Need your experience to plan a 'Foodcation' to NYC
 

Spending 4 days in October visiting NYC for the first time. Staying with a friend in Long Island and planning to spend 4 full days in Manhattan. We are planning on doing the Chelsea Market tour one day and using freetoursbyfoot.com to eat least do a walking tour in the Village to knock a few places out at once.

We enjoy eating everything a place is know for when we travel, so we are looking for food recs for the following neighborhoods. (bonus points for secret restaurants and/or food trucks)

East Village
West Village
Chinatown
Little Italy
Soho
Tribeca
Flatiron District
Gramercy Park
Hell's Kitchen

Are you training to and fro the city every day? Not interested in any places in LI (there are some great ones, depending on where you are)?

Little Italy is essentially gone - and what is let is mostly basic red sauce Italian.

What is your price point? different for lunch and dinner?

Yes, we are taking the LIRR to Penn Station every day. We are staying with a native (Jewish) New Yorker so she is already taking us to a Jewish deli as soon as she picks us up from the airport. I plan on being in the city from morning til night though.. so not really eating on LI.

That is good to know. I am an Italian from Chicago anyway. I'd love a rec for a cannoli or gelato though.

Prices, we are open. Would like to keep most meals under $35 a person, with up toward $70/pp for one real nice meal out. This doesn't include drinks.

You must visit Smorgasburg on Saturday or just roam the neighborhood any other day of the week.

Sorry to say, there are no"secret" eateries in NYC these days. But you will find good information on all the areas you mention, and on the rest of the city and Long Island, on www.chowhound.com.

Do your prices include tax and tip?

No, not tax and tip. I am fairly open to a budget, just don't want to spend $100 per person without drinks.

I have a list of restaurants I am interested in and have done research on them, but always like to hear recommendations!

Smorgasburg looks awesome! Unfortunately, we have such little time that we just can't work the Burroughs into the mix. We'll just have to come back!

I'll offer two pieces of information.

First, if you want to eat at a popular restaurant, make reservations about 4 weeks out and more if they are allowed. The city is very busy in the fall, and if you want to be assured of a table, you need a reservation if the restaurant accepts them. The easiest thing is to use OpenTable, but if there's no available table there, call directly.

Second, the most vibrant nice but not too upscale dining scene is in Brooklyn right now. There's a veritable dining bonanza there and no more than 30 minutes travel time to most of the best places in Williamsburg, Park Slope, and other neighborhoods. If you're looking for the trendy, hidden gems, that's where you're likely to find them .. not so much in Manhattan, where rents are so high few people can afford to take chances. For example, both of Dale Talde's restaurants are in Park Slope.

You may want to read up in the NY Times about trends. There was a good special dining section in today's paper. Increasing the "$25 and Under" restaurant is not in Manhattan, and more often it's in Brooklyn. And if you like Chinese food, you'll find the best, most authentic versions in Flushing, not Chinatown.

Finally, anyone who tells you that Little Italy is no longer a dining destination hasn't eaten at the new places that have opened in the past year. I would not at all leave out Little Italy any longer, especially if you can get one of the highly prized reservations at Torrisi Italian Specialties. Maybe try for lunch since dinner is virtually impossible. It's not cheap, but it's a great experience.

It might be helpful if you post the eateries that interest you so we can offer comments and help you narrow down your list.

We did the Greenwich Village food tour and loved it; we liked it even more than the Chelsea Market one.

John's Pizzeria in the West Village is very good. Rocco's is a great little bakery with great cannoli.

There are lots of good places to eat near Chelsea Market. I have seen the tours but why would you need a tour?

I feel the same Happy; you can just do a tour of Chelsea Market and see the same things you do on the tour.

Too bad you have no time for the other boroughs because Myra's noshwalks.com are all about food.

We (a Fodorite and I) walked through Chelsea Market, looking for inspiration for dinner. We walked all the way through and were standing on the sidewalk trying to decide where to go next. We looked across the street and saw a FABULOUS option -
http://www.craftrestaurantsinc.com/colicchio-and-sons/

We considered eating in the less expensive Tavern but opted for the prix fixe four course meal in the Dining Room.

Amazing space, service and food.

I better understand the "foodie" approach to sight-seeing. EVERY thing we tasted was divine.

That would be at the top of your budget at $75 pp but definitely worth it. We were lucky in that we just walked in and got a table but it was very early evening on a Sunday. To be safe, make reservations.

Thank you, Starrs for that suggestion. I had a look at their prix fixe lunch menu which looks delicious and has enough vegetarian options for us to try and share 4 different things all for $25 each.

Next door to Colicchio and Sons is Del Posto, one of the most fabulous upscale Italian restaurants in NYC (owned by the Bastianich family). However, I don't think it would be within your range except at lunch, which is a $39 prix-fixe menu.

Also in the same West Chelsea area you can have a good meal Red Cat, Cookshop, CoBa, the Standard Grill, Pastis, Le Grainne.
When in NY, I grocery shop at Chelsea Market, wonderful produce and fish, meats. The Green Table is good too, in the market.

The Green Table was closed for a private event when we were there. It was at the top of our list.

There are some amazing restaurants with good value price fixed LUNCHES. Given you're not staying on Manhattan, it would be a lot easier, healthier and cheaper to do your big meal at lunch. My favorites:
Bouley
Asiate
Del Posto
la Grenouille
Gramercy Tavern
The Modern
Cafe Boulud
Perry St.
David Burke Townhouse
Gotham Bar &Grill
Colicchio &Sons

Other famous ones
Jean Georges
Boulud Sud
Le Bernardin
ABC Kitchen

Can't imagine why you'd do a food tour of Chelsea Market since it's self contained and easy to do on your own. You'd be better imo doing a food tour of an area like Greenwich Village, where you might not find all the little places on your own.

I did a Chelsea food tour -- not Chelsea Market. While it did start in the Market, it branched out to a number of restaurants in the area as well. We sampled food at about a dozen places, including a small bowl of pasta at one place, some sushi at another, and various foods at places in the Market. Those who say you can do that on your own, really don't understand the whole concept of those food tours. No, you can't do it on your own.