A Robert Sietsema Top Cheap Eat: This place dished out delicious pastas that run as low as $7.99, served with bread, olive oil, and as much ROmano as you'd care to sprinkle on. Read more.
Try the Curious George ($6.95), which includes three fried eggs, French fries in the sandwich (Yay!), 3 strips of bacon, 2 slices of melted cheese, and two pieces of boiled luncheon meat ham. Read more.
A Robert Sietsema's top cheap eat: ask for your falafel "all the way" and Casablanca throws carrots, cucumbers, and beet-dyed radishes in the sandwich, doubling the volume and tripling the flavor. Read more.
A Robert Sietsema top cheap eat: Why not take advantage of the expertly prepared Chinese charcuterie? Any two selections from the front window over rice comes to $6. Ask for "green sauce." Read more.
One of Robert Sietsema's top cheap eats: the wings ($7.81 for six pieces, or sometimes seven) are big and meaty and glazed, and constitute perfect stoner food. Read more.
To Laiko ("The People's") is a closet of a bakery famous for its iced coffee and filo-bearing pastries. The spanakopita comes in giant sheets, and is steaming hot as it's served up. Read more.
This cozy new Astoria Japanese restaurant serves 14 varieties of ramen, plus rice bowls, salads, and snacks. Several Yelpers and Foursquare users recommend the cold ramen dishes.
Try the thukpa, a really wonderful salad of shredded chayote, and a fiery curry of cubed chicken sided with a steamed loaf of bread. It was way more than we could finish, and the entire tab was $19. Read more.
Robert Sietsema dined on mafe, a Senegalese lamb stew in a creamy peanut sauce, served with white rice topped with a steamed Scotch bonnet pepper, for extra spiciness. Not hot enough? Ask for "pima." Read more.
Robert Sietsema suggest the pork roast: "The meat is fragrant and tender, and runs from a medium gray-brown to darker patches and streaks, and comes accompanied by crisp pieces of skin." Read more.
One of Robert Sietsema's top cheap eats: Try the steam roast chicken. There's nothing roasted about it—the bird is simply steamed with a spice paste that might remind you of tandoori chicken Read more.
Robert Sietsema: A favorite on a first visit was a chicken shawarma and babagnaoush platter ($9), the spice-rubbed poultry deposited right on top of the eggplant dip and squiggled with tahini. Read more.
A Robert Sietsema top cheap eat: the regular red tandoori chicken is probably a shade better than any other version you've tried. Read more.
Try the "tripe special"—a Sicilian stew of potatoes and tripe in a wonderfully oily red broth, for a total of $41, including tax. Restaurant food doesn't get much cheaper than that. Read more.
Get the Crossing the Bridge Noodles, featuring a steaming bowl of plain broth in which you cook thin-sliced pork, black medicinal chicken, quail eggs, garlic, chives, sprouts, and soft noodles. Read more.
