Cicceti at Shelly's/ Photo by Kat Carney
All-You-Can-Take Sushi and Booze for $30
Moco Global Dining, 516 3rd Ave. (betw. E. 34th & 35th Sts.), 212-685-3663 This Asian fusion restaurant offers a pretty good deal: $25 for all-you-can-eat sushi, which you order off the menu, and continue ordering until you are two belt-buckles looser.What makes this restaurant a great deal, however, is that for five bucks more, you can have all-you-can-eat sushi and allyou-can-drink house wine and sake.
$16 for a Burger and Unlimited Beer
Paris Commune, 99 Bank St. (at Greenwich St.), 212-929-0509 Paris Commune has been doling out tastes of French culture in the West Village since the 1970s. As they celebrate their 30th year, all sorts of deals for the hungry connoisseur are available. On Sunday nights from 5 p.m. until 11, $16 will get you a juicy hamburger and as much beer as you can guzzle.Through March there’s Steak Special Mondays, where the staple steak frites is offered at $12.95, the original price of this dish when the place first opened.
The $8 Course
eighty one, 45 W. 81st St. (betw. Columbus Ave. & Central Park West), 212-873-8181 This Michelin-rated restaurant offers a ridiculously well-priced prix fixe—a choice of any two courses on their special menu for $30.81 per person. Considering that most entrees begin at $28, take advantage of this before the managers realize how crazy they are. Better yet, adding an additional course is only $8.10, so, being the economical New Yorker (or your Aunt Betty), just get another entrée wrapped up and save it for lunch tomorrow.
All-You-Can-Eat Tacos for $21
Mercadito Cantina, 172 Ave. B (betw. E. 10th & E. 11th Sts.), 212-388-1750 This cevicheria and taqueria features a broad range of regional Mexican cuisines, with fresh and authentic ingredients, including seafood items that are lacking in some South-of-the- Border restaurants. Understanding the level of addiction their tacos induce, Mercadito offers all-you-can-eat taco nights on Mondays and Tuesdays, where $21 gets you as much tortilla stuffed with herbed pork as you can handle.When the suckers normally go for $9 for two, this is not an opportunity to sleep on.
$1 Oatmeal
Jamba
Juice, 2341 Broadway (betw. W. 85th & W. 86th Sts.), other
locations, 212-873-7040 Through the end of March, Jamba Juice is
offering a promotion of $1 oatmeal for people who don’t get a healthy
breakfast, or those who are sick of paying out the nose for basics at
the deli. Go to oatmealforabuck.com and print out the coupon, so you
can get fresh, 100 percent organic steel-cut oatmeal that has been
cooking for 40 minutes before serving.
There are three toppings to choose from: apple-cinnamon and banana are nice, but avoid blueberry-blackberry, it’s only sugar.
Free Drinks during Name Night
No Idea (30 E. 20th St. betw. Park Ave. & Broadway, 212-777-0100) and Antarctica (287 Hudson St. at Spring St., 212-352-1666), are two fun bars with an equally amusing gimmick: Name Night, which is a calendar of featured names every evening these bars are open. If your name is featured, you can drink for free all night (while tipping the bartender, of course). A good excuse to get your cheap-o friends to leave the house—and you’ll need to, as you can’t show up alone and expect to drink for free!
Free Tater Tots
Trash Bar, 256 Grand St. (betw. Driggs Ave. & Roebling St.), Brooklyn, 718-599-1000 We’ve all had the free pizzas and the free cheese puffs—neither stunt seems worth the effort it takes to lift a pint to our lips anymore. Stop into Trash Bar, though, and in addition to some of the best (and sometimes worst) bands in town, you can grab a free order of hot, greasy tater tots just by asking. Add to that the free drinks from 8 to 9 p.m. nightly (you can also get the tots then, but tip big and ask nicely) and there’s no reason to go anywhere else for finger food ever again.
$20 Lobster Dinners
The Mermaid Inn, 96 Second Ave. (betw. E. 5th & E. 6th Sts.), 212-674-5870 The Mermaid Inn, 568 Amsterdam Ave. (betw. W. 87th & W. 88th Sts.), 212-799-7400 Get a taste of New England on the cheap! Mermaid Inn’s Blue Plate special means $20 gets you a lobster roll—which can cost up to $24 or more on its own elsewhere—Old Bay-seasoned fries and a Blue Point Beer everyday between 5:30 and 7 p.m.This is no ordinary roll: Cool lobster salad comes on toasted brioche bread, and the fries are served with malt vinegar to douse on top. Once the garden opens and you can dine outside, this will be just like a weekend on the Cape, except without the horror of driving with people from Massachusetts.
The Italian Job
Shelly’s New York, 41 W. 57th St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-245-2422 As a rule, everything in Midtown is both crowded and expensive. Shelly’s is almost always the exception. If you happen to swing by between 5 and 11:30 p.m., you can make an entire meal out of cicceti, the hors d’oeuvres the chef passes to the bar. Some of the little bites include mini sandwiches, housestyle pizza, flavored olives, pigs in a blanket, grilled bread with Gorgonzola cheese, shrimp croquettes, homemade potato chips and cookies. If you work in the neighborhood or want to get drunk with people who do, you can partake of this bounty for as little as $10—the cost of the bar’s cheapest glass of wine.
The $1 Dumpling Deal
Prosperity Dumpling, 46 Eldridge St. (betw. Hester & Canal Sts.), 212-343-0683 Everyone thinks that cheap dumplings are a given, but they can’t see what’s going on right before their eyes. Orders are shrinking:What used to be a Styrofoam container, stuffed with goodness and shoved over a counter with a grunt now contains a paltry three or four dumplings. Hell, the counter lady might even smile at you. Not at Prosperity.This Chinatown mainstay still dishes out five delicious little pot stickers for $1 just as God intended.
(Almost) The Cheapest Slice in Town
Two Brothers Pizza, 601 6th Ave. (betw. W. 17th & W. 18th Sts.), 212-206-8656 Sure, you can find a handful of 99-cent pizza places if you nose around Hell’s Kitchen a bit, but at Two Brothers, not only can you get a slice for a buck, you can get two slices and a soda for $2.75. A pizza, though, is greater than the sum of its parts; one slice from Stromboli’s might be worth two from the Brothers, but if you’re looking to keep your pockets lined, that’s a sacrifice you just might have to make.
The $1 Empanada
Mama’s Empanadas, 42-18 Greenpoint Ave. (at 42nd St.), Queens, 718-729-1303 The empanada is like the taco’s brainy cousin—more substantial but completely overlooked because of its odd casing and mushy flesh. For a measly buck, you can score one of Mama’s beauties stuffed with rice and beans, broccoli and cheese, beef or chicken. Hell, for less than a highfalutin’ taco at most places you can have one of each. Your dinner might be more popular, but ours is cheap and satisfying—which of those will keep you warm at night?
The Less-Than-$5 Brunch
Manhattan Three Decker, 695 Manhattan Ave. (betw. Bedford & Norman Aves.), B’klyn, 718-389-6565 There’s a much-loved Williamsburg restaurant named Diner, but if you’re looking for a real deal diner—like an episode of Alice right in Brooklyn—head over to Three Decker, a well worn, no-nonsense Greenpoint greasy spoon.While the masses wait at Enid’s or Brooklyn Label to dole out up to $10 for a basic breakfast, you can score a plate with two eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee and juice for $4.50 here (and if you’re a guest at the Greenpoint YMCA, breakfast is included in the price of your room).There’s no leek hash, fine herb frittata or Balthazar pastries, but the surly waitresses and odd mix of old people and local twenty-somethings has a charming flavor all its own.
