NYC - Foodie recommendations - shops, markets, tours, etc.
 

Greetings.
Looking for recommendations of shops, markets, food tours in New York City. We like markets, kitchen stores, gourmet foods, etc. Not really looking for the usual foodie restaurant recommendations. We're budget travelers, so any recommendations for good "cheap eats" would be welcome. Partial to local, organic, good ingredients. We've been to Chelsea market, Zabars, Union Square Green Market previously. Also, any food tour recommmendations or feedback would also be welcome. Thanks for your help! We will be there in May. Thanks again!

I'll jump in w/cheap eats.
Good for the theatre area is:
www.nycrg.com comprised of 12
restaurants some of whom you can
book on www.opentable.com.
Specifically, Roberto Passon has a $15 luncheon pp. Have also enjoyed
Puttanesca, Cara Mia, Maria Pia &
Scarlatto.

Wow, that web site for cheap eats in around the theater district area is awesome...now to decide which one to pick...! Thanks so much for sharing! I guess they all would be fine for parents with two teens?

How exotic do you want to get. One of my favorite reasonably-priced restaurants is an Indonesian place called Bali Nusa Indah on 9th Ave. betw. 45th & 46th. You can get an entree there for under $10 if you stick to the noodle dishes. Here's their page on Menupages:
http://tinyurl.com/nvkn5

Also, if you go to 2nd Ave. and 14th Street and head south, there are tons of budget restaurants down there. Ditto University Place starting at Union Square and heading south.

For a food tour, take a look at www.foodsofny.com it offers some wonderful tours. I can highly recommend the Greenwich Village tour, we loved it - it's worth the time & money, lots of good food, fun and information.

A great store to browse (in an interesting neighborhood with many low cost ethnic restaurants) is Kalustyans (http://www.kalustyans.com) 123 Lexington Avenue at 28th Street - incredible selection of Middle Eastern/Indian/East Asian foods it has a take out deli upstairs and wonderful prepared grape leaves/huummus/baba ganoush, etc. I can easily spend an hour there looking at it all . . ..

VirginiaTraveler: fine for teenagers.
you can also look at the menus on
www.menupages.com & you'll see the food is not "exotic" but is attractively presented. Can one go
wrong w/pasta choices for anyone
save for celiacs?

A trip to the Bronx Arthur avenue "the Real little Italy" they even have tours is a good time and cheap eat's as well . Walking around China town & little Italy Mullberry street area And along the Bowery is all the comercial restaurant equipment store's you can get great deals on profesional kitchen gadgets

Italiano, do you have a link for the "tours" at Arthur Avenue?

www.dbsystemsgroup.com/susansez

re Arthur Ave tours

Thanks, Rhea. Although I must say the reviews of that particular trip on their website aren't that encouraging. I'm thinking for $100 for two including transportation, but very little tasting or food, we might still just do it on our own and opt for a full lunch.

I second Margo's Food of NY Greenwich Village food tour suggestion. It was lots of fun, informative and provided so much food that we pushed back our dinner reservation. BTW, based on that food tour we discovered Porto Rico- a local coffee vendor- and are now buying our coffee beans online from them and having them shipped. Sure beats Peets or Starbucks.

NY Magazine has some good suggestions on cheap eats (and discount shopping etc.) here
nymetro.com/cheap

The co. that's mentioned most often for food tours is foodsofny, but here are some other options
enthusiasticgourmet.com
noshwalks.com
http://www.dbsystemsgroup.com/susansez/
http://www.nyculinarytours.com/
http://www.bknypizza.com/
(this is a pizza tour of Brooklyn which I hear is fun)

There's a free tour on Sunday mornings of the lower east side that meets at Katz's deli at 11 am.

If you need kitchen supplies, Bridge Kitchenware is very good.
http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/home.cfm

Hi Everyone.
Thanks for all the great replies. I really appreciate all the info.

With regards to Arthur Ave, does anyone have any suggestions for which subway stop would be best to explore the area? How long does it take to get there from mid-town Manhatten?

Also, any idea where I can find more info on the tour that meets Katz's deli on Sundays?

Please keep the replies coming. Thanks again!!

ps. I found this list of ideas online. Thought someone else might find these ideas helpful

The Top 10 Things Every New York Foodie Should Do



The other day my friend E sent me a link to a fascinating article from the UK’s Observer, entitled “The Top 50 Things Every Foodie Should Do.” They asked a handful of Britain’s top food-lovers to help assemble a list of food-related experiences we should all have before dying. The end result included mundane—though valuable—things like “dismember a chicken” from Nigella Lawson, but it focused mostly on global food snobbery—telling readers that they simply MUST dine at the French Laundry in northern California, eat a 200-euro-per-person lunch at Le Grand Véfour in Paris, go deep-sea fishing in Barbados, etc. It’s a fascinating, lively list, but the idea that any human being might accomplish all fifty of these things strikes me as, shall we say, unlikely.

In the spirit of more realistic food adventures, I’ve assembled a (highly personal) list of my own: Debbie’s Top 10 Things Every New York Foodie Should Do. If you’ve got a blog, maybe you’ll be inspired by this to create a list for your own city. Think how much fun we’d have, assembling a world-wide, achievable list of must-dos. When you’re visiting a new town, you’ll be able to print out the list and go. Who needs travel guides, when you’ve got a local food guide? (And if you don’t have a blog of your own, feel free to post your list in the comments section here.)

The Top 10 Things Every New York Foodie Should Do:

1. Scoop some dark chocolate (or chestnut) gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato. You will not need to have sex for many weeks afterward. I’m serious.

2. Make a fresh (raw) tomato sauce with height-of-the-season Greenmarket tomatoes, slivered basil, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss with linguine. Moan.

3. Divide and devour a black-and-white cookie from Moshe’s bakery on 2nd Avenue in the East Village, whichever way you like: White first (my preferred method), black first, or split down the middle.

4. Have a Greek feast in Astoria. My favorite restaurant is S’Agapo on 34th Avenue. Freshest. Fish. Ever. And skordalia, that divine mashed-potato-garlic-olive-oil dip, with warm bread… And briskly crisp salads showered with dill…

5. Chocolate Chip Cookie: City Bakery, 18th Street between 5th & 6th Aves. Nuff said.

6. Dawdle over the fascinating wine list and wonderful Italian snacks at Bar Veloce—I like the original one, on 2nd Avenue at 12th Street, best.

7. Picnic in a park. Any park. Why spend so much time indoors when there’s all that green space to enjoy? On a sunny weekend day, S and I will forage in the kitchen, gathering whatever strikes our fancy into a plastic shopping back. Grab an old sheet and some reading material, and off we go to McCarren Park, Williamsburg’s largest—but decidedly uninspiring—park. When we’re lying on our backs watching the clouds float by, we don’t even notice there’s more dirt than grass, more people than trees, more broken blacktop than chirping birds.

8. Wander the stalls of Chelsea Market, stopping to nibble on a parmesan twist from Amy’s Bread or some Pad Thai at Chelsea Thai. And don’t miss Buon Italia, my never-fail source for interesting oils, vinegars, nuts, pastas, and all kinds of imported Italian products.

9. Buy obscene amounts of sugary treats at Economy Candy on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side. They’ve got more sweet stuff—and more fun, kitschy stuff—at better prices than anywhere I can think of.

10. Spend an afternoon meandering through an ethnic neighborhood—Jackson Heights for Indian, Flushing for Chinese or Korean, Greenpoint for Polish—and stop to eat wherever strikes your fancy. Odds are you’ll find something you’ve never had before, and it might even change your life.

These are some great recommendations.

As a small caveat, I just wanted to say that we usually encourage posters to post web links instead of the entire excerpt of writing to respect the intellectual property of the original writer. As this is not an officially published piece, but a blog entry, I think it's alright to stay. Here is the link if you'd like to check out more from this blogger:
http://tinyurl.com/2caylq

Wanderfar---thanks for finding this.. I did enjoy it!

My two cents.. if you like cheese I'd head to the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side to sample some and perhaps enjoy a cheese sandwich at Saxelby Cheesemongers.
http://tinyurl.com/yoolnb

Jacques Torres chocolate in DUMBO (Brooklyn, immediately over the Brooklyn Bridge and just 1 subway stop away from Manhattan)

We stopped by this weekend when we were in NYC and had "Wicked" hot chocolate- which is dark chocolate with CHILI PEPPER in it. Sounded scary to me but I ended up wolfing down my husband's cup. It was AMAZING tasting.

http://www.mrchocolate.com/

I had the Wicked hot chocolate at Jacques Torres in DUMBO over Thanksgiving weekend, and loved every drop (we're rationing the boxes of chocolates we brought home). I didn't realize there was chili pepper in it!

OH! And this place is ridiculous for chocolate lovers- Vosges. I went to the one in SoHo and got- ready for this? - a piece of curry chocolate and then another white chocolate thing with olive oil in it and Kalamata olives on top! I purposely ordered the craziest pieces I could find and they were incredible:

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/