15 Best dishes in New York City

I truly can't speak highly enough of their pizza. Being my first time in NYC, I did my best to research and find the best authentic NY style pizza, and I think I picked the perfect spot. We tried several slices but by FAR my favorite was the classic pepperoni with burrata (honesty no matter what you pick, add burrata).

Super crispy crust, great strong flavors in the sauce and meats, and that cold creamy burrata takes it to a whole different level. I want to return VERY badly and order a whole pie. They were pretty packed even into the late evening but NO ONE wanted to sit AT the bar inside so it was empty. It was easy seating and we had a great time watching the pizzas being made.

This is a huge grocery with great selection, however I was here for what turned out to seem like a "secret menu" of sandwiches. I was told this was a great place for pastrami sandwiches, but when I get there I was honestly lost trying to figure out where to actually order these sandwiches. The deli counter has a small sign for this "menu", which gives you HUGE sandwiches freshly made.

Even a local there saw it being made and didn't know about it, so I guess it is a bit of a hidden gem. I'm not a HUGE fan of rye or mustard but the fresh tender meat pulled it through, and I enjoyed it quite a bit (though I stand by it having way too much mustard).

This was a wonderful little gem we picked out for our evening. We tried a variety of dishes and enjoyed ALL of them except for the pork belly dish (not much flavor except for spice and cucumber).

Their noodles, wontons in chili oil, and mongolian beef (my favorite) were super delicious! Very interesting menu as well with dishes of all sorts I hadn't heard of.

Beautiful beautiful beautiful atmosphere!

This was the first place we went to after finally arriving at our hotel outside of NYC. I’ll admit, a Tiktok of the Boloney Rex got me to come here. Sometimes, those videos makes a dish LOOK amazing but then they disappoint. NOT HERE.

In fact, it was so delicious that it was so VERY hard not to come back again (but I had to resist - too many other new places to try!).

First, the staff was SO kind. There were 4 of us, so we picked out 2 slices and then planned to split the insane sandwich known as the Boloney Rex (a literal entire bone-in short rib - I'll talk more about this beast in a second). They generously gave us two MORE slices for free, so we left full! We also got garlic knots and drinks included as a combo.

We finally found our first Wagyu Sando to try, which has been on my wish list for some time! It was pretty tender and delicious, with GREAT fries. I did think it was a bit overcooked and the bread a bit soggy from beef juices more than I'd like (even though we ate it fresh there).

Great place for a variety of Japanese dishes! I absolutely LOVED the pork rice bowl with a delicious sauce and mayo (yes it works!).

My other recommendations are the pork buns and fried chicken buns, as well as ramen. A great experience to sit at the bar and watch them cook!

After a poor Korean BBQ experience for my first time in Chicago, it was relieving to go somewhere else and see how good it CAN be. They do the cooking for you (which I do still wish I could do it myself), with tons of classic sides at the table ready for us in advanced, and all 3 meats of our course were delicious!

We also got a great Korean seafood pancake loaded with shrimp and squid as well - HUGE, thick, and amazing.

This little gem is located at the Grand Bazaar on weekends (at least when I was there). There were a lot of great dishes at the Bazaar, but this was by far our FAVORITE vendor.

The fried calamari, freshly fried and seasoned/sauced up, was insanely tender, fresh, and delicious. They also had delicious sausages and I dared to go back and try their blood pudding “cakes”, which were honestly not that bad at all but not my thing.

How can you NOT love combining refreshing soft serve with fluffy hot Taiyaki? As a photographer, you also can't beat how Instagram-worthy it looks, so cute!

My only complaint that I don't really know how to fix is how VERY VERY quickly your soft serve will melt against the hot and fresh Taiyaki. I liked that being hot, so you just have to EAT QUICK!

The matcha milk drink was also great, though don't sip before shaking it up like I did - SO BITER that I thought I hated it. It does look pretty unshaken but it is obviously much better once the matcha is shaken up with the milk :)

Tiktok has steered me great a second time! Located in the iconic Greenwich Village, This adorable little restaurant focuses. 100%. On. Fries. They are serving up FANTASTICALLY crispy and fluffy hot fries with an equally fantastic sauce selection.

We tried 3 sauces - the supreme truffle (so amazing with the black truffle ketchup, white truffle mayo, and topped with cheese/herbs), the roasted garlic (a very nice garlic aioli basically but done very well) and the Thai Chili Ketchup (a refreshing choice of the 3, light with some spice, a great elevated ketchup).

Last, the watermelon slushy drink was VERY great, I downed it quickly and 200% would come back here again.

Lured here from seeing their delicious loaded hot chocolates (Tiktok to the credit again!), we were surprised that the deliciously loaded hot chocolates took 2nd place to their amazing pancakes! My wife STILL talks about them, too bad they are so far away from us!

The pancake trio that I ordered was greatly appreciated for someone who likes to try as many new things as possible. All were great, but the cinnamon roll pancakes are truly spectacular.

An iconic cookie place that serves pre-packaged cookies that still have a great softness to them. It is a solid cookie with fun options for sure! I wish they were served fresh warm for max perfection (so perhaps taking them home to do that is best).

This was a cute little restaurant right by our hotel and we had ZERO regrets. It felt very authentic (you can always tell by the clientele), and we enjoyed a variety of dim sum, as well as pork fried rice. Two of our dim sum were filled with a super delicious and sweet egg custard (one a fried corn ball I think and the other a super soft outside).

Our 3rd dim sum was a pork soup dumpling. It was my first time trying a soup dumpling, and it was very rich! I can't believe how richly pork flavored the broth alone was, very good! 4th was a fried pork dumpling (ok we got WAY too much but it was all soooooooo good).

And of course, we washed it down with some yummy bubble tea. Would definitely come back!

This stunning train station features a number of shops, and right in the center is this little stall serving up fantastic gelato (I do believe they have storefronts around the city as well). Gelato is often the perfect refreshing dessert as you’re exploring or resting your feet from all of that walking.

I am saddened as I write this to see they are now closed! I mean, come on. How can you NOT love this? I am sure raw cookie dough can be bad, but I haven't found that to be true for me. We tried 3 different flavors, and while all were SUPER yummy - the favorite was cookies and cream.

Walking around the iconic Greenwich Village led us to this wonderful little authentic Japanese bakery, which served up individual slices of this deliciously light and fluffy jiggly cheesecake (one more dish off the good old bucket list!).