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Cafes, snakes
and light meals
New York's cafés and bakeries run the gamut of its population's ethnic
and cultural influences. They can be found in every neighborhood, with the usual
French, Italian and American favorites probably most visible. The city also has
a number of coffeehouses and tearooms , which outside of the obvious also
might offer fruit juices, pastries, light snacks and, on occasion, full meals.
Most places more suitable for sit-down dinners we've listed under "Restaurants".
Restaurants
New York is a rich port city that can get the best foodstuffs from
anywhere in the world, and, as a major immigration gateway, it attracts
chefs who know how to cook the world's cuisines properly, even
exceptionally. As you stroll through the streets of New York, heavenly
odors seem to emanate from every corner; it's not hard to work up an
appetite.
Outside of American and continental cuisines (more or less
including New American, which can either dazzle with its inventive
fusions or fail miserably and pretentiously), be prepared to confront a
startling variety of ethnic food . In New York, none has had so
dominant an effect as Jewish food , to the extent that many
Jewish specialties - bagels, pastrami, lox and cream cheese - are now
considered archetypal New York. Others retain more specific identities.
Chinese food includes the familiar Cantonese, as well as spicier
Szechuan and Hunan dishes - most restaurants specialize in one or the
other. Japanese food is widely available and very good; other
Asian cuisines include Indian and a broad sprinkling of Thai,
Korean, Vietnamese and Indonesian restaurants.
Italian
cooking is widespread and not terribly expensive, and typically a fairly
safe bet. French restaurants tend to be pricier, although there
are an increasing number of bistros and brasseries turning out authentic
and reliable French nosh for attractive prices. Somewhat similar in
spirit are Belgian brasseries and steak frites joints, a
surprising number of which opened in the last half-decade (and many of
which subsequently closed).
There is also a whole range of Eastern European restaurants -
Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Hungarian - that serve well-priced,
filling fare. Caribbean, Central and South American
restaurants are on the rise in New York, and often offer a good deal and
a large, satisfying and often spicy meal. Other places include weird
hybrids like Chinese-Peruvian, Japanese-Brazilian, and any number of
vegetarian and wholefood eateries to cater to any taste or
fad.
As
for where you'll be going for these foods, we've divided our selections
by neighborhood (and then cuisine), and have given very brief
descriptions for what you might expect to find in those areas. For the
most part you won't have to walk very far to find a good place in almost
any district, but many of the ones listed here are worth a trip on the
subway or in a cab.
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Note
that most restaurants open at lunchtime, which is often a good
opportunity to sample fine food at nearly half the cost of dinner; also,
dim sum in Chinatown makes for a memorable lunch experience
Drinking
You can't walk a block along most Manhattan avenues (and many of the
side streets) without passing one or two bars. The bar scene in
New York City is a varied one, with a broader range of places to drink
than in most American cities, and prices to suit most pockets. Bars
generally open from mid-morning (around 10am) to the early hours - 4am
at the latest, when they have to close by law. Bar kitchens usually stop
operating around midnight or a little before.
The
best spots are below 14th Street, where the
West
Village
takes in a wide range of taste, budget and purpose, and equally good
hunting grounds can be found in the
East
Village, NoLita, SoHo
and the more western reaches of the
Lower
East Side
. There's a decent choice of midtown bars, though bars here tend
to be geared to an after-hours office crowd and (with a few notable
exceptions) can consequently be pricey and rather dull. The
Upper West Side
has a small array of bars, some interesting, although most tend to cater
to more of a clean-cut and dully yuppie crowd; and the bars of
Harlem
, while not numerous, offer some of the city's most affordable jazz in a
relaxed environment.
While most visitors to New York may not have time or occasion to check
out the bar scenes in the outer boroughs, those that venture to
Williamsburg, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene in
Brooklyn or to Astoria in Queens will find both some of the
hippest and also most neighborly spots around.
Whether you wind up sipping a martini in a swank lounge or a downing a
pint in a seedy dive, you'll be expected to tip; figure about a buck a
drink. Remember too that the legal drinking age is 21.
Many
bars have happy hours, typically 5-7pm, when drinks might be two for
one, or some bar food is available for free.
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