Over the course of four days, we tried to eat as much as we could in New York City.

At the very least, I go to New York City once every other month. I have a lot of work to do in the city, so when it comes time to go back up for work, I book a cheap bus ticket and find myself ready to endure the long bus ride up to the city. Having taken the bus over 60 times at this point, I do wonder how many hours of my life I’ve lost to that bus.

Anyways, my spring break my friend and I decided to make plans to come up to the city. She had never been, and then when we came up to the city for a WOODZ concert in December 2023, she saw there were a ton of different things to do and eat. She asked me if we could come, and I arranged a place for us to stay.

We only really had a few objectives during this trip, and eating our way around the city was one of them. Neither of us really eat breakfast or have big stomachs, but we wanted to try as much as we could before we found ourselves on the bus back home to Baltimore. With that in mind, I made an epic schedule.

Here’s everything we ate over the course of a few days in New York City! We often split one dish wherever we went, which meant we got to try many different things.

Brooklyn and Park Slope: La Bagel Delight, Danbo Ramen, Brooklyn Farmacy

This trip, we were staying in Brooklyn, which meant we had a few opportunities to eat our way around the neighborhood. When we arrived in the city, we dropped our belongings off at my boss’s apartment, and then we all went out to eat at Ramen Danbo. Ramen Danbo is some of my favorite ramen in the city, and I got the classic tonkatsu with extra spice. We all nodded along to our bowls of noodles, which were delicious.

One morning I told her she had to eat at La Bagel Delight, and while she didn’t order anything for herself, I ordered my typical bagel: the Midwest Monster on an everything bagel. It’s a bagel with egg, bacon, and cheddar cheese on a bagel of your choice. She had some of my bagel, and I showed her why it was one of my favorite spots in the neighborhood.

Finally, one night we walked all the way from the Brookly Bridge to Brooklyn Farmacy, an old school ice cream and soda pop shop. And man, I loved the vibes in there—it was like straight out of the 1950s. I got a cherry cola float, and my friend got a mint chip sundae. We adored what we got, and if I lived in the neighborhood, I would go here often to be honest when I need a sweet treat.

Harlem: Pikine Senegalese Restaurant

This was on the list to hit up after we walked the length of Central Park, and we went to Pikine at the perfect time. At 6 PM during Ramadan, the place was empty. By the time we started walking out though, it was almost sundown, and it began to get really crowded.

We ordered a chicken dish to split with plantains. It comes with a side of onions that were made in a mustard sauce, and we were also given bread to start the meal off with. We ordered some Vimto to drink while we ate, which I heavily appreciated because I’m such a big fan of Vimto.

That meal was absolutely delicious. The chicken was seasoned perfectly, and the plantains were some of the best I ever had. My friend polished off the mustard sauce onions, which I found myself reaching for less compared to the plantains. We did think we were overcharged here, though, because they charged us $40 for a plate we split when the menu said like $20.

Jackson Heights: Tong NYC, Ihawan, Copacabana Brazilian Grill

I wanted my friend to see Jackson Heights, as I truly really love this neighborhood. We stopped first at Copacabana Brazilian Grill, which is a place where you grab a container, load it up, and then pay by the pound. They also have an excellent selection of roasted meats, and we grabbed some of the steak that were still on the skewer. Our total came out to $30 for the two of us to split one big container stuffed with meat.

That might seem high, but you should’ve seen our container. It had so much meat, and we ordered two Guarana sodas to eat along with our food. After finishing up there, we ventured to my favorite Bangladeshi fuchka truck: Tong. The bhai there gave us some fuchka that we snacked on, which are some of the best snacks in town.

After that, we headed to our final location: Ihawan. We wanted to try some Filipino food, but were almost full. So we ordered a lechon with garlic fried rice to split, and then two melon drinks. Those melon drinks were absolutely delicious—that was one of the best drinks I had during the entire trip.

The lechon was a little too fried, as it was hard, but it was good with the liver sauce. We saw what some of the other tables were getting, and it looked delicious, so I’ll be back eventually!

To read about our time in Flushing, head to the blog post I made about our eating adventure there!

Other random places we went to were Empanada, 7th Street Burger, Mama and Angelina Paris.

One of my friend’s final requests before we skipped town was to get a burger, so when we were near Times Square, I found a Tik Tok famous place called 7th Street Burger. There are very few seats in there, but we snagged one with an older gentleman who was kind enough to let us sit there.

I've never really had a good burger, so I have no idea what is actually good, but my friend said these ones were really divine. They were smashed burgers, so they were dripping in grease and sauce. I’d say it was pretty decent honestly. After that we headed to Angelina Paris for hot chocolate, macarons, and tea, as we had time to burn.

In our last few hours, we decided to hit up an old favorite before getting back onto the bus home. We had been to Empanada Mama when we went to the concert in December, and my friend requested that we go again before we went to the bus. I go to Empanada Mama a lot, as it’s cheap and convenient in Times Square’s express location.

I didn’t get anything to eat this time, but my friend ordered the Viagra Empanada and a Jamaican style one with peas, yellow rice, and jerk meat. She raved about them as per usual, which means they hit well.

And that was the end of our food adventures this time! We truly ate our feelings.

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