Top 10 foods to try

in New York Hot dogs

 By Caitlin Zaino - Travel writer

Visiting the iconic city of New York and

taking in all it has to offer can be a
whirlwind experience. We've picked ten
all-American dishes to seek out while
exploring the Big Apple.

Hot dogs are as ubiquitous to New York as

yellow taxis. Traditionally made of ground
pork, beef or both, these frankfurter-style
sausages are flavoured with garlic, mustard
and nutmeg before being encased, cured,
smoked and cooked. Trek to Brooklyn to
visit Original Nathan’s Famous
Frankfurters, opened in 1915 by German-
born Charles Feltman who conceived of
the hot dog while pushing a pie cart along
Coney Island’s boardwalk. Or, stop by the
street carts on city corners for garlicky hot
dogs with grainy mustard and tangy
sauerkraut.

Along with the Statue of Liberty, yellow Chicken and waffles

cabs and skyscrapers, food is a
quintessential component of New York
Fried chicken served atop breakfast
City. The city's status as a cultural melting
pot means you can eat your way across the waffles is a combination that mystifies –
globe within the confines of one city, until you take a bite. The earliest chicken
taking in some rather iconic dishes along
and waffle meet-up appears in
the way. 
Pennsylvania, but a Southern food-inspired
Don’t leave New York take on the dish splashed onto the scene at
without trying… the Wells Supper Club in Harlem in the
mid-1900s. Though the restaurant’s doors
are now shuttered, the salty-meets-sweet
dish lives on in New York’s best soul food
joints.

Pastrami on rye
Thinly-sliced pastrami piled mile-high and
served hot on toasted caraway-flaked rye
bread is more than worthy of your NY
culinary bucket-list. Originally brought to
New York from Romania as goose
pastrami, today’s best Jewish delis, like
Katz, opt for pastrami made of beef brisket
that is cured in brine then seasoned with
garlic, coriander and loads of black pepper.
Enjoy it with a side of classic dill pickles
for a perfect New York lunch.
Pizza
New York pizza boasts a thin crust topped
with sweet marinara sauce flecked with
heaps of oregano and a heavy-hand of
mozzarella. Pizza spots dot the city’s
streets, perfect for picking up “a slice,” as
locals do, at any time of day or late into
the night. Neapolitan immigrants landing
in NY in the late 1800s are credited for
bringing pizza to the city and it was
Gennaro Lombardi, who opened the city’s
first pizzeria in 1897. Lombardi’s on
Spring Street still stands today.  
Cheesecake
New York cheesecake is known for its
simplicity: cream cheese, cream, eggs and
sugar are all that go into a local batch.
Diners throughout the city dish out
towering ivory slices, though the most
iconic is found at Junior’s Cheesecake in
Brooklyn. Opened in 1950, Junior’s has
used the same recipe for three generations
and is a cult favourite, well worth the
journey to the boroughs.
Black-and-white cookies
These half-black, half-white iced cookies are
more of a sponge cake than a proper biscuit.
Hailing from upstate New York in the early
20th century, the biscuits were the result of
left over cake butter, mixed with a touch of
extra flour to hold their shape. Skip the
plastic shrink-wrapped variety and opt for
those freshly made at local bakeries, with a
vanilla cake base and fudge icing on one
side, vanilla on the other.
Bagels
A great New York bagel will bring locals
to tears. A long-rise yeast bread with a ring
shape, bagels are boiled before baked,
creating a shiny exterior that yields to a
doughy centre (legend credits local water
for the unique NY bagel taste). It was
Eastern European Jewish immigrants that
brought bagels to New York in the late
1800s. Today, step into most delis or bagel
shops – or make a trip to Ross &
Daughters – for a sesame bagel
sandwiching smoked salmon lox and
copious cream cheese.
Knishes
Derived from the Yiddish word for
dumpling, a knish is thick, dense dough
that is baked, grilled or deep-fried. Potato
knishes with spicy brown mustard are a
NY classic, though mushroom, spinach
and other vegetables often find their way
into its doughy centre. Another Eastern
European gift from the 1900s, knishes are
commonly sold at diners, Jewish delis,
butcher shops and street vendors from
Brooklyn to the Bronx.
Spumoni
Wash down your pizza with a scoop of
cold, colourful spumoni. A cross between
an Italian ice and an ice cream, spumoni
originated in Naples as the ancestor to the
Napoleon ice cream. Spumoni, like its
descendent, is a trio of flavours, typically
chocolate, pistachio and cherry, though
vanilla, cannoli or cremelata often make an
appearance in place of the cherry.
General Tso’s Chicken
New Yorkers love to dip chopsticks into
those iconic white boxes, slurping out
General Tso’s Chicken. Made of chopped,
dark meat chicken that is battered, deep-
fried and coated in a sugary-sweet, rich
garlic hoisin sauce, speckled with hot chilli
peppers and sesame, General Tso’s
epitomises Chinese-American cuisine.
Though the General did exist, Chinese-
born Peng Chang-kuei is credited with
inventing the dish, which was introduced
to NY and subsequently Americanised
during the 1970s Hunan craze in the city.
A mainstay in Chinese-American takeout,
General Tso’s is best chased with a fortune
cookie baked in Brooklyn.
Caitlin Zaino is the founder of The Urban
Grocer and she's scouring the globe in
search of the world's most cutting-edge
food discoveries.