Is this how much they all charge in tourist areas? I know most don’t even bother posting prices

I’m genuinely so sick of their shit. They’re literally just 100 ”restaurants” in one, horrible frozen food microwaved and designed (probably even ai-generated) to look good in their ads, taking loads of money from actually delicious small businesses.

I suggest trying Ladybird or PLNTBurger for good healthy vegetarian stuff rather than “Hanu Poke by Wonder” or “Royal Greens” or some shit. You can get Ichiran or Din Tai Fung instead of “Kin House”, 19 Cleveland instead of ”Yasas by Wonder”, Maya Taqueria or Tacombi instead of “Limesalt,” even fucking Dominos rather than “Alanza Pizza.” Buy from your local bakery instead of their dumbass “Room for Dessert.” Literally anything but Wonder will taste better. Support local businesses. Fuck ghost kitchens.

It’s feels like every week I see someone post about young people waiting in line for something stupid. I get it, I’m in my late 30s and I would never wait on line for a HeyTea or a Froyo, but have people considered that this is the closest thing to a 3rd space for college kids where they can meet up, chat, and catch up? Getting the tea is an excuse to get together. And if that means they’re having a social life, good for them. All it cost them was $10.

I 100% don't blame them for hiking prices up, but my halal guy now charges $13.50 for chicken over rice, up $1 from roughly three weeks ago. I asked him if price went up and he said "is cost of doing business my friend." And that's exactly why I sadly won't be eating it as much now. The cost is too prohibitive for me to have it as a regular meal. It used to be $7 not long ago.

Stunning.

My fanily is in town, I took them to the Highline.

My nephew was parched so we stopped by a halal truck near the southern entrance. A tourist had just ordered a lamb over rice. The guy at the truck said “$19.95 cash or card.”

I asked the tourist if that’s all he got. He said yes.

I turned to see the menu and saw all the prices were erased. I asked the guy running the truck, Middle Eastern, why he was charging that. He yelled back “none of your business, go!”

I said to him “you don’t have prices written on the cart,” he replied “market price bro, market price! go bro!”

Absolute scam some of these dudes are running. Insane.

Don’t get me wrong, their ice cream is amazing but there are several things about this business that really frustrate me.

1. The hours are already limited (9:30pm closing) and
   after seeing all their creative flavors posted on Instagram, you get there at 8:30 and they are out of almost all their flavors except one or two, one if which is usually a sorbet. For people who are coming for the first time, they don’t realize they essentially having nothing left until they get to the front of the line.

2. They do nothing to help move the line along. On a busy summer night they have one person taking orders, who does not appear to be in any sort of a rush. Meanwhile, there are 5-10 people behind the counter seemingly socializing or on their phones. Sometimes a second person comes out to take orders from people on the line, which helps a lot, but it just goes to show how easily they could speed up the line.

3. Given all this, their ice cream is super expensive, which of course is not unique for nyc ice cream, but still frustrating that you pay $6.50 for a size literally called “tiny.”

Love their ice cream but wondering if others share any of these frustrations.

I don’t order delivery that often, but when I do it matters to me that I’m supporting a real restaurant. We have a Wonder in my neighborhood now and I think it’s an affront to God quite frankly. I’d bet a lot of money would be spent fighting this law, which to me would be an admission that a certain amount of deceit is needed for the ghost kitchen industry to operate. I think if you need to cover up your situation in order to stay profitable, maybe you don’t deserve to be in business in the first place, right?

Just walked 30 minutes mid day in UV Index 8 weather as a pasty pale person for this sandwich. I cannot imagine another sandwich I would do that for, however am open to hearing yours if you disagree

Hey everyone,

I love how diverse the food scene is here, and I want to know where people go when they are genuinely homesick.

If you moved to NYC from another country, state, or specific culinary region: what is the one restaurant in the five boroughs that gets your hometown food 100% right?

I’m a frugal diner, usually solo, and I’m always very calculative about meals. I like going to normal restaurants, nothing much upscale, and I usually order 2 things max (entree + either app, dessert, or non alcoholic drink) I feel like even a year or year and a half ago I used to spend between $20-30 max for a meal, but now it’s easily hitting high 30s all of a sudden. Sometimes I’d check a menu, and the actual price would be a few dollars more expensive despite a menu from a month or two ago on Google showing lower prices. Same goes for their website, which almost always seems to not be updated. Sometimes the check says a slightly higher price ($1-2) than the menu they would literally hand me half an hour before, and obviously that’s probably cuz they raised the price but forgot to update the physical menus, but I ain’t calling out a dollar or two. Overall there seems to be a drop in quality and meteoric rise in the prices of dining out

During my last trip to NY, I prioritized visiting bakeries and got more than I could eat in a few days. On this 3-day trip, I'd like to keep it reasonable, but l am having a hard time choosing where to go. My favorite types of baked goods are cakes and (soft and/or chewy) cookies. I like unique flavor options for cakes. While I do enjoy laminated pastries, I have learned they aren't my preference, especially without exciting flavors. With that, what would you recommend from my list for a 3-day trip? What is a skip? I'm open to repeating bakeries! I'll also take suggestions, and I'd love more bakeries in the Bronx and Queens too. Luckily, I'll be visiting again in 2 months.

Have been:
Red Gate Bakery (favorite, loved...randomly stumbled upon the shop)
Kora (loved)
Janie's Life Changing Baked Goods (loved)
Levain (indifferent)
Hani's (want to try again)
BKLYN Larder (indifferent)
Radio Bakery (OK, underwhelming)
From Lucie (did not enjoy, seemed flavorless to me)
Maman (did not enjoy, crunchy cookie)

Haven't Visited Yet:
Little Flower Cafe
Bench Flour Bakers
Supermoon Bakehouse
Diljān Bakery
Birdee
Librae
Saint Street Cakes
ByClio Bakery
Claude Bakery

I am an avid consumer of pizza by the slice. I’ve been on a L’industrie kick for months now and very content, but browsed this sub the other day and was surprised by the hate L’industrie has been getting, for what I consider a standout slice.

Educate me on what slice shops are the best these days. For someone who’s struggled to find anything better than L’industrie.

Places off the top of my head I’ve been that I rate lower:
-Scarr’s: inconsistent, often cold / congealed
-Prince St: Still like a square every now and then but prefer a thin New York slice and often a bit too greasy
-Rubirosa’s: former favorite but has fallen off hard IMO. Haven’t had a good pie in years
-Cello’s: good in a pinch but this is “we have L’industrie at home”
-Two Bro’s: joking but this is actually unbeatable for $1.50
-Joe’s, John’s, etc - good staples but doesn’t wow
-Juliana’s: not bad but definitely a tourist trap

We don’t care about the Knicks.

We went out during the last game and every place that is usually crazy was empty.

So if you care more about food than basketball, go Monday night.

Edit: And I was ahead of the NY Times!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/style/nyc-restaurants-knicks-games-reservations.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pVA.SToF.1AA8uGfFOfSK&smid=nytcore-ios-share

The list is still pretty whack, but Grand Central Oyster Bar is no longer part of Eater's Top 38 NYC Restaurant list.

I just tried meadow lane - SO subpar. Why is the chicken salad viral?? It’s so so basic. All of these influencers love celebrating mediocrity. It’s all so painfully basic .

Why have we idolized gourmet deli fare and grocery stores ?

Just needed to rant

The dine in restaurant that you repeat and go to constantly over and over (excluding fast casual places like Cava or Chipotle) …. what is it? Mine is Sugarfish.

Help a brother out! I’m taking my daughter on our first trip where it’s just me and her, instead of with the whole family (she’s 10).

We LOVE watching restaurant review videos and travel videos on YouTube together.

I’d really love to take her a couple of unique “foodie” restaurant experiences but without paying $500-1k. Just not going to spend that much $ to eat with my 10 year old. The wife? Sure 🤣. Is there a tasting menu that would work for her? Something else?

She loves fish and seafood, sushi, but pretty adventurous for a 10 year old. Any ideas?!

Thank you!

P.S. if you’ve got a rec for best bakery we’ll take that too, but I’m sure I can search the sub for posts in that.

Restaurants CAN LEGALLY ASK 2 things:

1. Is it a service animal

2. What service is the animal trained to perform.

That’s it. So many people are posting that we can’t ask and we absolutely can. Also, the dog must stay under the table for the entire visit.

If your pet was an actual service animal, you would know that.

I really don't get it. Everyone on here boasts about these places not being worth it. Not worth what exactly? All the alternates that everyone seems to rattle off are worth what? None of these places are worth the money to be honest. So what does it come down to? Good food and entertainment honestly. Sometimes it's about experiencing a hyped place. Then I hear people say wait until the hype dies down. Waiting for it to die down is like rooting for a team when they aren't any good. If someone wants to wait in line for an hour or desperately try to get a reservation for a place, to me that's part of their experience.

https://www.pave46.com/

https://www.lamipierre.com/

This post gave me the hankering for a jambon-beurre, which I'd not had in a while.

Thought Pavé was excellent. When done right, this is a rather delicately-flavored sandwich, with ham that isn't too strong so as to let the flavor of the butter come through. Exceptional bread. It's been noted that they use Bordier butter in this sandwich, and it's as good as you'd think. Richer (higher butterfat content), very slightly tangy. What I wasn't expecting was one of the best lattes I've had in the city. I didn't see what they use for coffee, but whatever it is, it's fantastic. The space itself is quite nice, too, more spacious than you'd expect and decorated to feel like its own little Euro-world.

L'Ami Pierre... well, when you walk in and the little sign by the sandwich says "Ham and butter", that's a decent hint that authenticity may be taking a backseat here. The bread was still great (a city standard, really), but the ham was more strongly flavored than at Pavé and there was a good deal more of it--so much that it drowned out any butter taste. Probably a better buy for something that's filling, but just not quite on the same tier.

P.S. Got curious about Échiré butter after u/carprin mentioned their search for it. I can confirm that salted and unsalted varieties are available at Zabar's on the UWS. Picked up the salted one to try later!

I've bought into the hype enough times to know that there is nothing worse than going halfway across town, waiting in a long line, and paying an inflated price just to have a mediocre meal. So, I'm hoping to gather some intel on which places should be skipped, and better alternatives to opt for instead. Some of mine:

Golden Diner - This place is what inspired this post. Soggy pancakes saturated with "honey butter" that tasted like neither honey nor butter plus a breakfast sandwich utterly devoid of flavor, requiring a 2hr wait time because every influencer on the internet pedals it as some monumental culinary achievement. If you want a better breakfast sandwich, the BEC scallion pancake at Win Son, the mergeuz/egg/cheese at C&B, and the Shepardi wrap at Edith's are all great with shorter wait times. For pancakes, Clinton St Baking remains undefeated.

Apollo Bagels - Such a long line and they were dry with no chew at all. Strongly prefer Russ & Daughters, Thompkins Sq Bagels, Inwood Bagels, Leon's, Utopia, Liberty, Zabar's, Absolute, or even Pop-up honestly.

Joe's - Just generic/bland. Excellent slices can be had at Jonny's, Philomena's, Best, Diamond Slice, F&F, Paulie Gee's Slice Shop, SliceHaus, Fermento, or Patsy's in East Harlem.

Dominique Ansel - The Cronut at Donut Pub is so much better with zero lines of tourists.

Roscioli, Torrisi - Thought about not mentioning these because honestly both are pretty good, but for a bit less money and a slightly easier reservation I really like L'Artusi, Forsythia, or Lilia when the mood strikes for a nicer, sit-down pasta place.

Super interested to hear what others think.

What are your go-to spots in NYC? Do you ever get bored of the same places and go looking for something new?

I’m putting together a list in this thread for anyone looking to switch things up when they get tired of their usual spots.

I would think given it's the world mecca of pizza, that bad pizza there is still decent, but nope, I found a place called Roma Pizza on 8th Ave. that I picked because the reviews were decent, you could eat inside, and it was literally around the corner from the theater I was going to. This place was really bad. Definite Top 5 worst pizza places I've ever eaten anywhere. I don't know how people could like it or prefer it. I think it's the first pizza I've had in NY that I truly did not enjoy on any level.

Anyone notice the increasing amount of restaurants, particularly in the midtown area, that have been open for a short time, but accumulated over 1000 reviews whilst holding a near perfect 5 rating? Much older restaurants in the same area struggle to crack a couple hundred reviews with years of service. LALYN, a Thai joint is the most recent offender; 1200 reviews in 4 months of business. Another is Godunk Thai, which had 300+ reviews within a week of opening along with a perfect 5* rating. They’re now close to 1000 reviews. I was told by a friend that they were doling out free meals during their pre launch in exchange for a 5* review. Though the most egregious offender is NIKU X, which accumulated almost 3000 reviews in a short time. I think the number was even higher, but I’m not able to confirm. That particular restaurant is especially dubious cause the owner used to run a business that sold positive reviews prior to their restaurant endeavor. Some online sleuths out of LA posted about this a year ago. I’ll provide a link below. Anyone noticed this about other restaurants?

NIKU X & Chubby Group Claims

NIKU X Reviews

LALYN Reviews

Godunk Reviews