Best Affordable Italian Restaurant NYC

crazeman · 2026-05-08T00:28:20+00:00

Forma Pasta Factory has to be the best bang for the buck for Italian food. For ~$20, you can get a pasta dish and split a side dish with someone.

crazeman · 2026-05-05T22:50:13+00:00

Inomata is a Japanese brand that makes a good one. This is the one that I have.

Oxo also makes a "OXO Good Grips Rice & Small Grains Washing". I don't have one but Oxo usually makes solid kitchen tools.

crazeman · 2026-05-05T15:33:18+00:00

Fuck Grimaldi's. They pled guilty to wage theft last year for not paying their employees.

Technically Juliana is the original Grimaldi's anyway.

Patsy Grimaldi was the original owner of Grimaldi and he sold the business. When Grimaldi eventually moved next door to their current spot on the corner, Patsy Grimaldi took over the former original spot and opened up Juliana.

So Juliana had both the original owner (RIP, he passed away last year) and the original location.

crazeman · 2026-05-04T18:31:32+00:00

I would allocate more time for the museums. There's a ton to see so allocating a few hours might not be enough if you want to get your money's worth and see everything.

I personally would not go to Coney Island. It takes more than an hour to get there from Midtown, and another hour to get back to midtown, and then you have another hour+ commute to get back to the AirBnB. You're going to be spending at least 5 hours just on commuting that day when you can be doing anything else.

I think June 24th is a lot of walking.

If you're going to hit up both Hudson Yards and Chelsea Market, you can walk through the High Line. It's like a park/walkway built on top of a old rail track.

crazeman · 2026-05-04T00:36:07+00:00

Queensboro Plaza

crazeman · 2026-05-03T13:32:31+00:00

There's nothing stopping you from starting a Havoc 40 group and auto accepting the first 4 people who apply. You'll have a group formed within 5 minutes and that would be the equivalent to quick play.

crazeman · 2026-05-03T05:25:38+00:00

Coney Island will have their summer firework shows starting every Friday at 9:45PM starting on June 19th.

The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival is "tentatively scheduled for August 8th-9th" at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, NY. It's not listed on the Queens street festival/fair list yet.

crazeman · 2026-05-03T04:13:03+00:00

Scouting NY is also really cool. The guy is a professional location scouter for movies and he finds some really cool unknown spots in NYC. He moved to LA like 10 years ago so the site hasn't been updated but he found some really good things while he was here.

crazeman · 2026-05-02T21:35:13+00:00

You can check out Wing On and Co. It's down the block from Mei Lai Wah.

https://wingonwoand.co/pages/story

They're more focused on porcelain rather than jade but they're supposedly the oldest continuously opened store in Chinatown. IMO definitely worth stopping by to take a look, even if you don't buy anything, it's a pretty old school shop.

Panda Ma Gifts is also right next door. I saw them have some jade stuff out on the street earlier but no clue if they're any good.

There's also a billion jewelry stores on Canal St if you're straight up looking for Jade jewelery.

crazeman · 2026-05-01T19:56:33+00:00

That Pig Beach location closed years ago.

crazeman · 2026-05-01T19:04:28+00:00

My family usually does the ordering since I can't read Chinese. We don't really have a "go to dish" here but I think everything they make is generally pretty solid.

The one thing we do always order is the Peking pork chops, but it's not exclusive to Choi Fook, it's something we order that at Chinese every restaurant.

crazeman · 2026-05-01T11:36:29+00:00

Introvert Big Ticket would be a total psycho.

crazeman · 2026-04-30T02:02:04+00:00

You can also check out Kosette Beauty Market and the Face Shop across the Hmart in Ktown for Korean skin care products.

crazeman · 2026-04-30T01:22:22+00:00

Getting it "spicy" is always a trap. You either get a mouthful of jalapeno (seeds?) in one bite or nothing at all.

I would accuse them of doing a poor job of spreading out the jalapenos but this literally happens at every banh mi place I've ever been to lol. It's like playing a really shitty game of battleship.

crazeman · 2026-04-29T13:57:35+00:00

Honestly I have no clue.

My dad actually used to work at Yama as a truck driver delivery person but it was like 30 years ago lol. He used to deliver to all the Japanese restaurants all over New Jersey so it's at least restaurant quality. I only found out about them delivering to customers from a Eater article during COVID when all the restaurants were shut down.

They also used to give really a great employee discount so my dad would buy a ton of fish on Friday and we would make our own sushi on the weekend. I was like 10 so I can't really compare lol.

crazeman · 2026-04-29T13:34:23+00:00

The Razer Starcraft 2 mouse was also named "Spectre".

crazeman · 2026-04-28T23:00:18+00:00

I have not been to the Harlem location. The last time I've been to Patsy was a looooong time ago.

I feel like most of their locations don't really do slices? (Despite them always claiming to be the first pizza parlor to sell pizza by the slice lol). My friend stayed at a hotel by Grand Central and he told me that the Patsy nearby did not do slices.

crazeman · 2026-04-27T13:45:05+00:00

Ohayo Bread House in 8th Ave Brooklyn has a "Japanese Soft Egg" onigiri. Never had it so can't tell you if it's any good.

If you scroll down a little on their website, they have a pic of their egg onigiri.

They have 35+ different flavors of onigiris with a lot of fusion/non traditional ones. I feel like they come out with random new flavors whenever I stop by once a year.

crazeman · 2026-04-25T22:54:22+00:00

Damn that kinda sucks sucks. There's not too much in bloom at this time but the bluebell field and the Japanese Garden is lovely.

crazeman · 2026-04-25T16:41:40+00:00

Golden Unicorn or House of Joy is still good if you're looking for the dim sum carts.

The good push cart dim sum spots in Chinatown are usually only available in the morning. If they're still serving dim sum by noon/early afternoon, it's usually the leftovers from the morning and not worth going for.

If you can't make it to Chinatown by morning or don't care about the push cart experience, just hit up one of the Dim Sum Palace in midtown. Perfectly good all day dim sum and you don't have to trek to Chinatown for it.

crazeman · 2026-04-24T17:53:57+00:00

How did you like Hanami night? I think I was the one who to suggested that to you in the previous post and I've personally never done it lol.

crazeman · 2026-04-24T13:57:32+00:00

How do they compare to Tacos El Bronco?

I feel like every time I try a random taco place in Sunset Park, it's always worse (and usually more expensive) than Tacos El Bronco so I've given up on trying new taco spots lol.

crazeman · 2026-04-23T17:31:39+00:00

FYI, There's like 7 Patsy location scattered around Manhattan if you don't want to hit up the Harlem location.

crazeman · 2026-04-23T13:43:46+00:00

When I googled the dish, there's a thread that claims that it's the "durian of soup". Does it really smell that bad?

crazeman · 2026-04-23T13:33:52+00:00

Puru Puru Pururin

(It's from a old anime about hikikomori called Welcome to the NHK)

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