$3.50 Chinese Take Out - Chinatown

You've probably been to Chinatown a bunch of times and you probably wonder where the legit Chinese people go eat normally while you sit down to some restaurant that you think is cheap because of your slimy bourgeoisie mentality. They go to places like this.


Yeah, I don't even know the name of this place, but it's on the north side of Chatham Square on Bowery right above the intersection of Division St. There's two signs that detail the options you have here: 1) $4 Eat-in and you get 5 choices from a long buffet counter on a styrofoam tray like you used to get in elementary school 2) $3.50 Take-out and you get a styrofoam compartmental container (shown in picture above) that comes with white rice and 4 choices from the buffet counter as well as a small soup. That's a lot of food for less than $4.

This place is a mecca for cheap eating in New York, which is why all the locals eat there--this isn't the place where tourists go; it's not fancy or well furnished and if you're not comfortable around crowds on non-english speaking Chinese people then you might not want to go here. After paying for your tray you can go to the buffet and point out your selections to the servers who will dish it out to you--after your 4 or 5 selections you will have a nice mountain of food on your tray.

In terms of quality, the food is good--better than a lot of standard American-Chinese restaurants and obviously way cheaper. They do have the American style stuff if you're too afraid to branch out: General Tso's, sweet and sour chicken, spare ribs, chicken wings, lo mein, etc. But they have a lot of other good choices and some weird ones too (scrambled eggs and tomatoes?) but the quality is good and fresh. All of the vegetables are very fresh which is amazing to think you can get fresh vegetables at a place this cheap while most Chinese places in the 'burbs are using frozen crap. I recently went here for an early dinner and it was amazing: fluffy and sticky white rice straight from the ricecooker just like at home, tender bok choy, pork tenderloin . . . it was great.

I can't recommend this enough to the cheapass foodies out there like me.