New York City - Part Five - The Food

There are more than 18,000 restaurants in the New York City area.  If you ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different restaurant every day for 365 days a year it would take more than 16 years to complete the job.  And that doesn’t include the ones that open during those 16 years.  We had a week to narrow down that number to something manageable and settled for showing up at 0.0008% of them.

Something obvious that we noticed about Manhattan is that people go out to dinner a lot.  It adds up to a competitive food scene and a seemingly normal place to eat in NYC can hold its own with top tier restaurants in Seattle.  That’s our opinion anyway and we’re sticking to it.  Here then, in no particular order are some places we can recommend. And none of these are fancy, high-end, expensive, pretentious places by the way.  That just isn’t our style.
 

Our Very Own Grimaldi's Pizza

 Grimaldi’s Pizza.  This is the place in Brooklyn we ate at before our bridge walk.  It's a clean, comfortable and popular place with an upstairs dining room at which we were seated.  There was a bit of sniping going on between the manager and one of his staff which was entertaining.  I loved the passion that these guys brought to work.  Perhaps it’s an Italian thing.  At any rate, we ordered our favorite type of pizza (the Margherita) which was very good.  I’m sure there’s a lot of good pizza to be found in some unlikely places here and wish we had more time to confirm that theory. 

 

A Scene From the Deli at Zabar's

Zabar's.  This is a very famous deli that has tons of items to buy and take back to your residence to eat if you don’t feel like going to a sit-down place.  We bought some bagels and cream cheese here to take care of a few leisurely eat-in breakfasts after we got up, as well as scoring things like Shepherd’s Pie to heat up in the oven or microwave for dinner.  Their cheese selection is stellar as well.
 

Indian Tanpura on Amsterdam Street

Indian Tanpura.  A non-descript restaurant on the Upper West Side which was recommended to us by a friend of a friend.  BowlingWidow enjoyed the chicken tikka dinner while I was knocked out by my lamb in a spicy sauce.  Inexpensive, unassuming…..and incredible.
 

The Madison Square Park Shake Shack

Shake Shack.  This is their In-N-Out Burger if you’re from the southwest, or their Dick’s Drive In if you’re from Seattle.  The one we ate at was at Madison Square Park (not to be confused with Madison Square Garden) and featured outdoor seating at their little plaza.  A great location, good burgers and as a bonus you could also get a beer.
 

Trattoria Trecolori

 Trattoria Trecolori.  This is a place near Rockefeller Center at which we went with our friends after catching a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  Although we had reservations we didn’t really need them.  Good pasta dishes.  It’s clean and the service was attentive.  These guys get extra credit for using one those squeegee things to clean off the tablecloth as they removed our main course dishes.

 

Gray's Papaya

Gray’s Papaya.  There are a few of these hot dog stands in New York.  They’re known for cheap hot dogs with a casing that “snaps” when you bite into the dog.  Serviceable but not great…for the price though you definitely get what you pay for.  The “papaya” part of the name refers to a longtime accompanying drink.  And it rolls of the tongue better than Gray’s Mango would.
 

A Busy Night of Eating in Little Italy

Somewhere in Little Italy.  For the life of me, I can’t recall where we ate in Little Italy and I failed to write it down.  But trust me.  Eat anywhere in Little Italy.  You’ll love it.

OK….this post was so lengthy that I’m going into overtime with a Part Six in a week or so!  I’ll conclude next time with the local beer scene and some final thoughts.