If you are a foodie visiting New York, you're probably planning on visiting Mario Batali's Eataly where you'll wander the crowded aisles a bit dazed. Glass fronted counters
and small eating areas display the best that Italy has to offer,
including pizza, pasta, cheese, salumi, fish, local produce, prepared
food, pastries and candies.
You'll wish you'd brought a spare suitcase to cart all these great products home. That's the temptation of New York. So many great celebrity chefs and so much great, albeit expensive food, and so little time.
But wait! Don't spend all your money on high-end restaurants and eateries.
Stick to the neighborhoods. Eat the way locals do. Find the small restaurants and take out holes-in-the wall that feed New Yorkers as they speed through their insanely busy days.
Everyone has their favorite places to eat in New York. On a recent trip, I revisited my favorites and enjoyed myself all over again. Here's a quick trip through half a dozen I think you'll enjoy.
Fast Food New York Style
People watching is a big attraction in any big city. Stand at the yellow Formica counter along the window at Grey's Papaya
across from the 72nd Street Subway station at the corner of Broadway
and, as you chow down on your Recession Special--$4.95 for an ice cold
drink and two hot dogs with sauerkraut and a red sauce that isn't
exactly but something better than catsup--you'll have an eyeful of New
Yorkers rushing to get where they need to go.
The
hot dogs are juicy, salty and sweet. I always get the pina colada for
my drink but you can also order frothy cold cups of orange, pineapple,
banana daiquiri and papaya (of course!).
If you are a fan of the Daily Show,
you know Jon Stewart thinks it is a crime against nature to visit New
York and not have a slice of pizza. His rant against Donald Trump was
not only because the Donald took Sarah Palin to a run-of-the-mill
pizzeria but because he dared to eat his slice with a knife and fork.
OMG!
Eating a slice of cheese pizza at Joe's Pizza
(on Jon Stewart's list) in the West Village, Dr. Dave Ores, a native
New Yorker, demonstrates the proper pizza-eating technique, using a
paper plate as a grease catcher.
If
you're passing through the West Village on the way downtown to pay your
respects to the Freedom Tower as it rises ever higher in the skyline,
stop at Better Being Underground
in the Greenwich Village Historic District. The line to pick up
made-to-order sandwiches, soups, salads and seasonal specials begins on
the street and snakes down one and half flights into the very small
lunchroom.
The
customers are on a first name basis with the servers who fill orders
with efficiency and a smile. The menu changes daily but there are
favorites that appear most days. The menus are online so you can see
what you like before you arrive.
Chinatown
When I'm in town I like to take a long lunch one day and stretch the
meal out over several restaurants. On the last trip, a friend joined me
in Chinatown for an Asian restaurant-crawl.
First stop, the very old-school Nom Wah Tea Parlor
on block-long, hard-to-find Doyers Street. The booths are wooden, the
tables covered in checkerboard plastic tablecloths. A counter with
stools runs along one wall with wooden booths along the other two.
Diners
fill out a dim sum menu that includes soups, dumplings, noodles,
spareribs, seafood and poultry dishes. Everything tastes freshly made.
The soups are clear, light and delicious. If you enjoy shrimp fried in
their shells, you are in luck. These are crispy and juicy. Tear off the
spiny heads and suck out all the sweetness inside. Heavenly.
Nha Trang One,
a Vietnamese restaurant I have been visiting for a dozen years or more,
was two blocks away, just south of Canal. Like Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the
large portions are affordably priced and freshly made. Take your time
when you come for lunch so you can leisurely sip your iced Vietnamese
coffee with milk (actually, sweetened condensed milk), the better to
enjoy the thick coffee flavor coating your tongue and floating down to
your stomach.
The large menu has all the dishes loved by aficionados of Vietnamese
food: pho (beef and chicken), vermicelli with pork chops, lemon grass
chicken and rice, spring rolls and hot pots with vegetables, beef,
seafood and poultry.
Because we were on the second stop of our crawl, we limited ourselves to
Vietnamese coffees and a plate of salt and pepper shrimp. The large,
sweet shrimp come served on a bed of shredded lettuce, topped with
sautéed sweet onions.
Our final stop was around the corner at 456 Shanghai Cuisine.
Sitting in the window after the lunch-time rush, we enjoyed cups of hot
tea as we shared plates of stir fired fat noodles and buns stuffed with
pork.
What a great way to spend the afternoon with a friend, getting up close with one of New York's most famous neighborhoods.
Eating Well Off-the-Beaten Path
In New York you don't have to spend a lot of money to eat well. Case in point, my last two stops while I was in the city.
Nathan Foote runs Northern Spy Food Co.,
an intimate, casual restaurant in the East Village. Classically
trained, chef Foote marries French and Italian techniques with local
ingredients to create a great version of home-cooked food.
Everything
he serves tastes like comfort food: house-made pates, eggs, burgers,
soups, sandwiches, salads, roast meats and poultry, fresh seafood,
gnocchi, polenta and desserts, including the sweet-tart Italian plum
cake with almond creme anglaise.
His kale salad with cheddar, squash and almonds is a favorite of many
locals. The balance of raw kale leaves with the creamy texture of the
cheddar cheese and the squash gets an added lift from the crunchy
almonds. If chef Foote has just broken down a whole pig he sources
locally, he will have pork-a-plenty on the menu, including his tasty
pork rillettes and succulent meatballs in tomato sauce.
Across town in the West Village, Snack Taverna
serves up well-made Greek food in a cozy setting. A small bar and a
dozen tables make the restaurant a favorite of locals stopping in for a
cup of coffee, an omelette or a muffin in the morning, a quick lunch of
American and Greek influenced sandwiches, soups and salads, in the
evening with friends to hang out with drinks from the full bar, sharing
the large portions or for a romantic dinner when the menu sticks close
to home with classic Greek dishes.
For my next trip, I have a short list of a dozen restaurants I want to try out. None of them expensive. Not one kitchen is headed by a celebrity chef. I can hardly wait!
David Latt is an Emmy-award winning television producer who turns to cooking to alleviate stress. He shares his experiences with food and his favorite recipes on his blog Men Who Like To Cook.