OT: First NYC Trip in Oct, Need Recommendations!
dawnblade
Posts: 1,723
in The Commons
Any NYC locals out there that can recommend your favorite non-chain restaurants ($$-$$$) and coffee/tea shops (no Olive Gardens, P.F. Chang's, Starbucks etc.):
- Italian restaurants in Little Italy
- Chinese restaurants for the best Chinese food (and Dim Sum) in Chinatown
- Steaks, seafood, Mediterranean food and any others in Manhattan and the Village
Doesn't need to be kid-friendly as just 4 adults are going first week of Oct.
My wife and I have never been to NYC, so we will be doing the whole tourist thing: Statue of Liberty ( up to the Pedestal), Ellis Island, the Met, etc. Can't wait!
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Cool, have fun! Been there once before and would love to go back and see the things I missed.
If in the mood for thai cuisine, go to Pong Sri on 48th Street and 8th Avenue. It's a really good restaurant. Also, Juniors, that opened up on 49th street and 7th Avenue (although there is another right on times square) seems very popular with tourists. Walk around Time Square - you will see plenty of places to check out. The M&M store is on 48th street and broadway across from the Hershey store. There's also quite a good cupcake store, Magnolia on 6th Avenue and 47th street. And don't forget to walk around Rockefeller Center and check out "Top of the Rock". That one is also very popular with tourists.
Thanks! So excited to see as many of the sites as we can in a week.
Nice! Thanks @ThatGuy! Time Square, Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock are on my list. Will add Pong Sri, Juniors and the candy and cupcake stores as well!
Have you recovered yet from the sticker shock of hotel prices in Manhattan?
One option is to hop a train at Penn Station or Grand Central and head out of town at the end of the day to a more reasonable hotel up north. Especially nice along the Hudson.
Oh, and I'm a big fan of the Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan. In fact I think there's a NY state law requiring all first time tourists to take the Circle Line at least once.
And asking about good Italian restaurants in NY is like asking how many grains of sand on the beach.
Oh, and if you really want to find the good places to eat, ask a local when you're just walking around. They'll tell you about the little hole-in-the-wall with food that's out of this world. Unless you want the touristy places.
That many good Italian restaurants? That makes it a lot easier to choose one then! Thanks!
Well, I was hoping some of the NYC artists here on Daz might just be able to recommend a hole-in-the-wall or two!
There is a small vietnamese restaurant around chinatown, Nam Son, cheap, but really good.
245 Grand St
New York, NY 10002
b/t Bowery & Chrystie St
Walking along Rockefeller Center and 5th Avenue and really most of manhattan, don't bypass the food trucks. Food trucks have grown so much in the last 5 years. Outside my office building alone there's like a plethora of 'em - different couisines boasting long lines (especially the greek cuisine trucks!) during lunch time. Stay away from the usual hotdog trucks and pretzel trucks.
You want some chinese baked goods? Go to Mei Li Wah bakery on Bayard Street. Check out their website at Meiliwah dot com. You can buy the best pork buns and other chinese baked goods there.
Def try the food trucks. I work downtown around Wall Street and there all over, very cheap clean and delicious.
We live an hour away and go in quite a bit. The Circle Line makes sense and if you're flush you can get a 20 minute or so helicopter tour you'll remember forefver. But it's spendy - figure $200 a head.
Meals at the name restaurants are very expensive, but there are a lot of smaller places that may be better. Talk to locals when you're in town adn ask them about thigs you like. NYC has an undeserved repuation for not helping. I find the opposiate. Food trucks can be excellent. Street meat makes a great lunch when you're moving around.
Walk on the High Line on the Lower West Side. It goes from Penn Station through the Meat Packing District and lets out around the West Village. The West Village and a bit South- like SOHO - has some of the best pizza in the world. Maybe the best. Ask the locals... there's a lot of really bad stuff too.
I'm a big fan of Central Park - an astonishing place carved out in the middle of the city. The city is bigger than you think. Break it down into sections.
Little Italy is down by Chinatown and almost gone with Chinatown's growth. You'll find some fine places there, but maybe a bit spendy.
Brooklyn is the up and coming place that can be worth a visit if you want to see a bit more vibrance and maybe a bit more grit.
Have fun.. I've been going in for more than 20 years and find something new every time.
A bit more.. Manhattan is really a collection of communities each with their own character. Most people just see midtown .. it's crazy busy, but there are some much quieter areas that may be as interesting or more interesting.
There's a chance you might be interested in fashion and design. The Fashion Institute of Technology has a little free museum that usually has an interesting exhibit. Between it and Paron's you'll see a lot of street fashion - very different and much more interesting that what walks on the runways and way more interesting that most of what you find for sale here.. Seriously - some of the better DS PAs should spend some time watching street fashion. The Fashion District is along 7th and in Midtown, but is mostly a historical artifact. Design has moved downtown and to Brooklyn.
And there are crazy little museums for almost everything .. people with a passion.
Thank you @ThatGuy! Vietnamese restaurant and Chinese bakery saved on Google Maps! Food trucks noted and sound like a good choice for lunch. Thanks @ALLIEKATBLUE.
@dawnblade - if you don't mind my asking, where are you coming from?
Thank you @escrandall! High Line is on the list. I heard about Artichoke Basille's Pizza near the Meat Packing District. Central Park is a definite, and we might have time to go to Brooklyn. That museum in FIT sounds cool. I know my wife will like it. We're also going to the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side, and the NY Historical Society on the West Side.
Regarding Italian food, have you tried Paesano's or Parm's on Mulberry Street, or Tony's Di Napoli on 43rd?
@ThatGuy West Coast
Many thanks to you all for your NYC recommendations. Best vacation ever! Or at least in a very long time. New.York.Rocks. I didn't want to come home. I wanted home to be New York.
Fantastic weather in the 70's! Cheesecake at Juniors and way too many cupcakes and cheesecake at Magnolia's, and the banana pudding! Pizza at Patsy's Pizzeria!
Circle Line cruise of the landmarks and Brooklyn was awesome. Oh, the Statue of Liberty, what a beauty. Made it up the stairs to the pedestal--my wife and I had been training on stairs for a couple months to get ready for it, and it paid off. We sucked wind but didn't collapse or need CPR.
Walked for miles and miles and was simply amazed at the architecture, all the people. Rode the subway while delighting in (cough!) renditions of Stand by Me. Was swept up in the excitement of Times Square and giant M&Ms and giant everything on giant digital screens, and ate little cannolis in Little Italy at Ferrara's.
Wonderful Chinese food in Chinatown at Wo Hop. This is the first Chinese restaurant I ate at that actually served Oolong tea instead of the smelly jasmine tea. Awesome! My fortune cookie said "The glass is not half-empty, it's just twice too big." Ponder that for a while.
Thoroughly enjoyed the walk on the High Line, and the Cloisters museum was breathtaking. A building shaped like Jenga! The view from the Top of the Rock and the Empire State Building!
The mummies and ALL the wonderful dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History! Bet you didn't know I wanted to be a paleontologist.
Strawberry Fields and Imagine. Ate at Tom's Restaurant (think Seinfeld)!
Trinity Church and Alexander Hamilton's memorial. Fraunces Tavern, get this: I drank at the same tavern that George Washington used as his headquarters. What?
And speaking of memorial: The 9/11 Memorial Museum and Pools. No way to walk through and your knees not buckle and your eyes remain dry for those innocent victims, those heroes. Your neighbors. Your friends. Your community. Wow. It should be a requirement for every student, every American, and everyone who wants to be an American. Go! We must never ever forget.
So glad you enjoyed your time in NYC. Sometimes NYC has a bad reputation. I am pleased that your experience was memorable in a good way.