Hey, Real Cheap Eaters!

We’re in the preliminary stages of building a full-fledged mobile app for Real Cheap Eats, but if you’re an iPhone user with iOS5, you can use Foursquare Radar right now to scope out the best cheap eats near you!

Click here to follow our list for Real Cheap Eats NYC, then set your radar to receive notifications whenever you’re near one of our recommended dishes. If you’re a Real Cheap Eats pro, you’ll seek out the 18 places that don’t yet exist on Foursquare, then mayor that shit so we can add all of them to our list.

That’s right, “mayor that shit.” I say things on blogs I would never say in real life.

Don’t forget, you can let us know what you think by following us on Twitter, joining us on Facebook, or leaving a comment on this blog.

When our man in South Brooklyn, Robert Fernandez, told me about A Taste of Sheepshead Bay, I marked my calendar for a Q-Train adventure.

21 neighborhood restaurants and one bowl of complimentary mini Swedish Fish welcomed Noah and me at the local Knights of Columbus hall last night, nestled snugly against the Sheepshead Bay harbor. By the time we arrived, the banquet hall was in full tilt, filled with the clamor of jostling plates and decorated in advance for an impending All Hallow’s celebration.

Unlike other media-sponsored tastings, this was for locals and by locals. The scene, refreshingly un-scene, was more convivial than other events I’ve attended – but the entire affair was no less professional as a result.

The joint, however, was certainly packed. Table space in the dining room and barroom were so scarce that we took to dining with Dr. Acula in the lobby.

While not everything on offer fell into the category of $10 and under, the samsas from Nargis fit our preferences perfectly. Filled with moist chunks of fatty lamb and caramelized onion and served with a from-scratch sauce made of tomato, cilantro, dill, and cumin, these baked meat pastries (also available with pumpkin stuffing for $2.00 at the restaurant) were definitely a highlight.

What struck me most about the event was how earnestly it attempted to connect different members of the community. Organized through local news outlet Sheepshead Bites, A Taste of Sheepshead Bay resembled an especially open rotary party more than a press event aimed at “taste makers.” At the back of the hall, members of Brooklyn’s Turkish Cultural Center doled out pillowy bites of baklava and paper cups of Turkish coffee, telling locals about their upcoming cultural events and new developments at the Amity School, an international K-12 school with a heavily Turkish bent.

Cathy Erway first dove into the culture of food by Not Eating Out in New York for two years straight. The experience, which led to Cathy’s first book, The Art of Eating In taught her more than a thing or two about eating cheaply without ever having to eat poorly.

Cathy took a break from her current blogging project, Lunch at Sixpoint, to give us a few tips on how to get by when we’re not going out for grub. Let’s get cooking!

5 Essential Ingredients for the Real Cheap Home Cook

Are daintily packed mesclun greens and artisanal cheese giving your cooking habit a hard time? Imported avocados getting more oxidized and unsightly by the second? I won’t bore you with beans and rice, but here are a few staples in my kitchen that keep me going, on a dime:

Squid.

At about $5/lb on average, squid is a sustainable seafood that’s sustainable for your budget, too. Plus, it cooks quickly without fuss and can be added to your marinara sauce or grilled at your next barbecue all the same. Freeze it if you can’t finish it while it’s fresh, and it won’t suffer.

Tub o’ Miso Paste.

These things last in your fridge for up to a year – they’ve probably existed for as long as that already to ferment and age. Miso is definitely a healthy, less-expensive substitute for other umami favorites, like parmiggiano-reggiano cheese, and a versatile fix for salad dressings, marinades, sauces and soups.

Eggs.

A soft-cooked egg is a built-in sauce to add richness to just about anything, and a scrambled one, a binder for all the rest – be it in the form of a frittata, okonomiyaki, pa jeon, or a breakfast burrito. It’s a cheap protein even when you get the most responsibly produced (and most delicious) ones from a small farm, at about $4 a dozen.

Our contributors have set out to make Real Cheap Eats a true locals’ guide to New York’s cuisines. Layne Mosler of Taxi Gourmet and her band of writers take this idea quite literally to the street by sourcing their recommendations from cab drivers, then writing up the culinary adventures that ensue. We’re pretty excited to hear about a few of the highlights in New York – welcome to Real Cheap Eats, Layne!

RCL Enterprises – Sweet Potato Pie

• QNS
• $3.00
• VEG

I could just as easily wax poetic about the oxtails and turkey wings that cab driver Troy Johnson recommended at this soul food take-out spot near JFK airport, but RCL Enterprises’ sweet potato pie is perfection in a tin. The filling is smooth and rich, with just a touch of all-spice. The pale crust looks unimpressive, but is both flaky and buttery. I want this for Thanksgiving dessert for the rest of my life.

RCL Enterprises on Taxi Gourmet
14122 Rockaway Boulevard at 142nd St. (Map)
Queens, NY 11436
(718) 529-3576

Tandoori Food & Bakery – Samsa 

• QNS
• $2.00

I never imagined that a $2 samsa from an Uzbeki kosher tandoori oven in Queens would remind me of the otherworldly empanadas of Argentina – but it did. The filling – chunks of beef and onions laced with cumin – is more subdued than that of most Argentine empanadas, but the dough – buttery and beautifully browned – has the same chewy crispiness that only a clay oven can produce. Tandoori Food & Bakery is one of a handful of kosher Uzbeki restaurants in an area of Rego Park known as ‘Bukharan Broadway,’ all of which are closed on the Sabbath (from sundown on Friday and all day Saturday).

Tandoori Food & Bakery on Taxi Gourmet
99-04 63rd Rd. at 99th St.

There are times when the Real Cheap Eats team is not eating. There are also times when we’re not drinking. During these depressing, non-comestible moments of our New York lives, The Outdoor New Yorker is here to put things in perspective. Her blog, a descriptive index of New York’s easy-to-forget outdoor spaces, shows us what happens when you tear yourself away from the computers, restaurants, street carts, bars, and monumental downtown protests of New York life and seek out this city’s more slowly digestable experiences.

Best of all: It’s a cheap way to spend the day with your loved ones (and possibly with ducks). It looks like we’ve got an amenable Fall forecast this weekend, so take a tip from Judy and get real cheap outdoors before snow begins to fall.

Manhattan: The Central Park Conservatory Garden

In contrast to the other parts of Central Park, this garden has a formal grandeur that reveals its beauty quietly. It is ideal for those who want the most privacy Central Park can offer in a lush setting. The garden is actually three separate gardens, each highlighting a different European style. The vast Italian garden through which you enter offers quiet reading spots underneath the canopy of trees to the sides. The French Garden to your right reveals a group of sprightly statues in its center. The more subdued English Garden to your left provides a calming waterlily pond for reflection.

The entrance to the garden is at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue. The closest train station is at 103rd Street on the 6 line. Admission is free.

Brooklyn: Greenwood Cemetery

Greenwood is the kind of place where nature competes so well with the headstones and mausoleums, you actually forget for a minute that its purpose is to house the dead. It is also one of the quietest outdoor spots you’ll ever visit (for obvious reasons).

Our Fall Edition features continue with another local food enthusiast who knows a thing or two for eating on a budget. Since foraying into the food space in 2008, Dan Delaney has traveled all over the country searching and documenting the best street food America has to offer for his web show VendrTV. Now back home in Brooklyn, he hosts and produces an online cooking show about strange and unusual ingredients called What’s This Food?!.

Dan loves old school eateries, bike riding and hot New Orleans street jazz, and he has a few go-to’s in Manhattan and Queens for the real cheap eater.
Take it away, Dan!

King of Falafel & Shawarma – Chicken and Shawarma Over Rice

• QNS
• $6.00-$7.00

Letʼs face it: Halal Chicken and Rice is as ubiquitous of a N.Y. cheap eats dish as the bagel or hot dog. While less commonly associated with The Big Apple, I think it packs more punch that the other two combined, and one tin of spiced grains and juicy chicken flies high above the rest. Proudly nesting on the corner of Astoriaʼs 30th St. and Broadway Ave., The King of Falafel and Shawarma might be the best Halal NYC offers. Seasoned with a well thought out blend of warm, earthy, and astringent spices, each bite of owner Fares Zeidaies’ platter will have you crying, “Yeah baby!”

Prosperity Dumpling – Fried Dumplings

• MAN
• QNS
• $1.00

I can’t make a cheap eats list without throwing a dumpling joint into the mix. While I haven’t had all of them, I’ve had most of them, and for me the winner is still Prosperity Dumpling at 46 Eldridge. While the neighboring Lan Zhou comes in at a close second (and probably has better ambiance) I dig how plump, juicy, and rich Prosperty’s dumplings are.

The Real Cheap Eats Team is no stranger to Serious Eats New York, the NYC arm of the Serious Eats empire. Many of us have dined with the Serious Eats crew and written for Serious Eats blogs, so we were excited to hear just a few of their essential cheap eats recs of the moment.

Let the feast of a thousand dumplings begin!

Salumeria Biellese – Roast Beef and Mozzarella (Mondays Only)

• MAN
• $7.75

Penn Station may be a food wasteland, but Salumeria Biellese redeems it singlehandedly. My favorite order at this century-old meat shop is their Monday special: roast beef and their own mozzarella on a seeded roll. Beefy juices poured over the top really make it. A six-incher is $7.75 and can easily make two meals. -Carey Jones

Tasty Dumpling – Fried Dumplings

• MAN
• $1.25

Of all the various sizes and shapes of dumplings around the world, guo tie, the thick-skinned, crisp-on-the-bottom, tender-and-chewy, pan fried potstickers from Beijing are my favorite. Luckily, they’re also the best budget-friendly snack to find in Chinatown. The ones at Tasty Dumpling on Mulberry street have got a nice gingery-sweet filling and come stuffed with plenty of juicy pork. At $1.25 for five, they’re a full quarter more expensive than most of the $1 competition, but trust me, they’re worth the extra 25¢. -Kenji Lopez-Alt

Golden Steamer – Pumpkin Steam Buns

• MAN
• $0.75
• VEG

Ever since SEHQ moved to Chinatown, we haven’t gone a week, maybe even a few days, without picking up some steamed buns from Golden Steamer around the corner. The buns here are as tasty, satisfying and cheap as the name of the place is good. (Golden Steamer just has a special ring to it, right?) They do steamed buns of all kinds: pork, veggies, steamed egg yolk—but what I really love is the pumpkin.