In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City. The restaurant’s lunch specials are delicious and plentiful.
The food here is excellent! The Beef and String beans is wonderful.
East Garden Chinese Restaurant at 1685 First Avenue (Closed May 2024)
East Garden Chinese Restaurant is worth the special trip up the Q subway train or if you are going to the Metropolitan Art Museum and want a quick lunch. Their food is wonderful, perfectly cooked and full of flavor. The best part is that they have lunch specials that start at $5.95 that come with fried rice or white rice (you can add for an extra $1.00 Wonton, Egg Drop or Hot & Sour Soup). Their combination plates run between $8.75-$9.25 and include pork fried rice and an egg roll.
My first trip to the restaurant (See TripAdvisor for my review), I…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City. Don’t miss this pizzeria’s lunch specials. They are excellent!
La Crosta Pizzeria at 436 East 72nd Street closed in 2022.
(The restaurant closed in January 2022 and is being replaced by another pizzeria named York Pizzeria).
York Avenue Pizza took over the spot but the prices are now double of what they once were when the old restaurant was open.
I came across La Crosta when I first started to walk the rim of the middle section of the Upper East Side for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and found it was hidden behind some scaffolding around the building that it is located in. I saw several people walking in and decided to take a peek at the menu. It was very nice, very reasonable and had a nice selection. Their reviews on both TripAdvisor, Google and Yelp were very encouraging so when I did the extensive walk of the Avenues and then the Streets of the neighborhood, I decided to try it for lunch a few times. I have to say…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful restaurants that are reasonable in New York City. The burgers and sandwiches here are great.
My favorite is the Cheeseburger Deluxe meal
The Cheeseburger Deluxe with Fries and a Mexican Coke
Yum!
The prices and the service can’t be beat in this small Upper East Side restaurant.
I had passed Burger One a few times when visiting the Upper East Side and this little ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant was very busy feeding the locals who came in for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their prices are amazing reasonable for all items (especially in a place like the Upper East Side) and they have a nice selection of items for all meals.
The first time I went to Burger One was the first day of walking the Avenues of the Upper East Side (See review on TripAdvisor). The place was humming along with people ordering their lunches and dinners and their delivery guy dashing in and out of the place.
I ordered a Cheeseburger Deluxe (which is a 8 ounce freshly scooped burger)…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful restaurants that are reasonable in New York City.
Corrado Bread & Pastry’s outdoor cafe.
The case line of sandwiches and pastries
The Chicken Salad on a Brioche bun
*Bloggers Note: Corrado’s Bakery closed in early June of this year and is now being replaced by another coffee shop. The Upper East Side loses another great little restaurant.
I came across Corrado Bread & Pastry shop when I was walking around the Upper East Side for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and looked in the window to see a large display of pastries and sandwiches and decided I needed a dessert and walked in. What a delicious variety of foods so beautifully displayed and so colorfully placed like jewels in a case. The best part is that everything I tried was delicious and their prices are very fair for the neighborhood.
This indoor/outdoor cafe is a block from the main campus of Hunter College and caters to everyone from the college students up for coffee and pastries between classes…
I came across this wonderful little Vietnamese restaurant when I was walking the Turtle Bay neighborhood for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and was looking for a reasonable meal that evening. I was pleasantly surprised. The food and service were very good and the I had a nice time talking to other guests.
The space for the restaurant is quite tight and it is a long narrow space done in all woods along the walls and in the seating. The kitchen is in the front as you walk in but you can’t see where the cooking is being done. As I walked in at 5:00pm, I must have thrown the staff off as they were eating their lunch when I walked through the door. It was funny because not even five minutes later two other parties followed me into the restaurant.
The inside of Pho 2 at 273 Eighth Avenue
The service was very pleasant and the food came out in a timely basis. I started the meal with the pork filled Spring Rolls ($6.00) which were filled with well spiced ground pork and fresh vegetables and cooked to a golden brown. They had a nice crunch with every bite and with the accompanying sauce plus some hot sauce really brought out the flavor of the pork. A little different from their Chinese counterparts.
The Pho 6 Spring Rolls a very crisp and golden brown
They are so good
The crispy Spring Rolls were served with lettuce and Ginger sauce
The Spring Rolls were crisp and light made sweeter by the Ginger Sauce
For the main meal, I had the Vermicelli Noodles with Grilled Shrimp ($10.00). Most of the time I avoid grilled anything in restaurants because it always tastes dry. Not here as the shrimp was grilled to perfection. The outside was nicely marked but the inside was moist and sweet. The noodles were smooth and cooked to tenderness that were topped with fresh greens and carrots which made the dish sweet and crunchy with the ginger sauce that was served on the side.
Their Vermicelli Noodle dishes are delicious
The Rice Noodles with Grilled Shrimp are delicious
The menu also contains lots of different items from Banh Mi sandwiches to Rice Dishes, Vietnamese Tacos and Pho Noodle Soups, so there is a lot to choose from.
The whole meal was enjoyable from the food to the service to the ladies and their little baby sitting next to me that I talked to through my meal. It is a very engaging restaurant with good quality food, nice size portions, friendly service and very fair prices.
It is nice to discover these little neighborhood gems.
*Author’s Note: the restaurant closed during the COVID-19 pandemic but Pho 5 is in Murray Hill and Pho 4 is in the Garment District to enjoy.
The Pho 2:
Pho 2 at 273 Eighth Avenue
I really miss the Pho 6 but recently discovered that there is a branch of the restaurant around the corner from where I work on Eighth Avenue and I decided to try it for lunch. I was very impressed by this branch as well.
The Classic Banh Mi Special Sandwich
I had a Banh Mi Special sandwich, which is ham, sliced pork, pate, cilantro, carrots, daikon, and lettuce on a toasted baguette. The sandwich was excellent. All the meats were so fresh and the vegetables were so crispy.
The Banh Mi Special sandwich was delicious
The baguette was toasted perfectly and the sandwich was nicely accompanied by both Plum Sauce and Hot Sauce that you could add on top from the bottles on the table. The sandwich was really reasonable at $9.00.
The Classic Banh Mi sandwich is excellent at Pho 2
The service was quick and very pleasant. The food came out quickly. The quality of the food is excellent.
The inside of the restaurant is bright and cheery.
The next time I ate at the Chelsea branch, I wanted to try a different sandwich and choose the Grilled Chicken and it was delicious. Thinly sliced pieces of grilled chicken marinated and perfectly grilled with lots of fresh vegetables on top on a chewy role is excellent.
The Grilled Chicken sandwich.
The food here is always consistent and fresh.
The chicken sandwich is wonderful.
I always enjoy eating here.
The Grilled Chicken sandwich was excellent.
Yum!
I recently returned to have dinner with a friend at Pho 2 and we each ordered a Bahn Mi sandwich and two types of Spring rolls. The food as usual was excellent.
She had the Classic sandwich with pork and pate and I had the Beef which is a combination of flank steak and rib. It was excellent. The thinly sliced meat complimented the crisp vegetables.
The beef was so tender and the vegetables very crisp.
The sandwich was a great combination of flavors.
Along with our sandwiches, we order both the Pork Spring Rolls and the Duck Spring Rolls. Both were so well cooked and seasoned. The Pork Spring Rolls were served with a Ginger Sauce and the Duck Spring Rolls served with a Hot Chili sauce.
The perfect dinner: A Beef Bahn Mi and Pork Spring Rolls
The delicious Spring Rolls wrapped in lettuce and then dipped in sweet sauce
The Duck Spring Rolls are loaded with sweet thinly sliced Duck meat.
The Duck Spring Rolls with the hot chili sauce
The Duck was so sweet and rich with the chili sauce to accompany it.
We ordered the Fresh Spring Rolls on our next trip which had delicious marinaded pork
I never realized how good these were until I tried them
A new item that they are featuring were a Soft Tacos with pork, chicken and shrimp. We tried the Pork and Chicken versions and tucked into the soft taco shells and a little plum sauce, these were delicious.
The Grilled Pork Tacos
The Grilled Beef Tacos
The Beef Tacos were just amazing
The Tacos were served two per portion and made the perfect start to our meal.
The food is truly excellent here.
The Pho Maiden Lane:
I was staying overnight in Lower Manhattan and right across the street from my hotel was Pho Maiden Lane so I wanted to try this one as well. I never realized that this was a small chain in Manhattan.
The Pho Maiden Lane at 3 Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan
This time I tried the Grilled Pork Bahn Mi with a Coke and it was the perfect sized dinner. The pork was so nicely marinaded in a soy and hoisin sauce. The taste was so amazing with the fresh vegetables and crisp bread.
The food was excellent again and the service was attentive and friendly. I will be back again in the future.
The fresh bread and well cooked and spiced meat really does make a difference
The meat is well spiced
It is a well designed restaurant for the space
I had the Vietnamese Noodles with Shrimp and their noodles were just as good as the other branches.
The Noodles are really good
The Pork Spring Rolls here are perfectly fried and filled with a wonderful spiced pork mixture and were delicious.
The Pork Spring Rolls are wonderful here
The Spring Rolls are excellent
Yum!
After dinner I walked around Lower Manhattan and the views are amazing.
I came across this wonderful little Vietnamese restaurant when I was walking the Turtle Bay neighborhood for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and was looking for a reasonable meal that evening. I was pleasantly surprised. The food and service were very good and the I had a nice time talking to other guests.
The space for the restaurant is quite tight and it is a long narrow space done in all woods along the walls and in the seating. The kitchen is in the front as you walk in but you can’t see where the cooking is being done. As I walked in at 5:00pm, I must have thrown the staff off as they were eating their lunch when I walked through the door. It was funny because not…
In honor of Small Business Saturday I am sending out merchants I have found on MywalkinManhattan. Don’t miss this unique toy store. A real one of a kind.
I discovered this store for the first time on my walking project, ‘MywalkinManhattan.com’, when I was walking the Upper East Side. Coming from the Toy Industry (I worked for FAO Schwarz for four years in both main New York store on Fifth Avenue and the Minneapolis store for four months in 1987), I recognized the beauty and fun of the Tiny Doll House.
When I walked in I was greeted by a woman who explaining the store to another customer. One side of the store has all sorts of things to decorate a dollhouse that were all handmade like dolls, food, furniture and accessories that would be the envy of any home. Even the paints to put over a doll house mantle were hand painted (or at…
In honor of Small Business Saturday I am sending out the merchants I have found on MywalkinManhattan. Don’t miss Harbs $22.00 lunch special. It is excellent!
Harbs is the first restaurant I have put on the site because it does not quite fit into my ‘DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com site because of its prices and due to the bakery up front, it is a combination of upscale bakery and cafe.
This Japanese inspired upscale tea and coffee shop/bakery I discovered when walking around the Upper East Side for my “MywalkinManhattan.com” blog site when exploring the Upper East Side (Days 101-104). The restaurants philosophy is to offer the freshest ingredients with a handmade quality to all of their food items. It really shows in the quality of all of the lunches and desserts that I have had there.
First off, the food and the service are excellent. Harbs is one of those rare restaurants that has all the components of a…
In honor of Small Business Saturday I am sending out merchants I have found on MywalkinManhattan.com. Sutton Clock Shop is not only a place to have any type of clock repaired but has a curio shelf of unusual trinkets and baubles to choose from.
Sutton Clock Shop
218 East 82nd Street
New York, NY 10028
(212) 758-2260
info@suttonclocks.com
Hours: Tuesday-Friday-11:00am-4:00pm
The Sutton Clock Shop is fascinating store that literally runs on time. It is one of the few shops in New York that is strictly for watch repair and sales. When you walk into the store, the walls are lined with clocks of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages. They work on modern clocks with the same precision and care as they would an antique or grandfather clock.
In the front of the store, there are case lines of antique curios and bric-a-brac that includes pieces of jewelry, small table pieces and decor items all displayed with gentle care to show their beauty. The prices are very fair as well depending on the piece. This is run by Knud’s wife, Sonia Laws, who takes special pride in the small trinkets of elegance that line…
I visited the Royal-Athena Galleries when I was touring the Turtle Bay neighborhood recently and it is an interesting mix of gallery and museum. The ancient art pieces are items that you would see in major collections and in the halls of well-known museums. Inside each of the cases and art that lined the tables were from Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy.
Museum quality art work lines the cases and tables of the store
There was everything from large statues to small items like idols, coins, figure heads, bowls and vases. Each case told a story of a collection and each piece was marked with what the piece was, where it was from, sometimes a previous owner and the price. It was like going to the…
On November 30th, 2019, small businesses all over Main Streets and Downtown’s all over the country celebrated the Ninth Anniversary of “Small Business Saturday”, a shopping day dedicated to individual and small business owners.
Harbs on the Upper East Side of Manhattan
My blog. LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com honors those business owners first in New York City and now all over the Eastern Seaboard whose business owners offering interesting one of kind merchandise, unique merchandising design and placement of their goods and interesting window displays that showcase their stores.
Amado on Third on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at Halloween
Each store featured in this blog showcases the store’s individuality of the owner and the excellent customer service you will receive when you walk in. The in-personality of the big department stores demoans their failure but I think it is just corporate America answering what they think customers want. I think interesting…
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