Our previous posts were about museums and neighbourhoods in New York. Now, it is all about food! Food in New York is cheap, tasty and big. When you come here its best to come after a long month of good dieting.

Though we grabbed a bit at lots of places, in this post we focus on a few outlets that left a mark for us. Also, please remember that we are budget traveling, so you wouldn’t be seeing any massive names or fine dine experiences.

Halal Guys

Halal Guys are an institution in New York. They started out as one food truck but now have four trucks on one corner and a take away restaurant. Their cuisine is Middle Eastern / Mediterranean and the meals come with meat / falafel, rice, vegetables and some amazing sauces.

Dalia and Ben took us there for dinner. The meal came in an aluminum container and was really big! In fact, it was so big that I believe if Shruti and I shared one, we both would be overeating. The biggest surprise is the price – $7 only.

Massive Pizza Slices in Queens

Dali and Ben challenged us to try pizza slices in Queens. Although we were already full after dinner, but we decided to give me. Once we got the slices, we realized why was it a challenge.

The slices were huge (bigger than Shruti’s head – see pic) though it was basically a Margarita / plain. However, they must have put some drugs in it because the taste was amazing. The freshness and the sauce combined made it so goood! And the cost, only $3 per slice.

Drinks & Fried Chicken

While were we evening an evening with Richa and Nik in New York, Nik and I decided to have beers and hot wings for dinner. I have always loved this combination, though the boys and I ate Korean fried chicken in Sydney. Unfortunately, the wings were incredibly hot (tabasco hot maybe) and the quantity was too large. We could manage only 5 each before giving up.

Authentic Mexican

For Richa’s birthday dinner, we headed to a Mexican Restaurant near Broadway. Over some Sangria (and couple of pre-drinks), we became a little adventurous. I ordered a grasshopper taco while Shruti requested for cactus taco.

The grasshoppers were a little salty but tasted no different than any other crunchy snack as they were deep fried. Shruti’s cactus taco had a sour slightly bitter taste. It wasn’t the usual burrito or nachos. We loved the place though, afterall Richa got a birthday song sung by the staff.

Australian

While in NYC, I got a little homesick. At the time, we were with Richa and Nik. As an excuse of showing them an Australian pub, I took everyone to The Australian Pub. The decor was all Aussie with Cricket, AFL and Rugby but there were only 2 Australian bottled beers: James Boag and Coopers Pale Ale. Dissapointing but I got my homesickness out!

Shake Shack

Shake Shack is a chain of fast food restaurants in the US. Shruti’s best friend’s husband recommended a mushroom burger to Shruti and we went to try it out. As expected, Shruti ordered the shroom burger and I had a chicken chilly dog with some fries and a jug of beer. The food quantity was less than the usual American Fast Food chain but then so was the price. All that for under $35!

Pub Burger

We wanted to try a pub burger in US but had not got the chance until we met Shruti’s friends Ashwati and Neha. I ordered a Turkey burger as there seemed to be a shortage of chicken burgers here and Shruti had a mushroom burger. Both came with fries and cheese and it was pretty hard to finish it all. You don’t get small food in the US that’s for sure!

Little Italy

Once we finished the gangster tour, we realised we close to Little Italy area. So we decided to have some Italian for lunch. The entire strip of Little Italy is full of Italian restaurants, making it so hard to pick.

We walked into Casa Bella as it was the hangout of gangsters in the 70s. I ordered a fettuccine alfredo while Shruti went with some ravioli. It was full of carbs, full of cheese and it was tasty. The portion sizes could have been a bit larger but we didn’t mind.

Afterwards, we had cannoli from an Italian lady outside the Most Precious Blood Church. It was like a thin waffle with a bit of cream in it. It was bellisimo!

Art Bar

After NYE, we decided to walk into a bar away from Times Sq and the crowds. Therefore, we found a bar in 14th St which was meant to be for backpackers. However, once we walked in there we realised, it was just the usual bar with a slight hipster crowd. In

any case, we had a few drinks and chatted to people about our trip and the fact that we were from Australia. I realised then that in America that is a great conversation starter! Australia is far away from America, and most Americans get quite excited and want to go over.

Kathi Rolls

We got told of Kathi Rolls by Shruti’s friends. It has been Shruti’s 4am food from the past and I had never tried it. So, we ended up grabbing going over to Kathi Roll Factory before an NBA game at Madison Sq Gardens. Shruti ordered an aaloo roll (potato) while I had a shami kebab roll (lamb) with chutney. It was damn tasty!

The paronthas were well done and the filling was equally flavourful and warm. In fact, we liked it so much that we had another one for the road.

Jake’s Dilemma

After enjoying the NBA game, we looked up bars with happy hour. Turns out in NYC there are plenty of bars that have promotions through the week. We ended up at Jake’s Dilemma for a few drinks and even though we had one too many, it did not hurt out wallet much. Everything was 1/2 price, YAY! And, they have beer pong tables. We played a couple of rounds and made some friends too.

Cheap Food Around

Apart from the usual McDs and Burger Kings, there are plenty of cheap food options in NYC. Almost every second street corner has a food cart, either a halal guy cart (PS, don’t confuse this to be The Halal Guys) or pretzels and roasted nuts. Plenty to give you the carbs and energy so you can continue exploring the city.

Additionally, there are lots of cheap pizza joints. The cheapest we came across was 99c, we tried it and loved it! In fact, if you go to the cheaper pizza joints, they are guaranteed to be fresh, though you will have very limited options. Mainly a plain pizza, i.e., margarita,  with the option to add additional toppings such as olives, pepperoni or more cheese.

Also, there are diners around as well. They serve breakfast and other items through the day for reasonable cost. And, their serving is usually massive with unlimited coffee refills. But, it is filter coffee, no milk, not the ones we are used to back home.

Summary

NYC caters for everyone. If you want to enjoy a nice fine dine dinner, you have it. And if you rather spend your money on other activities, finding cheap food is easy. So if you were us, good solid brekky at 10am and early dinner at 5:30pm could sort you out. Drinks and bar snacks are considered supper to us ;)

During our time in NY, we realised that New York is more than 1 city with 5 boroughs. It is a collection of communities living side by side. Here we try to outline about neighbourhoods in New York that we saw during our time here.

Before moving forward, hope you didn’t missed our post about Museums and Food options in NY. There are plenty to check out.

Brooklyn

Aside from Manhattan itself, we got to know Brooklyn pretty well as we were living there. Having seen plenty of it in movies and songs, living here definitely was an experience.

We had been told on tripadvisor that some parts of Brooklyn can be dangerous. Once we got to New York, we jumped on the A line stop to get to our apartment. Getting off at station and walking down the streets made us feel that we had entered the hood. Everyone we saw was African-American. While I had spent time in working class areas of Western Sydney with African population, this was something new and I must admit I was afraid.

Bedford-Stuyvesant

After walking down for about 15 mins, we reached our apartment. Turns out, it was in the Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn.

Over the two weeks, we learnt a bit about the area. The area was blue collar working class with major changes going on left, right and centre. The area had been populated by Afro-Caribbeans and African-Americans but the rising costs of housing had pushed more whites and other immigrants in the area. However, everyone we talked to was nice and proud of their area.

This was the area where Jay Z, Chris Rock, Michael Jordan and Laurence Fishburne had come from. It was now also a place where an urban cafe, Chinese takeway, Arab groceries, Caribbean West Indian food outlet and African American laundromat were all next to one another. How things change!

DUMBO

The official abbreviation for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. This area is right under Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. It is historic, has a great view of Manhattan and was most certain a hip part of town.

We walked this area on a freezing -5 to -7 degree celcius day. We took as many pictures as possible of the historic buildings as well as the view of the iconic bridges from the streets. A great place for a walk!

Williamsburg

This area is close to the midtown side of Manhattan. We heard a lot about the great bars and the restaurants in this area. The area has a similar feel to Surry Hills. The buildings are old but renovated. There is an oversupply of great bars, restaurants and hipster fashion.

I was craving a bit of Thai food since we’ve been away from Australia for so long. Therefore, we decided to visit a great Thai restaurant in the area. As expected, the range of conversations in the restaurant and along the streets were all about startups and exotic travel.

Cobble Hill

We ended up going to Cobble hill for a film. Walking through Court St, we were surprised by the number of kids on the street. The area seemed to be much more residential than any other area in New York we had visisted, except for Queens.

Manhattan

When people think of New York City, they think of Manhattan. The island represents the city. However, its a large place and its not so simple to call it all one area.

Downtown

This is the historic heart of Manhattan. Settled by the Dutch and bought by the British, it has a lot of history to tell. For a non-American or a non-New Yorker downtown has the Wall St, New York Stock Exchange, the late Twin Towers and the Charging Bull. It has huge buildings and a ‘out of my way’ vibe.

Midtown

Midtown also has the sky scrapers which New York is famous for. The most famous of these is the Empire State Building. There is also Time Square and the Rockerfeller Center both of which are very famous and very crowded. The Broadway theatres lie in this part of the town too. This area is usually the go-to destination for most tourists.

Little Italy & Nolita

We did a gangster tour of the area and learnt a lot of the history of the area. Little Italy including Nolita was once home to 2 million Italian-Americans, including the gangsters made famous by movies like the Godfather and Goodfellas. The numbers are now a handful.

Little Italy has been enshrined in films and by New York city itself. 3 blocks have been marked an historic place where lots of Italian Restaurants and Cannoli (italian desert) sellers try to earn a living. Oh, and the grand St Genaro’s feast goes down this area every year proving the very existence of gang families and their power play.

Chinatown

We covered Chinatown a few times including the ganster tour and just walking around. The area surrounds Little Italy and is one of the only working class neighbourhoods still left in Manhattan.

The area goes right between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and extends for few streets towards midtown. We heard different dialects of Chinese here, it seemed like people from different parts of China and Taiwan had designated areas. And, this place is still a hotbed of crime – including selling illegal bags and jewelry to this day. We witnessed it ourselves!

Soho

We ended up walking through Soho when we exited the wrong subway station for downtown. I am glad we did as we walked through little bakeries, cafes and the old fighting with the new. The developers are trying to re-brand the area but it still had its own character. The buildings are unique to Manhattan and still look as beautiful as they did when they were built. A must walk place!

Upper West Side

This area starts from Columbus Circle all the way till the end of Central Park. This area has some charming old buildings as well as great local pubs. It still has some working class character with the Central park being right in their backyard.

New Jersey

Although not really a part of New York state, some areas of Jersey act like a suburb of New York. We visited Edison which is home to a huge Indian community. Oak Tree Road had an amazing number of Indian stores as well as McMansions. Somehow New York doesn’t like New Jersey with an ad for a restaurant in the subway stating “Cooking! That’s so Jersey”. Go figure!

New York Overall

Go any part of the city and you will find similar apartments with amazing fire exits. Shruti loved them immensely!

There is so much to in New York and having spent 14 days here, we decided to split our posts by genre. This post is all about the museums in New York we visited. Read here for neighbourhoods and food in NYC.

America does museums well. Really well. They are huge and sometimes free. Therefore, you can get all the knowledge you want without a hefty cost.

9/11 Museum

I was 12 years old on 11th September 2001. Mum and I were sitting on our couch late at night watching TV when the first plane struck. We figured it was an accident and decided to sleep as it was a school day for me. When we woke up the next day, the world had changed. Nothing would be the same again.

While in New York, we had to visit the 9/11 site. The site itself is in downtown, close to Vasey St. It is a huge precinct and cannot be missed due to the new World Trade Center building. The site has two memorials, water fountains, for each tower and people that died in it as well as a memorial museum.

The entry ticket is $24 for adults. The entire museum is open to you with this ticket. Upon entering the museum, one is reminded and shocked by the images of that sad day. The museum is built several levels above the basement of the building. As you gradually travel down you learn about the building itself such as, why the towers were needed, the challenges in creating it and the geology which allowed such buildings to exist.

Shock and sadness are the repeated emotions in the museum as you learn of victims running through the fire escapes, fire fighters running in to save the people and phones calls of people calling their families for one last time. Through a series of exhibitions, we saw the victims photos and some of their belongings. You get the scale of the disaster when you see one metal pillar of the tower bent and broken like a piece of straw.

Finally, the events of the day are put in one section with news clips, quotes and air hostesses in hijacked planes. It has been nearly 15 years since 9/11 and one only understands what this day meant to America and other countries. What started that fateful day on 8:45am is still going and probably will go on for quite some time. Lest we forget!

Time needed: At least 3 hours
Visit site: National September 11 Memorial & Museum > Visit museum

American Museum of Natural History

This is one of the big museums in New York along with Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim. It is located next to Central Park. Due to Christmas holidays, the crowd was huge. As we got to the counter, we asked for general admission tickets. To our surprise, the cashier said “How much would you like to pay?”. “Excuse me?” we replied thinking we heard her wrong. The cashier then explained that the $22 price for adults was only “suggestive”. In Australian this means “Pay what you like, maaaate” and in Indian this means “Freeeeeeeeee!”. We still ended up donating $40.

As we entered the first section of the museum, we had to divide up the areas we wanted to see and ones we don’t. We visited the Asian peoples, African people’s and Native American section. At African section, Shruti had a panic attack about not being able to see the entire museum.

After this, we skipped an entire level and ended up at the extinct animals section. Seeing as time was running out and the crowd was the biggest in this section, we did a whirlwind tour of this section. However, the highlight was definitely seeing the large dinosaur skeletons as well as the dinosaur ancestors of modern birds.

American Museum of Natural History is gigantic. One could see it all in 8 hours and not read a single word in the museum. However, for most people it is impossible to do it all and that explains the “suggestive” prices. You pay according to what you want to see. It is not just big, it is incredibly detailed in humanities, astronomy and paleontology. Highly recommended!

Time needed: If you want to see and read it all, 3 days, otherwise split the visit by 6 hours for 2 days to go through everything. Lastly, do what we did, identify what is it you want to see and focus on it for 4 hours. Otherwise, this place will leave you information overloaded.
Visit site: American Museum of Natural History > Visit museum

National Museum of the American Indian

This museum is close to the Charging Bull, located in proximity to Battery Park. We happened to walk past this museum on Christmas day and I really wanted to see it. I felt that if we were in America, we should learn a little about the natives of this land. Actually I remember Shruti surprised me too – she wanted to see. AH WHAATT!

The museum is dedicated to all Natives of the Americas. You got to learn about the northern Canadian and Alaskan Tribes, Native Americans from all parts of the country, Native Central Americans, Incas, Aztecs, Maya, Mapuche of Chile, Brazilian Natives and even the Natives of the Caribbean.

In all, the museum is really detailed about tribes and their collections. They have interactive videos about some of the collections and one really gets to understand the differences and struggles of different tribes of this land. Even Shruti loved this museum as it had just the right amount of information. Unlike the American Museum of Natural History, it was not at all information overloaded.

I wish there was a museum of Australian aboriginals like this!

Cost: free
Time: 2.5 hours
Visit site: National Museum of American Indian > Visit museum

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Museum of Jewish Heritage is close to Battery Park as well. We picked it primarily because it was close to the  National Museum of American Indian. We visited it on Wednesday night and it was free to visit with donations.

While we had no one reason to visit this museum, we had always been intrigued by Jewish people and their stereotypes. The first part of the museum is primarily about Jewish practices, language, religion, politics and their arrival in America in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The second part is all about the build up of anti-jewish sentiment in Europe and the rise of Nazi Germany. It is quite scary when one sees the ghettos, media control and violence by Nazis. Even more sad is the fact that very few western nations at the time wanted to help the Jews.

The final part is about the end of war and creation of Israel and the future of Jews in the world. While we went in with no expectations, we ended up learning so much about the Jewish people, their plight and their future.

Like the Nation Museum of American Indian, this museum had just enough information and the events were recited in a visual story format making it very easy to follow.

Cost: $10 donation
Time: 2 hours
Visit site: Museum of Jewish Heritage > Visit museum

Conclusion

America has amazing museums. They are grand, well kept, detailed and extremely knowledgeable. Some can also be free depending on the day and time of week. If you are on budget, we recommended checking the timings of the museums so you can plan a good day out without hurting your wallet.

While we left out some big names, those were primarily art museums and we didn’t think we would enjoy them. New York City has a museum for all types of interests and can keep one occupied for a week.

So if you have been following our blog or the insta gallery, you know we are in Big Apple. There is plenty to see and do and lots of our friends and families here as well. When we had a chance of spending Christmas with Shruti’s family in New Jersey, we just could not say No! Although our wish to experience White Christmas went down the El Nino drain, we had the family trump card with us.

Christmas Eve

We were walking around Manhattan and googled events happening on Christmas eve. Turns out, there was a carols session taking place in Washington Park. We finished up with what we were doing and headed to the park.

We got there about 45 mins early only to realise we got there late. Most of the park benches were already taken.  We strolled around and snapped photos of the big Christmas tree by the park arch and massive colour patterns. It did look really pretty at dusk time. Btw, fun fact, Christmas trees in America are the real trees, the actual pine trees, not the plastic ones we pick up from a store back home.

After waiting for about 20 mins or so, the choir lined up and started singing the carols. We didn’t know this earlier, but this session was a ‘sing-along’, so the member of public were singing alongside the choir. Though at times the public missed the high pitch notes, it was all in Christmas spirit and laughed off.

I very quickly realised that Shruti knew some of the carols and I suppose that came from here schooling in a Christian school. While she was singing bits and humming most of the time, I stood there smiling and taking in the first-time-experience. Next Christmas in Sydney, I will definitely be googling for it.

The Busy Bull

The travel from Brooklyn to New Jersey is more than an hour so we decided to knock off a tourist spot along the way, the Charging Bull!

Based on a report in 2014, over 50 million tourists visit New York every year. Unfortunately for us, a large number of those visiting during Christmas had the same idea as us. When we got there, we were almost shocked to see the massive crowd.

As it is considered lucky to touch the bull’s head, there was a massive queue for it. We quickly realised that if we were to queue up, we would be standing around for 30 odd mins easy. So we decided to head to the backside of the bull. Turns out, we weren’t the only ones thinking of it too. There was a queue to take pictures with the bull’s bum and that wasn’t short either.

We quickly gave up and tried taking shots from whichever angle we could. Any part of the bull was acceptable by us.

The Ride to Jersey

New Jersey is adjacent to New York City but is separated by Hudson River. There is a train link between the two called the PATH train. Shruti’s cousin told us to get off at Exchange Place and he would pick us up from there. Turns out it is a great spot to admire the NYC skyline and the river.

New Jersey is home to many Indian immigrants and this was proved by an ad for ‘Comedy nights with Kapil‘, a highly successful Hindi comedy show, in the PATH train. Almost felt like India!

American Suburbia

Shruti’s cousin, Nikhil bhaiyya picked us up Exchange Place in Jersey City. We drove through small towns of New Jersey which serve as the suburbs of NYC. Along the way, we saw the port of New Jersey. However, the best thing for me was seeing all the trees completely bare in winter. We don’t see that back home.

The suburb are home to huge houses, lots of trees and lots of cars. The distances make public transport less frequent and making cars an absolute necessity. On the way back, we saw American McMansions, huge houses built on big blocks of land. While we thought Australia has huge houses, American houses out do those easily. It is the land of big food and big houses!

The Christmas Lights

We reached Edison, suburb in New Jersey named after Thomas Edison, as the sun was going down and we realised the houses were all decorated for Christmas. Living in Brooklyn and moving around in Manhattan didn’t really give us the full blown Christmas feel. Soon Nikhil bhaiyya realised that we were enjoying the lights so he decided to take a detour and show us more. Like back home, here Americans try and outdo one others. Some houses had the lights over including the the trees in the front yard.

We soon drove up to one particular house which was lit from roof to ground, leaving so spot unlit. I suppose that put all the neighbors in a weak spot as there was no other house lit up on that street! Talk about wiping out the competition.

Note: sorry we couldn’t take any photos as we were driving along and it was raining.

Meeting the Extended Family

Nikhil bhaiyya’s house was full of people Shruti and I had never met. Apart from his wife and twin girls Gauri and Shefali, there was his brother-in-law and cousin sister’s family. His brother-in-law, his wife and two daughters had driven over for Christmas from Washington DC while the cousin sister, her husband and two kids had driven from Pennsylvania.

Apart from being wowed by meeting so many people, I was impressed by them following the American culture so religiously (pun intended). They drove across states every Christmas and Thanksgiving to see one another.

The American Life

Bhaiyya and his relatives are all immigrants to America. They migrated here over 20 years ago for better opportunities for themselves and their kids. We had long conversation about America, its governance, states, weather, its culture and the life in this country.

Contrasting it to Australia, it couldn’t be more different. We have 6 states and 2 territories with little difference between some of them. USA has 50 states and most of them are vastly different to each other. The relatives were from 3 adjacent states next to each other but from their conversation they appeared to be vastly different.

While Jersey was close to New York, it’s culture was remarkably different. Similarly, Virginia sat on the edge of Washington DC and Southern America making it a political melting pot. Pennsylvania was between the two but was still different and even had Amish communities which are against the use of technology for religious reasons.

The weather was another major difference. While Australia is mostly hot, it had mild temperature and lack of major destructive forces except fire. America though can be very cold and has several different types of natural disasters. While we whinge about a rainy day, America gets snow storms where everything shuts down. They told us stories of snow storms and frostbite which certainly scared us for Alaska.

Another interesting aspect of America is the politics. The contest in Democratic and Republican convention is heating up. Though almost everyone at the Christmas dinner were Democrat supporters, they had all been hit by the costs of Obama Care. On the other hand, almost everyone agreed that Trump was a douchebag. Guys we’re all the same after all!

Indian American Ambitions

There were a few kids and teens at Bhaiyya’s house as well as Siddhant, ‘a grown up kid’, who was in 3rd year at university. The conversations with them and their parents revealed the high aims in education and in life. Moreover, the teens were already thinking of university, sometimes 3-4 years before entry.

There seemed to be a culture of following each other to the pursuit of the American dream with importance placed on family, background and knowledge. Perhaps this is how it had been for Jewish, Irish, Chinese and Italian immigrant families. Not long to go till we rockstars, judges, academics and politicians with the Indian background.

Goodbyes

We were having so much fun enjoying the food and conversing with the family that we ended up staying the night in Edison. The next day, we said our goodbyes to everyone. A few hugs, feet touches and waves later, we were out and back on the way to NYC.

The Spirit of Christmas

It was unexpected but we ended up spending the “real” Christmas with family. Having lived with my parents and not have many relatives in Australia, I couldn’t “go home” for Christmas. It was a similar case with Shruti. Surprisingly, a Christmas on the road ended up taking us “home for Christmas”. While we had never met the family before, a “home” afterall is a warm place, with great food, good vibes and amazing conversations. And that’s the spirit of Christmas!