Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
-
Get a slice of pizza
Thin pizza from a gas deck oven, sold by the slice and reheated in front of you. A proper slice is folded lengthwise and eaten walking, which is how the crust holds the toppings.
The classic order is a plain slice, meaning cheese only. Oregano, garlic powder and chilli flakes sit on the counter and you add them yourself.
-
Eat a bagel with lox
A dense boiled bagel with cream cheese, cured salmon, capers, red onion and tomato. A breakfast order, taken away rather than eaten at a table.
The bagel is boiled before baking, which gives the dense chewy crumb. Asking for it toasted is considered unnecessary if it is fresh.
-
Try pastrami on rye
Beef brisket brined, coated in spice and smoked, sliced thick onto rye with mustard. One sandwich feeds two.
Mustard only; mayonnaise on pastrami is not done and asking for it counts as an error. Pickles and pickled tomatoes arrive at the table free.
-
Order from a halal cart
Chicken or lamb over yellow rice with salad, white sauce and hot red sauce. Cart food invented for taxi drivers that became a civic classic.
The red sauce is genuinely hot; ask for it on the side if unsure. The portion is huge and half of it travels home in the same container.
-
Eat dim sum in Chinatown
Cantonese steamed and fried small plates wheeled around on trolleys and chosen by pointing. The bill is stamped on a card, one mark per dish.
It runs until the middle of the day; after three the trolleys disappear. Tea is refilled constantly, and tapping two fingers on the table means thank you.
-
Eat a hot dog
An all-beef frankfurter in a bun with mustard, sauerkraut or onions in tomato sauce. Carts stand all over the city, and the old stands snap when you bite them.
Ketchup on a hot dog is not done here; mustard is the choice. The tomato-onion topping is called onion sauce and exists mainly on carts.
-
Eat oysters at happy hour
East Coast oysters from the Atlantic: briny and firm, unlike Pacific ones. On weekdays oyster bars run an hour when they cost about a dollar each.
Happy hour usually runs four to seven on weekdays and is chalked by the door. Oysters are named by where they were farmed, and the difference is genuinely audible.
-
Get a bodega sandwich
The corner store open around the clock with a grill at the back: a bacon, egg and cheese for breakfast, or a hot sandwich from the counter later on.
You order in one phrase: bacon egg and cheese on a roll, salt pepper ketchup. Most bodegas keep a cat, and that is part of the genre.
-
Try tacos
Mexican food in New York is serious and regional: al pastor from the vertical spit, barbacoa, carnitas. The best places are in Queens and the Bronx rather than Manhattan.
Two corn tortillas per taco is standard rather than a mistake. Lime, onion and coriander go on from the condiment table yourself.
-
Try a chopped cheese
Ground beef chopped on the griddle with onion and melted cheese, served in a roll with lettuce and tomato. A Harlem and Bronx bodega classic.
It differs from a Philly cheesesteak in that the beef is ground rather than sliced. Asking for one in Manhattan is mostly pointless; this is neighbourhood food.
-
Eat New York cheesecake Desserts and pastries
A dense cream cheese cake baked to a creamy, almost cheesy texture, with no gelatine and no fluff. The slice is tall and one is enough for two.
The classic version comes without fruit topping, which masks the flavour. A crack on the surface means it was baked rather than assembled cold.
-
Try a black and white cookie Desserts and pastries
A large soft cake-like cookie iced half chocolate and half vanilla. Sold in Jewish bakeries and bodegas across the city.
The texture is closer to cake than cookie, which is not a baking error. Fresh it is soft; stale it dries at the edges.
-
Try a cannoli Desserts and pastries
A crisp shell filled with ricotta cream at the moment you order. Shells sitting pre-filled in the case have gone soggy, and that is the test of a pastry shop.
It is filled in front of you; otherwise the shell softens within half an hour. Look in the old Italian bakeries of the Bronx and Brooklyn rather than Little Italy.
-
Drink an egg cream Non-alcoholic drinks
Seltzer, milk and chocolate syrup whipped to a foamy head — no egg and no cream in it despite the name. A drink from Brooklyn's old soda fountains.
Drink it immediately while the head holds. It survives in old luncheonettes and Jewish delis rather than in coffee shops.
-
Get a coffee regular Non-alcoholic drinks
Bodega coffee in a paper cup: a regular means with milk and sugar rather than plain black. Cheap and available from six in the morning.
Say black if you want it plain, or you will get it sweet. The blue Greek-key paper cup became a symbol of the city.
-
Drink local craft beer Local alcohol
Brooklyn and Queens hold dozens of breweries, and most run their own taproom. Ask for a flight, a set of small glasses, to try several at once.
Bars run weekday happy hours until about seven, chalked on a board. At the bar the custom is to leave about a dollar per drink.
