The Best Damn $5 Lunch in New York

I know, I know, the moment you say the word “best” the whole city jumps up to argue with you. But hear me out here, people. This shit’s good.

First of all, here’s the menu: pizza & a cupcake. Who doesn’t love pizza & cupcakes? (N.b the lines at Magnolia and Artichoke Basille, impassioned Chowhound arguments like this one: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/320107, etc.) I stumbled upon this delectable combination early this summer when I decided to finally take a walk down to Chelsea Market and check the place out. (I say finally since I’d been in New York for nearly a year by that point, lived 10 blocks away from it, and hadn’t been by since my visiting-the-grandparents tourist days back in high school.) The problem with Chelsea Market, like in restaurants with too-long menus, is the overabundance of good choices – too many shops offering delicious-looking fare. So I figured hell with it, nobody says I have to stick with one place. My first course came from Buon Italia, where a slice of their basic pizza, topped with nothing but sauce, garlic, basil, and some herbs costs $2.17, cash only. From there, on to Eleni’s for a cupcake, $2 each. I headed out to the seating area in the middle of 9^th Ave to eat in the sun.

It was all fantastic. The pizza was nothing like the cheesy thin-crust stuff most places serve – it’s got a thick, airy crust topped by a thin layer of delicious sauce and herbs and nothing else. The cupcake too was phenomenal. It was a light lunch, not enough if you’re feeling really hungry, but the cupcake was substantial enough to fill up any space left by the pizza on a normal afternoon. Total bill: $4.17.

I’ve taken to going back every weekend for lunch, and there’s enough variation that I haven’t gotten bored yet. For a few extra cents you can get some more toppings on your pizza (cheese, onions, eggplant slices, depending on the day – though the plain is still my favorite). I’ve also tried a bunch of the other offerings, including the frittata di pasta (kind of a baked pasta with sauce, cheese, and veggies served in thick pie-like slices), stuffed zucchini, sautéed artichokes, and a few of the sandwiches, and been impressed by all of them. (I was heartbroken when, sitting outside Lincoln Center eating dinner before seeing South Pacific, my half-eaten frittata slipped off my lap and landed on the ground. What a waste of good carbs!) The frittata’s something like $2.50/slice, the veggies are around $10/pound, and the sandwiches (may I recommend the Milanese with breaded chicken, eggplant, sauce, & basil) range from around $4 each up to $6.50, so the tab’s higher but it’s still easy enough to stay below $10 for a meal. Also worth getting is the $1.50 can of Lemon Soda, more like a fizzy lemonade than a soda and hard to find in this country.

Eleni’s too has enough options to keep things interesting. The cupcakes are all fantastic – my favorite is the chocolate with coconut – but what really blew me away was a maple-walnut muffin with cream-cheese icing. Light, flavorful, not too sweet, and, since I ate it outside on a hot & humid day, by the time I finished the frosting had melted all over my hand. And let’s be honest, that’s definitely a plus. If a cupcake’s too heavy for your taste, the scones are good too, and come with a free small coffee (they’ll give you tea instead if you ask). Most pastries are $2-3, and if you go after 6 (after 5 on Sundays), everything is half price. How many places in this city can you get a cupcake for a buck anymore? And if you go Friday through Monday after noon or so and you see a cute guy with dark hair behind the counter, say hi to him. His name is Jon and he’s awesome.

So that’s my recommendation: pizza and a cupcake at Chelsea Market, awfully cheap and very tasty. It may not be the best five bucks you can spend in New York – I’ll leave that argument to the taco-truck aficionados vs the DiFara’s devotees – but it’s pretty damn good.

midnight snack

I just put a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and a handful of mixed frozen berries in the blender mixed it up for a minute or so, turned on Jon Stewart, and ate it. Mmmmmmmmm...

Things I won't be eating any time soon...

CNN's list of the most expensive foods out there. Tops on the list: a flavorless, metal with no nutritional benefit, a fungus, and fish eggs; with rodent poop not far behind. Really, people?
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0807/gallery.most_expensive_foods.fsb/index.html

ETA: Okay, so I actually did try civet coffee. I've actually had five of the nine (gold leaf, vanilla, truffles, saffron, and poop coffee). Guess I'm getting bourgeois.

A Go! Go! update

My boyfriend, H., lives in Georgia. He's the perfect man: a fantastic cook and good in bed - what more could a girl want? We see each other every month or so - I fly down there and fatten up on barbecue and grits, he comes to New York and we stop at Go! Go! Curry on the way in from LaGuardia. Sometimes I wonder if he's here for me or the katsu. Last weekend was one of those glorious occasions, with one catch: he's doing the whole carb-free thing, which means no fried chicken cutlets atop a mound of rice. There goes that vacation. Luckily, Go! Go! sells containers of their curry sauce to go - it's 10 bucks for a small one, but "small" turns out to be about a quart of the stuff, enough to last through several binges. So with that in hand I made my own healthy(ish), carb-free version. H. loved it, and the leftovers were still tasty a few days later for lunch. Success.

The Recipe:
Mince some garlic and ginger. Put it in a ziplock bag with some raw chicken breasts, salt a dash of cayenne, and soy/sesame/olive/whatever oil. Let marinate in the fridge overnight. (This whole marinating thing is completely optional. It'll make the flavor stronger if you plan far enough ahead to do it. Otherwise, don't.) Pour the whole chicken/oil/spices mess into a skillet. Cover and cook over medium heat until the chicken is no longer pink inside.
While the chicken is cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil and drop in a handful of string beans. Boil 2-3 minutes. Drain the beans and run them under cold water. Shake them dry. When the chicken is just about dry, throw the beans in the pan and mix them around to soak up the flavor. Let it all cook another few minutes, then serve. Pour curry sauce over the whole thing. Tasty.

TONY Cheap Eats '07

I'd be remiss if I didn't link to this one.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/features/9142/the-new-york-cheap-eats-pyramid

Check out especially the free section. Looks like I've got my work cut out for me trying all this...

The NY Times gets in on the game

All this bad economic news will probably bring a lot of articles like these - I intent to check the place out this weekend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/dining/26ninety.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin

Zen Merlot

Because I like wine, and haiku is free.

http://www.redwinehaiku.blogspot.com/

Looks Like Hell, Tastes Like Heaven

Sitting on a plate in front of me is a mound of rice, covered by a layer of what appears to toxic sludge, topped with a breaded chicken cutlet and some shredded cabbage. It cost me $7 (plus tax), and it's delicious. It's Go! Go! Curry!

Anyone who reads the NY Times' $25-and-under column, or Time Out New York, or nearly any other food-reviewing publication in this city has probably already heard of Go! Go! Curry!, New York's one and only baseball-themed Japanese curry joint, and its eccentricities. There's the dancing gorilla mascot (which, though I walk past the place twice a day, I've never actually seen). There's the chronic overuse of exclamation points(!). And, most pervasively, there's the obsession with Hideki Matsui, the Yankees player and hero to the Japanese. First off, "go go" is apparently Japanese for 55, Matsui's Jersey number. They open at 10:55am, and close at 9:55pm, and the phone number ends in -5555. My question: why is their mascot a King Kong-esque gorilla, rather than Godzilla, after Matsui's nickname?

Not that it matters. With food this good, I don't care if it's Godzilla, King Kong, or the Creature from the Black Lagoon (which, now that I think of it, wouldn't be a bad choice). Point is, that slimy brown glop (aka curry sauce) is awfully tasty. Full of umami (kosher adherents and vegetarians beware, there be pork products here) and with just a bit of kick, it's the best thing out of Japan since sake bombs. And it is distinctly Japanese – while you can taste the dish's Indian roots, there's no mistaking this stuff (often anglicized as kare) for vindaloo or massaman.

And the price: I find a walk (the smallest size available) with chicken sufficient for dinner; make it a single (one size up) and it'll cover lunch too. These are $5 and $5.55 respectively, plus an extra $2 for toppings (chicken or pork cutlets, shrimp, sausage). The largest size, a triple, goes for $7.50 plus toppings, and their Grand Slam, $12.50 with chicken, pork, sausage, and shrimp, is enough to feed two hungry people plus leftovers. And if you play your cards right, you'll never have to pay for the toppings anyway. Come in on the 5^th, 15^th, or 25^th of the month, or the day after Matsui hits a home run, and they'll give you a free topping coupon for your next visit (or two or three, depending who's behind the counter). I only eat there on dates ending in 5, and I doubt I'm the only one.

Good news for lower-Manhattanites: according to their website, Go! Go!'s second US branch, Go! Go! Curry! and Diner, recently opened in the East Village, featuring such novelties as calamari curry, hamburger curry, and cheese-and-french-fry curry. If anyone out there is brave enough to try the new flavors, I'm curious to hear your opinion. For me, I'll stick to the classic breaded chicken and sludge.

http://www.gogocurryusa.com/