New York Food

New York has, as you might expect of the Big Apple, all the eating options covered and you can find almost every type of food available and every cuisine of the world represented. There are literally tens of thousands of restaurants, ranging from dingy $2-a-slice pizza joints to the $500-a-plate prix fixe sushi at Masa.

Thousands of delis, bodegas, and grocery stores dot every corner of the city and DIY meals are easy and cheap to find. Street food comes in various tastes, ranging from the ubiquitous New York hot dog vendors to the many middle eastern carts at street corners in mid-town. Fruit stalls appear at many intersections from Spring to Fall with ready to eat strawberries, bananas, apples, etc. available at very low cost. Vegetarians will find New York to be a paradise with hundreds of vegetarian-only restaurants and good veggie options in even the most expensive places.

Restaurant basics

• What should I tip? A tip of at least 15% is expected in every restaurant with table service in the city but most New Yorkers tip closer to 20%, and often much higher. For average service, the easiest thing to do is to double the tax on the bill for an approximately 17% tip and then round up to the nearest dollar on the bill. You can tip less for poor service but do note that, especially in a tourist area, the waiter might confront you and demand his or her 15%. Waitstaff are typically paid less than the minimum wage with the assumption that the tip will make up the difference, so do tip the minimum of 15% except for atrocious service. Warning Many restaurants in tourist areas include a service charge (15% or 18%) on the bill and most restaurants in the city do that automatically for parties of six or more. So do check the bill carefully. If the service charge is included, you don't have to tip.
• What should I wear? As you might expect, restaurants in New York are incredibly casual and you can show up in shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops in almost every neighborhood restaurant. At mid-range and expensive restaurants, trendy casual is probably the best way to fit in. A few, very few, expensive restaurants require a jacket but even these have a couple of spares on hand if you show up without one.
• Where should I eat? A hard question! There are more than ten thousand restaurants in the city (more than six thousand in Manhattan alone) and finding the perfect restaurant is not easy. Hot spots cool rapidly and the 'scene' is constantly shifting so consult sources like Time Out New York, New York Magazine, or The New York Times. Online, chowhound is a popular place for gourmands and menupages is an easy place to locate a restaurant in a specific area or of a specific ethnicity. New York Magazine has a cheap eats guide [47] that comes out every couple of years if you want to the best bang for a small amount of money. Otherwise all you need to do is walk a couple of blocks and kibbitz on the diners, food, and menus at the restaurants along the block till you find the one that looks right for you! A great alternative to the traditional guide is RestaurantPics, where photographs of some of the top restaurants and their siganture dishes bring you closer to the restaurant and dining experience.

Vegetarians

New York is a friendly place for vegetarians. There are many vegetarian only restaurants with offerings varying from macrobiotic food to Ayurvedic thalis or Asian Buddhist food. But, more importantly, almost every restaurant at every point on the price scale has vegetarian dishes that are more than an afterthought. Even Per Se, one of the most expensive and sought after restaurants in the city, has a seven course vegetarian tasting menu well worth the expense. DIY vegetarians will have no problem finding fresh vegetables, a wide variety of cheese, bread, and prepared vegetarian foods in New York supermarkets.

[edit] Street Food

Nothing differentiates New York more from other American (and European) cities than the astonishing amount of food cooked and served on the streets. Starting with the thousands of hot dog stands on almost every street corner (try Hallo Berlin on 54th and Fifth for the best rated sausages), the possibilities are endless. People trek to Jackson Heights in Queens for a nibble of the famous arepas of the Arepa Lady. Freshly cooked Indian dosas are served up for a pittance at the NY Dosas stand in Washington Square Park. The Trinidadian/Pakistani Trinipak cart on 43rd and Sixth. Danny Meyer, the famous chef, has a cart in Bryant Park. The halal offerings in midtown are legendary (Kwik-Meal on 45th and Sixth; Halal Chicken on 53rd and Sixth and many others). Most carts serve lunch (from about 11am to 5 or 6 in the evening) and disappear after dark, so look for a cart near you, smell what's cooking, and enjoy a hot and often tasty lunch for a few dollars (a meal costs anywhere from about $2 to $8). Mornings, from about 6am to 10am, the streets are dotted with coffee carts that sell coffee, croissants, bagels, and danish pastries and are good for a cheap breakfast: small coffee and bagel for a dollar or so. Other street vendors sell italian ices, ice cream, and roasted peanuts.

Do It Yourself

New York's many markets and grocery stores make preparing your own food interesting and easy. Almost every grocery store, deli, or bodega has a prepared foods section where you can make your own salad (beware, you are charged by the pound!) or buy ready to eat foods such as burritos, tacos, curries and rice, lasagna, pastas, pre-prepared or freshly-made sandwiches, and many other types of foods. Whole Foods has four (soon to be five) New York City locations, all with a variety of foods, and a clean place to sit and eat but any supermarket will have enough to take away to the park or your hotel room for a delicious low cost meal. If you have a place to cook, you'll find almost any kind of food in New York though you may have to travel to the outer boroughs for ethnic ingredients. Most supermarkets have Thai, Chinese, and Indian sauces to add flavor to your pot, and many, especially in upper Manhattan, have the ingredients necessary for a Mexican or Central American meal, but go to Chinatown for the best Chinese ingredients, Little India in Murray Hill for Indian ingredients, Flushing for all things Chinese or Korean, Jackson Heights for Peruvian, Ecuadorian, and Indian, Williamsburg for Jamaican. Ask around for where you can get your favorite ethnic ingredients and you'll find traveling around in local neighborhoods a rewarding experience.

Drink

The only thing about New York City that changes faster than the subway map or the restaurants is the bar scene. While some established watering holes have been around for decades or centuries, the hot spot of the moment may well have opened last week and could likely close just as quickly. The best way to find a decent bar is to ask the advice of a native dweller with trustworthy taste, but barring that a copy of Time Out New York, the Voice, or some other nightlife guide will help you find a den of iniquity tailored to your personal needs.