feels quite risky and I don't think PE is such a do-or-die goal for me that I would countenance high-risk approaches.

I feel like being in my late 20s it might be time to settle and build my expertise in one sector - and that PE may be too far gone given my age (this has been cited as a risk by some recruiters), but I don't know that the CDD world is what I really want. Any advice appreciated - as you can tell I'm in a bit of a quandary.