Often people ask me where to go for dinner as I have  become the person you go to when going out. Instead of listing off some of my picks willy-nilly, I am going to start posting them in segments.

This one deals with cheap eats and was inspired by my friend Jenny Neal who had me on her WIOX radio show The Economy of…, where we talked about how to eat out on a budget in New York.  I would post it here but can’t seem to get it small enough, so stayed tuned on that front!

Linnea Covington’s Top 10 Cheap Eats in NYC:

1. Zaab Elee: Some of the best, most authentic Thai in the East Village, and super affordable.
2. Caracas: They serve luscious Venezuelan arapas and amazing micheladas in two locations, the East Village and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
3. Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwich Shop: More of a lunch place, but they serve some of the best bahn mi I have ever had. Their pho is good too.
4. Veselka: For solid Ukrainian food (especially late night), this joint serves traditional pierogies, borsht, and potato pancakes.
5. Saraghina: When numerous well-reputed magazines review a place deep in Bed-Stuy, it’s got to be good. They aren’t wrong, this Neapolitan pizza place is great, especially in the summer in their garden sipping the house red.
6. Coppelia: Not only is it surprising that this 24-hour Latin diner in the Flatiron keeps prices low, but owner Julian Medina serves huge portions. You can easily get a dish and an appetizer for two people and be stuffed.
7. Mary’s Fish Camp: This West Village seafood place isn’t cheap, but for the kind of food Mary Redding serves, it’s a great deal. My favorite, her spicy conch chowder.
8. Saravanaa Bhavan: If you want an elegant setting to enjoy this classic South Indian restaurant you can head to the Upper West Side. Or hit up Curry Hill for a more laid back dinner of dosas. Either location is delicious and cheap.
9. Dutch Kills: They don’t serve food at this bar, but in the day of $15 cocktails, it’s nice to find a place that doesn’t charge so much. The only catch, it’s in Queens, but hey, it’s owned by Sasha Petraske so you get points for swank.
10. The Meatball Shop: There are three locations of this amazing spot, which serves an array of meatballs, seasonal salads, roasted veggies, and risotto. My favorite is there original in the Lower East Side, especially for lunch. Check out this Q&A I did with them a few months ago!

There you have it. Let me know if you try any of these and what you would add to the list.

“Beer is not the new wine,” said Goose Island owner Greg Hall, last night at the City Winery. “Craft beer is the new wine.” During yesterday’s NYC Brewer’s Choice, 15 brewers came out, most with rare, unobtainable, small-batch beers. Brooklyn Brewery was pouring a light and citrusy re-fermented Brooklyner Weisse they made for the occasion, HE’BREW offered their thick, hoppy R.I.P.A. Rye and lighter Rejewvenator, and Ray McNeill showed off the wound he got making a batch of ESP, which he brewed Tuesday, as well as the coffee and chocolate tinged Russian Imperial Stout.

It’s been a busy couple months of eating it up for the New York Press, especially in Brooklyn with one trek all the way up to 112th Street in Harlem. Here are the latest and greatest published reviews I have done.

Hot Bird in Fort Greene

“Hot Bird is owned by Frank Moe, the proprietor of Rope, Fort Greene’s popular art-student filled bar. Though Rope never hooked me in, Hot Bird is a different story. The bar gets its name from the famous chicken place that used to shell out roasted birds and ribs until it closed in the early 1990s, and while the restaurant doesn’t remain, the bright yellow signs that still deck a few building walls off of Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues have become iconic ads. One, which towers over the bar’s spacious front yard, only enhances the new bar’s appeal.” (read the rest here)

Nero Doro in Bed-Stuy

Nestled on the blossoming corner of Classon and Greene avenues is nero doro, a relaxing, simple and fresh Italian café owned by Italian transplant Carolina Barbagallo. the airy space hums with soft jazz (and, recently, the buzz of the vuvuzela during the World Cup matches) and beckons the weary traveler to take a seat in one of the cozy chairs or pastry-laden coffee bar. There you find Barbagallo at the helm, serving combos of salads, paninis and le piadine, a soft flat bread from the Emilia Romagna region in Italy. (read the rest here)

5 & Diamond in Harlem

After the trek from Brooklyn to Harlem, our mouths were watering as each plate whisked away from the kitchen to their assigned tables. While we longed to sample the fare, a mix of chef David Santos’ creations and those of the original man behind the stove, Ryan Skeen, our thoughts were distracted by the gossip surrounding the ex-chef de cuisine. skeen’s mysterious departure from the head chef position at 5 & Diamond right when it began to produce a lot of buzz, his past work at Irving Mill and his infamous email termination from Allen & Delancey had our curiosity whetted as we eagerly looked for him to whizz out of the kitchen like one of the plates. We never did see him, and instead ordered glasses of the mildly spicy Danjean Pinot Noir ($9) and some small plates to cure our hunger. (read the rest here)

I also did a preview of the NYC Food Film Festival, which was amazing. One of my favorite films was Florent: Queen of the Meat Market by David Sigal.

It’s a sad day when pizza disappoints, review of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint:

“New York feels so saturated with Neapolitan-style pizza restaurants that you can barely throw a wad of dough without hitting a wood-fired pie in any neighborhood. Greenpoint is just the latest area to embrace the trend with Paulie Gee’s, which opened mid-March in the old Paloma space. Run by its namesake, Paul Gianonne, this rustic restaurant is nestled in the hippest part of the neighborhood near staples like The Pencil Factory and The Black Rabbit, and, from the look of the crowd gathered on a recent weekday night, this joint is gearing up to become a permanent fixture.” – New York Press

Oh what a Tangled Vine we weave, but a delicious one!

“The wine list alone is organized in an unusual way, from the lightest of the brews to the richest. But even with the comical and well-informed descriptions under each offering, the staff is more than happy to pair wine with food, or just to offer a glass you will love. I was lucky enough to spend a recent evening with Tangled Vine’s wine director, Evan Spingarn, as he taught me what went with which dish, and how different wines could really bring out the flavor of the food. With more than 160 types of mainly.” – West Side Spirit

Pizzacone to the rescue! Feature on K! Pizzacone and how they are changing the world of pizza:

“Before it even properly launched, K! Pizzacone became a legend. A to-go box from the restaurant’s opening day sold for $56 on eBay, and one man from Charlottesville, Va., was so enamored with the idea of the pizzacone that he took a bus to New York during a category-5 blizzard, just to get a taste. “It was delicious,” he wrote in a blog post, which was merely signed “Alex.” But Alex’s excitement for K! Pizzacone isn’t unusual. On opening day last month the tiny, day-glow take-out joint was packed with the hungry, the curious and, of course, the food bloggers.” --New York Press

Two meat shops make their debut, reviews of This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef and Mile End:

“These days, meat is king. It seems like no matter what kind of flesh you’re interested in, there’s a shop devoted to making sure it’s readily available. And now we’ve got two new sandwich shops in the game: This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef and Mile End. Both focus on making a supreme meat sandwich, whether it’s roasted, braised, boiled or steamed.” – New York Press

I was overall pretty impressed with the spread.  There were creamy, mustard tinged deviled eggs from Fort Defiance; soft yet chewy beef jerky from The Vanderbilt, mini smoked meat sammies from Mile End, and savory meatballs with parsnip and pickled fennel from The Farm on Adderly.  One of my favorite stands, and by the length of the line, other people’s as well, was Palo Santo’s.  I last saw chef Jacques Gautier dishing out treats at the Gourmet Latino Festival preview, but was more impressed with the wild boar in mole negro tacos and tangy ceviche he served last night.  It went perfect with the smoky Ilegal Mezcal Joven and Reposado and spicy sangrita chaser he doled out along side the food.

Despite the tight, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, I was able to pick out a few familiar faces.  Of course Rachel Wharton and Gabrielle Langholtz from Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan were there, along with cookbook author Louisa Shafia, and Rick Field of Rick’s Picks, my favorite pickle company.   I finished up the night with a dark chocolate bonbon (or three) from Tumbador Chocolate and samples of Compass Box’s smoky, artisan scotch whiskey.  By the end of the event I was full and warm from too many cocktails like my favorite, Fort Defiance’s Warwick Bramble, which went down twice in smooth, berry sweet gulps.   Despite trying numerous concoctions and liquors, this morning I woke up refreshed, and wanting to do it all over again.

Who doesn’t love a pile of spicy, smoky, diced tomatoes with cilantro, lime, jalapeno, and onion, all mixed together and placed on top a corn chip, burrito, or taco?  In Colorado, you go to a Mexican restaurant and immediately they serve you a ramekin of garlicky tomato puree, rarely the bowl of fresh pico de gallo you get in New York (which people mistakenly call salsa).

But as New York Times writer Julia Moskin dives into the new Mexico chic cuisine that has popped up all over the city, she finds that a lot of places are getting this simple sounding, but not so simple dish, right.  Surprisingly, as a Mexican food snob, I totally agree with this article.  There are some great places to get some unique and tasty salsas.  Her list includes: Cascabel Taqueria, La Superior, Hecho en Dumbo, and more.  I would definitely add Cabrito, one of my personal favorite taco spots here, to the list.

Who has your favorite salsa?  And, what is the best way to make it?

Here is my quick and easy recipe:

Take one large can of whole peeled tomatoes (28 ounces) and put in food processor with:

2 garlic cloves

1 small onion (chopped before going in food processor)

1/4-cup fresh cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

1 jalapeño pepper

2 tsp Tabasco brand chipotle sauce

Dash of cayenne pepper

Dash of salt

Today New York Times writer Manny Fernandez wrote about the 99-cent pizza craze that has been spreading across Manhattan.  But, he isn’t the first one to note cheap, $1 and under food.  About a year ago, I did a round up for Serious Eats that included pork buns, noodles, and sticks of meat from Flushing, Queens’ Chinatown; $1 falafel sandwiches; cheap sushi; and 39 cents an ounce frozen yogurt.  Josh Bernstein has also been rounding up cheap eats by neighborhood for Metromix.  He recently stumbled on the Hell’s Kitchen area and talked about the same pizza Fernandez did in his article.

What’s up with this craze?  Is 99-cent pizza worth it?  Adam Kuban of Slice didn’t say in his cheap pizza battle last year, but he also didn’t say he really liked either pie.  Some things I think work well as $1 items, like ices on the street in the summer, hot dogs, and French fries.  But overall, I would rather pay $2 for a really good slice, then bother with a kind of gross one for less.

*Update: Here is the New York Press piece about RBC NYC.