Printed travel guides and hotel concierges direct visitors to many great dining spots in NYC, and to some that are not so great. They might send you to the Lower East Side for the best bagel with lox, Brooklyn for the most "authentic" blinis or best slice of pizza, or to Grand Central for an awful bowl of chowder.
You can also choose from what seems like dozens of Momofukus' and hundreds of Danny Meyers'.
Europeans, particularly the French, can even have the unusual experience of sitting in Balthazar in Soho, pretending to be New Yorkers who are pretending to be French. Or, they can perform the equivalent of Americans visiting Parisian McDonald's at one of the many new Le Pain Quotidiens around the city.
We want to remind visitors about a not so well-kept New York secret: the coffee shop, AKA diner, cafe, or luncheonette. If you've watched Seinfeld re-runs, you know the kind of place we mean; and, if you have not seen Seinfeld, stop reading this and go milk the cow.
Perhaps "Coffee Shop" is a misnomer. It's a bit like calling Saks Fifth Avenue a Tie Shop, just because it happens to sell ties. Coffee is beside the point; the point being that you can order just about any kind of food in this place and they always have it. Breakfast for dinner? Got it. Dinner for breakfast? Got it. Greek Salad, Belgian Waffles, English muffins, Southern Fried Chicken? Got, got, got and got.
Specialties of the house at any true coffee shop? Triple Decker Turkey Club, Toasted Bagel with Cream Cheese, Rice Pudding, Tuna on Rye Toast, and yes Belushi fans, Cheesebuggah Plattah. Plus hundreds of different kinds of "meat loaf" from veal to tofu (true): always get extra gravy, Friends.
Ten minutes after checking into The Gracie Inn on East 81st Street yesterday, I was in Gracie Mews Cafe. as opposed to just plain Gracie Cafe one block away. It was a close call between the two. I had a turkey club on whole wheat toast with Russian dressing on the side and a coffee. I was eating a late lunch, but, this being New York, others were working on their even later breakfast. The ones eating early dinner were preparing for their night shifts at the many other bars and restaurants nearby. New York is about work like Paris is about love, and we work/eat 24/7.
If visitors to NYC want a quick taste of the world, they should take the Number 7 train to Queens and hop off and on. There, they can have Argentinian chimichurri rib-eyes, foot long hero sandwiches with homemade sopresseta, and Malaysian dumplings made in Flushing by Koreans.
If they want to eat like true New Yorkers, many of whom never actually cook anything at home, they should get to the nearest Coffee Shop. There, for about ten bucks a person, you will see and hear characters who will make the Seinfeld cast and daily plot lines seem completely normal, and it's a lot cheaper than that Broadway show your Auntie told you to see.
One word regarding the idea that all of these shops are owned by Greek immigrants. We're not saying one way or the other, but considering the current state of the Euro, perhaps we now know what happens when everyone who knows anything about running a real business leaves Greece.
Note: Do we recommend The Gracie Inn? Not at this time; we'll re-visit after the renovation. Hopefully, Dan and Scott will retain the $129 rate and jettison a few "curiosities and eccentricities." With smart changes and some attention to detail, they can enter the rising 2-3 Star NYC market.-Ed
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