While in NYC I tweeted and facebooked a lot about food, we ate almost incessantly however not necessarily in style. Being on a strict budget meant we were unable to sample the finer establishments NY has to offer, however we managed to chow down on some pretty delicious treats nonetheless.

Our first day out in NY saw us head over to Manhattan with our host Louis, also 15 and an Aussie who has lived in NYC for 10 years now. Our eagerly anticipated first meal out had to be something intrinsically NY and if possible somewhere iconic, so where better then Eisenbergs Sandwich Shop on 5th Avenue, near Union Square? Of course we sat at the counter, of course I had a chicken salad on rye and of course my son had a pastrami on rye and of course they came with pickles!!! The place is amazing, a real slice of old NY, friendly counter staff, unchanged ‘decor’, photos of celebrities lining the walls.. and great value at about $8  a meal. The boys had Lime Rickeys to drink, which as far as I could make out was lime cordial.

The NY concept of a sandwich is very different to ours!

Later that evening we met Louis’ mum, Jen, and headed to the West Village for delicious cheeseburgers, a glass of wine for me and a huge beer for Jen at the White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas’s favourite watering hole. Despite reviews to the contrary the service was extremely friendly, the food was delicious and again – about $8/ meal!

After dinner we wandered over to Magnolia Bakery, of Sex & the City fame, which had a queue out the door at 9.30 on a Wednesday night!

The day Osc headed off with Louis to experience high school NY style, I wandered up through our neighbourhood of Cobble Hill in Brooklyn in search of breakfast – which I found at the delightful One Girl Cookies just off Smith St. Sitting in the sunshine, reading the NY Times and eating house made granola with homemade yoghurt, drinking one of the very few decent coffees I had in the whole 2 weeks, I felt very NY – well very Cobble Hill anyway.

House made and artisan goodies were a recurring joy throughout our stay, from beer to bread cakes, cookies and everything in between, New York cafes, restaurants and shops really go all out to stand out from the crowd. Jen and I visited the incredible Parkway supermarket in Red Hook, down the road from our house, to find a staggering array of organic or ethically produced produce and foodstuffs. Incredibly priced compared to Sydney, fresh and delicious. An enormous cheese counter featuring American and imported cheeses and house made mozarella being made behind the counter and plumped still warm onto the shelf; granolas and mueslies of every description – all house made, yoghurts, curds, juices and icecream; ready to eat meals, freshly baked bread and bagels.. I could go on all day!

Brooklyn is, apparently, the hippest place on the planet at the moment and if the sheer number of groovy cafes, restaurants, bars, bottle shops and providors in the neighbourhoods around ours is any indication its also the hungriest. Every second place is organic, free trade, homemade or artisan, and most are packed, several with a constant line out the door waiting for tables. Despite all this, it goes without saying that none of them could make a decent cup of coffee!

This is Blue Marble Icecream in the very pretty Boerum Hill area – there was a constant line of people waiting to be served. It was nice, not the nicest I’ve ever had – but nice.

Back in Manhattan and again, in search of the iconic, hit East Houston St & the famous Katz’s deli – of When Harry Met Sally and ‘Send a Salami to your boy in the army’  fame, unchanged and unmodernised for probably 30 years – why bother? The food was delicious, relatively expensive and came in HUGE servings, the place was packed and extremely noisy. Despite being a bit of a tourist haunt, the noise definitely had a NY twang, and a bit of a walk around confirmed that the majority of diners were American, if not New Yorkers. After queueing to get in and then negotiating a very complicated ticket/find a table/queue at the counter procedure, Oscar chomped through a pastrami sandwich and most of a reuben sandwich, a plate of fries and several pickles, I ate half a pastrami sandwich and a piece of cheesecake.

After a long walk and shop around the East Village, we headed back to East Houston a few doors up from Katz’s, past the BEST disposal store in the world where we bought a fantastic backpack and hat for next to nothing, to Russ & Daughters – another NY institution and home to the biggest range of fishy products you’ve ever seen. On the subway back to Brooklyn we devoured the most amazing bagels with indescribably delicious smoked salmon and the creamiest cream cheese ever, a sprinkling of raw onion setting off the taste sensation perfectly.

We made several visits back to Russ & Daughters, eating our bagels in the sunshine on the bench outside the shop.

Fortunately the famous knish shop next door was closed for the Jewish holidays, or I fear Oscar may have eaten himself into a stupor.

The Lower East Side, below Houston, is probably not the neighbourhood it once was. Chinatown seems to extend for ages, and there is a largish Dominican area and of course lots of hipster cafes and bars springing up all over.

We found the Pickle Guys down on Essex St, where Oscar grazed happily on all the different pickles, the friendly staff were happy to let him try anything as long as he didn’t eat over a different barrel!

Around the corner was a Deli/pizza/diner packed to the gills with Orthodox Jewish families eating Friday lunch, kids everywhere!

Next to that was a bagel shop, where I had a very New York conversation with an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as the’President of the Shul’ and asked where we’d been in NY so far. When I mentioned Russ & Daughters I was treated to a ten minute dissertation on why they shouldn’t call themselves a kosher deli. It seems sturgeon is not a kosher fish – who knew?

Not being Jewish, the news was of little concern to me – although clearly of great importance to the Shul president!

Along from the Bagel shop we discovered another treat, the Doughnut Plant – the best donuts I have ever eaten in my life – and I’ve had a few. Regretting the very average bagel I’d eaten only moments before, I dithered and dithered and finally bought 3, intending to eat them as I went along, slowly.

Needless to say I stuffed them down and felt sick – meaning I missed out an hour or so later on what Oscar said was one of the best meals he has ever eaten at a little corner Dominican place called Cibao – in Clinton St. While he ate chicken soup and rice, ordered by asking another customer to translate into Spanish for him, I rather embarrassingly fell asleep with my head on the table in a hipster cafe a few doors along.

Speaking of things Spanish speaking – another of our great discoveries which received more than one visit was a fantastic little old-style Peurto Rican diner called La Taza De Oro, on 8th and 14th. We went there on the twitter recommendation of the fabulous and velvet voiced comedian Dave Hill @mrdavehill and it was fantastic. A real neighbourhood place filled with mums, kids and locals; cheap as chips, huge plate of food – and GOOD! Roast chicken, rice, beans – all the trimmings, Oscar had baked pork chops with rice, beans etc – all with a spicy latin tang and served by super friendly staff.

Another disappearing NY institution is the classic chrome diner, we were fortunate to eat at the Empire Diner in Chelsea – which apparently is also about to close. The food was good to average and a little pricey, but the place is amazing.

We did however journey to Park Heights in Brooklyn to eat at the famous 70 year old  Tom’s Diner. The place is crazy – filled with plastic flowers and sparkly lights, full of people, serving classic NY diner fare – and a few other things like the delicious lemon ricotta pancakes, which I ate with the selection of fruit flavoured butters that was served with them. The place has an incredible history – the Brooklyn Dodgers used to eat there and the stadium was round the corner, people took shelter there during the riots that followed Martin Luther King’s assasination and the same Italian family has owned it since it began.

The food was great, and plentiful and cheap (a recurring theme emerging here?), we were completely stuffed, which was fortunate as we attempted to catch the bus rather than the subway home and managed to get lost.

The manager at Tom’s got a bit carried away by Oscar’s enthusiasm and ceremoniously presented him with a chocolate egg creme. Egg cremes are apparently a famous NY beverage, and one we’d managed to avoid until then. Basically, its chocolate syrup, soda water and milk (no egg) – topped up with whipped cream from a can – when you see one made, you feel quite ill. Neither of us could force ourselves to drink more than a couple of sips, which meant we had to confess that we didn’t like it – he didn’t seem too surprised and replaced it with a delicious malty chocolate milkshake, much better!

The revolting egg creme – fizzy chocolate milk? Yuk!

Late in our trip, hanging around our favourite neighbourhood – the East Village, we discovered the fabulous and famous Ukrainian restaurant Veselka. Which food blogger @reemski made her own on her visit to NY. Oscar ate a huge plate of stuffed cabbage at 11 one night, while all I could manage were pierogis, we went back for an enormous breakfast and again for more starchy treats a 3rd time.

Stuffed Cabbage

Blintzes with fresh raspberry sauce – best breakfast of the whole trip.

2 other great East Village places are Artichoke Pizza – which serves huge and delicious pizza slices & beers to an endless queue of hipsters, and its sister Led Zeppole – which sells enormous great big pastries filled with custard. I’d never heard of a zeppole before, but they’re pretty delicious and disgustingly rich and creamy. These 2 are basically eat on the street places, but they’re great and extremely groovy – both recommended by @danthejew, a guitarist with hardcore band Set Your Goals and author of the blog for boys who love to eat – roadnoms.

One freezing cold night we dragged Jen away from work to eat at Black Iron Burgers – also in the East Village – and another very groovy new place. Delicious burgers, a lovely glass of wine, friendly service, and a cosy and  inviting atmosphere made this a winner – despite the fact that the burger is ubiquitous in NY.

This time around I resolved to spend a day in Harlem – and we did a great walking tour which focussed on the architecture and history, foodwise it had to be soul food, and we managed to fit 2 meals into the day.

Lunch was at Miss Maude’s Spoonbread on Malcolm X Boulevarde, fried chicken – delicious, seafood gumbo for Oscar, collard greens – a bit underwhelming really and scrumptious, sweet, crumbly cornbread. Sensational! I topped mine off with the best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever had.

A couple of hours walking and we were ready for, er, lunch? This time Amy Ruths where the waitress had the sexiest, roundest, highest booty – and boy did she work that thing! All the dishes are named after famous African Americans, and Oscar ordered the .. President Barack Obama .. how could you not!? He did resist having the POTUS smothered however. It came with corn bread and scrumptious corn on the cob, I settled for corn bread and a pick at the Barack Obama. We were too occupied watching the boys watch the waitress to take photos – but it looked pretty much like Miss Maude’s, except with waffles.

There were other places, other restaurants, cafes and snacks – but I’ve tried to highlight the meals that were the most “New York” or which offered us something new and different. The upmarket cafes around Brooklyn – in Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Dumbo – and in Manhattan were pretty much like the ones here in Paddington or Surry Hills -serving much the same food. Uptown Manhattan – like Double Bay or the City, downtown – more like Paddington or Surry Hills. Over in Williamsburg, the hipsters flock to cafes, bars and funky little restaurants, again very like Surry Hills but with a Newtown or Enmore edge. Further out in Prospect Heights and Flatbush – its more Marrickville, funky new places dotted amongst the industrial landscape and long term working class residents. We didn’t really have a bad meal and we didn’t really have a good cup of coffee – everywhere was nice, friendly and served varyingly good food, but we found a lot of the hip and groovy places recommended in magazines and online to be nothing that special. Coming from Sydney, I guess we’re used to nicely presented modern cafe or pub food and it was pretty interchangeable with here.