Next month, we'll be in New York for 2 1/2 days at the end of an east coast trip (I know, it's not a long time, but it was a compromise). I've been in NYC before, but only for work, and was basically stuck in midtown in conference rooms (so we're avoiding midtown this time!). This is a low-key trip - we'll see what we get to, and go back another time for the rest. Oh, and we'll be with kids; an 11-year-old who loves big cities, and a 7-year-old who doesn't, so much. Adventurous eaters, all of us.

I know I could painstakingly peruse maps and measure the mileage, but I'd love some real advice on distances and what's realistic. For example, if we go visit the Statue of Liberty in the morning, does it make sense to go to the East Village or Chinatown for lunch? Is that walking distance? Subway? Cab? We do walk a lot, and us grownups used to live in big cities, so we're fine with the city walking thing, but I don't want to set us off on a two-mile trek just to get lunch. Same question, in terms of proximity, with a couple of hours at the Met or if we spend time at the Intrepid. It seems like most of the restaurants I've compiled are in the Village (West or East), plus LES, upper west side (where our hotel is), and places like Serendipity, and most of the activities we're likely to do are elsewhere.

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and have pizza at Grimaldi's on the other side? You might want to take the subway or a bus over and walk back. Or take the water taxi right to Fulton landing by Grimaldi's and then have ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory right on the dock.

Walking across the Brooklyn bridge is a horrible trek for anybody who is hungry, especially two kids. And it's really easy to get lost in Brooklyn.

Lexmax,

First of all, street food from push cart vendors is some of the BEST food in New York. No kidding. Especially if you like falafel, sausages or gyros. But the hot dogs ain't bad either. You have to pay a fortune for really good food in New York. The middling range is just that -- middling. Actually, it's worse than middling.

I'm telling you this truthfully: I was having lunch 5 days ago with the editor of a food magazine and he said exactly the same thing: Unless you want to pay a LOT of money for good food, you're betting off eating from pizza joints and push carts.

Do you like Chinese food? It's great in Chinatown. Don't bother to go with recommendations. Just go there and follow your nose. If you can't find a subway there from wherever the Statue of Liberty boat lets you off (I've forgotten), take a cab to Canal St and dive in.

As for the Metropolitan Museum, you will find cheaper food on Lexington Avenue than you will Madison. (And NONE on Fifth and Park). There's a good burger joint on Madison and I think 92d called Jackson Hole. Otherwise, just walk up or down Lexington and find something that looks good and not a fortune. (The cafeteria in the Met is jammed.)

However, it's just as good to walk into Central Park and eat from the pushcarts. Walk down 5th toward 72d and you will also come to the boathouse and other delights.

As for the Intrepid, do a google search for Hallo Berlin. Your kids will love it.

Hope that helps.

By the way, if you'd liket to eat where the food editor and I were eating it was Joe Allen's on 46th near 8th Ave., which is not that far from the Intrepid if you don't feel like wurst at Hallo Berlin. Modest prices, very casual. If you've got a cell phone, make a reservation, especially on theater matinee days. You can find the number on the web I'm sure.

There are lot's of places to eat at in Chinatown. I had a friend from out of town who visited with their 2 kids and did the same thing as you're planning on doing. They took the Battery Park Circle Line early morning tour to the Statue Of Liberty and walked back northbound and stopped at Joe's Shanghai (Pell Street) in Chinatown for lunch.

Please, for the sake of your health, and those of your children, stay away from street vendor food. Most people here are almost always wary of those establishments for sanitary reasons.

I also don'i mean to undermine an earlier suggestion for Jackson Hole in the the Upper East Side but it also has had it's problems with sanitation, according to some postings at Chowhound and from some friends who live in the area.

If you can make it to Madison Square Park, this is the large park along Madison and 23rd Street, there is a terrific open air, very casual, place for some of NYC's best burgers and dessserts right in the middle of the park, The place is called Shake Shack and it is a Danny Meyers establishment, i.e. the same conglomerate that owns and runs major restaurants like Eleven Madison Park, The Modern at the MOMA, etc. BTW, during peak hours the lines at Shake Shack can last about an hour. But it's one heck of a great place to mingle in with the locals and to people watch in a park environment in the middle of the city.

I disagree about the comments on food carts.. most of the food is ok but none of it is great, at least in my opinion. There is, however, much great food to be had in Chinatown. There is also some very mediocre food in Chinatown, so I would most certainly take a few recommendations with you when you go. For not much more than the price of a street-cart lunch, you can have a wonderful lunch at NY Noodletown on the corner of Bowery and Bayard Street. Soft-shell crabs are in season now and this place makes some of the best in the city. When I eat lunch there, my meal usually costs $6.00 or so (w/o the crabs). New Green Bo is another inexpensive place not far away, for Shanghai food including soup dumplings. These are just two examples of the delights that await you in Chinatown, which is certainly walkable from the ferry docks.

LOL!

I guess after 9/11, AIDS, the crack wars and coyotes in Central Park, restaurant sanitation dropped to the bottom of the list of obsessive worries for some of us New Yorkers. And for a reason. In 30 years of eating, I've NEVER gotten food poisoning eating from pushcarts (some fancy restaurants? That's another story), so what can I say? They're your kids, but bear in mind that if there were lots of kids getting sick from falafel, dog and pretzel pushcarts in New York, you'd hear about it on places other than the Internet. I'd be more careful about other things.

But I'll take back my recommendation for Jackson Hole, since you can always do better than burgers in New York if you're an adventurous eater.

The real reason I came back to post is that if you are at the Met, another convenient lunch option is to either hop on the crosstown bus at 79th Street or take a taxi to the Upper West Side, particularly Columbus Ave. You can just tell the driver to take you to, say 77th and Columbus, and from there, start walking south to Lincoln Center. You'll have dozens and dozens of restaurant choices, at all prices and all cuisines.

Or do check out the boathouse, which has a restaurant and a take-away window (yes, it's safe).

ekscrunchy,

There is only one sitdown falafel resto I can think of in New York that is as good as at least half a dozen pushcarts in Manhattan, and it's in Brooklyn, and I pretty much feel the same about chicken shwarma. I also like pushcart sausages, pretzels and chestnuts (no longer in season!). When it comes to donut, bagel or dog guys, some are a lot better than others. This is not health food, but it's not any worse than what's on the menu at most diners and budget restaurants all over New York.

Anyway, were I with two starving kids at the Metropolitan Museum or Rockefeller Center, I'd stop at a pushcart to tide us over.

Here's a link to some of the best street vendors in New York. Worth having in your pocket if you are walking around with a family.

http://tinyurl.com/fmgzr

And some other very good recs for great budget eating, including Chinese:

http://tinyurl.com/ktkys

(Scroll all the way to the bottom for dozens of links to NYC resto picks)

For a lot of what you're talking about a cab isn;t much more than subway for 4 people (like South Ferry to Chinatown).

I would walk where you can - but if you're doing a lot of walking in the attractions (don;t miss the Museum of Natural History near your upper west side hotel - also Central Park with the zoo and carousel) I would do subway for the longer trips (upper west side to South ferry) or consider cabs for the shorter ones as above.

You can certainly walk South Ferry to Chinatown - but it's not the most exciting part of the city - and your time is very limited.

As for walking the Brooklyn Bridege - I know this is heresy but I don;t get the exceitment - but perhaps that's because I'm a native. I would rather do a museum or a neighborhood - or one of the boat rides.

Regardless of where I am in Manhattan, I find that the best place is some reasonable deli, diner, noodle shop, or anything else convenient to whereever I am at the moment.

I would not plan to go to East village or chinatown or cross the Brooklyn Bridge for lunch after SOL in the am. Rather, I'd stop by a neighborhood deli near my hotel BEFORE going to SOL, pack a picnic lunch in my small travel cooler and eat outside on the island or in Battery Park upon return.

The best part of enjoying NYC is going with the flow, people watching, etc, and not being tied to any rigid itinerary or sched. 11yo and 7yo won't have the foresight or patience to wait while you seek out a lunch destination - (been there), and cranky, hungry kids at 1pm can turn into dead, miserable, done for the day kids by 3...

I would also add that the trip to the Statue of Liberty is pure torture. When I was a kid, I really liked the Circle Line. You get to see the Statue without the crowds and it's probably easier with kids. And then go to the Intrepid from there. I think (but don't quote me on this) that they're quite close to each other.

Also, I second the Museum of Natural History. It's my probably my favorite museum in the world and it's great with or without kids. The dioramas, the gem room, the whale room... I could go on and on.

Wow - thanks for all the responses; they're very helpful. I love the pushcart idea; from my limited experience in midtown in the morning (on the way to boring offices), all I saw were items like bagels, which is fine, but not so interesting for lunch. We love food like falafel and gyros, which we don't get much of where we live. (We'll have to make our decisions on the spot re sanitary issues.) On lunch, I'm going for places that are a quick trip; after a week of vacation before NYC, the kids will be getting tired of sit-down meals; and while cheaper is good, too, my focus is more on interesting and what we can't get at home. Dinner is another matter, the subject of much angst on my part (I'm afraid to list the restaurants I have in mind for dinner, because people will just come up with hundreds of others, and I've had enough trouble narrowing it down to the dozens I have so far).

Guess I need to do more map-gazing (did I mention my horrible sense of direction) - I was thinking that the Intrepid was somewhere near Battery Park. So now I know it's west of midtown, and that opens up many more restaurant options (in addition to pushcarts), maybe yes to Hallo Berlin (though the menupages.com grease reports kind of turned me off), probably no to Joe Allen.

I had mentioned Chinatown because we also love dim sum, don't get it much at home, so I'd like to try to fit it in (for me, sometimes a vacation is trying to find stuff to do in between meals). So maybe, if we go to the SOL, we can fit in dim sum. Same goes with Serendipity - when hubby and I lived in Boston oh so long ago, I loved the frozen hot chocolate (the Boston location is closed now).

On burgers, it's one thing we don't eat much of - too many more appealing foods, in my book! So we'll probably take a pass on burger joints. But I'm hoping for great New York-style or Italian-style pizza for at least one meal. (And I'd love to introduce my kids to a good knish, and matzo brei, and on and on...)

Interestingly enough, I asked my son for a list of what he wants to do in NYC (he was taken there last year as a very special birthday present by grandma and grandpa). His list was 1. the Intrepid and the Mars restaurant (big ugh from me on that one); 2. Just walking around; and 3. Central Park. Of the items I named for him, the SOL was way down on the list. So I'll give his sister the same "test," factor in some adult wants (the Met), and then start narrowing down some more.

Lunchtime means plenty of more pushcart options all over town. It won't be just bagels, believe me.

With rare exceptions on the Upper East Side, you are never more than a block away from a variety of cheap ethnic eats, so I don't think you need to plot too much. But you'll probably need to take a cab from the Intrepid to get someplace more dense with eateries than the riverfront.

I think getting takeout and joining New Yorkers for al fresco lunches on the steps of office buildings, cultural centers or in any number of parks is a great idea. Your kids will have a lot more fun if they can eat immediately when they are hungry, and New York is built around the concept of being able to get food on the go.

Consider this place for dumplings:

http://newyork.citysearch.com/review/36918398

I like your son's itinerary of just walking around and Central Park. That's what I do! (While I take pictures.)

If eating immediately when your kids are hungry is a priority, then I'm afraid that that may prove to be extremely difficult if you are planning on having a meal at Serendipity. Even if you're just planning on having snacks/desserts during off hours, the wait is almost always notorioussly long.

As far as 'testing" for knish and matzo balls, Katz Deli would be one great option to do this at.

No, I didn't mean eating immediately, I meant for the restaurant experience for lunch to be an easy/fast one. I'm guessing we'll have 2-hour meals for dinner; none of us want to do that for lunch as well.

On Serendipity, yes, I know. But you can make reservations, if you're eating food (not just dessert) there. So we'll see.

I'm happy my son wanted to "just walk around" - it's something I put at the top of most of my vacation plans!

Having just returned two days ago from eight days in NYC with children, I'm happy to make a few recommendations for you to consider. First, I researched food ideas for weeks since we have a picky eater. This was absolutely not necessary. There are so many wonderful diners/cafes/pizza/deli spots on each corner. Many nights we would pick up food to go and have a picnic in our suite at the Blakely. This was perfect for us after a long day.

If you like long tiring lines, take the Statue of Liberty tour. We instead bought the City Pass (our daughter is very interested in modern art and it includes MOMA and the Guggenheim) and took the two-hour Circle-Line Harbour tour. This was fabulous, especially for taking photos, and very educational. You get very close to the SOL and go under the Brooklyn Bridge. There is a snack shop on the boat as well as in front of the boat with lots of nice picnic tables.

The Intrepid is right next door. My husband and son (age 10) did this tour while my daughter and I shopped one block up the street at the Salvation Army Shop. This probably sounds strange to many but she found some wonderful t-shirts for $1. We ate at Daisy Mae's Bar-B-Que across the street which Rachael Ray had just recommended. It was great but expensive to us - $9.00 for sandwich only. My husband and son enjoyed the Intrepid but once you enter, there are two additional expensive rides that our son had to do! So be prepared.

We did enjoy the gyros sandwiches at a Halal street vendor near the Hilton Hotel. $3.00 for lunch cannot be beat and many office employees were eating there each day. Good recommendation for us.

Take your son to Mars 2112 if he's dying to go. I bought a $25 certificate from restaurant.com and used it one day for a late lunch. The food is expensive and not very good but it's an experience that children LOVE. I had read a review on another site, stating that the bathrooms were in terrible shape. I checked that out and found them very clean with an attendant.

My daughter and I took a food tour in the Village which we loved. There are many good restaurants there as you are aware and at lunch, many of the good local ones offer 50% off since lunch is rather a slow time. Bleeker near Cornelia Street is a good area from what I remember - Indian, chinese, Italian, great bakeries, etc. You could take a cab over from the Intrepid.

Hope this helps.

A good place for lunch is the food court at Grand Central. It's on the lower level and is filled with local restaurants -- not chains. There is a huge variety, from mexican to kosher to japanese to indian to pizza. I don't know that it's worth a special trip (although Grand Central itself is a cool building -- be sure to look at the mural of the stars on the ceiling!), but if you happen to be going through, it's worth a stop at lunchtime.

Oh and yes, it does make sense to have lunch in Chinatown after the Statue of Liberty. I would take the subway up. Take the 4,5 from Bowling Green and transfer at City Hall to the 6. Get out at Canal Street and you'll be in the heart of Chinatown.

Thanks for the additional responses; I think we'll "plan" to eat from carts when we can, but I have a couple of restaurants (dim sum & Indian) for lunch ideas that I'd like to squeeze into our (loose) schedule if we can. (I've narrowed my dinner choices down to 6, for 3 nights...could we eat two dinners each night?)

I think we will probably pass on the Statue of Liberty, partly because of the lines, but do a cruise instead - maybe the 2-hour circle line. And maybe the Intrepid. We still have a list of more activities than we can fit into the time we have! But then, the SoL fit in so well with the Chinatown idea. Sigh.

Mars - my son went with his grandparents when they took him to NYC last year; he's been talking about it ever since. I've whittled him down to stopping in for drinks, as the rest of the family has zero (or possibly negative) interest in going. If we have time...