NYC Cheap Eats That Will Change Your Life!

All of these New York dishes are $10 or less. We're going on a street food adventure to prove that you can eat cheap in the Big Apple. You just have to know where to look. Joey Rose's may look like your average dive bar from the outside, but they've got a sandwich special you need to know about. Awesome. Yeah, I want to get one of the Roses, one of the Dads, your $3 lager, and a Coke. All right, so we're gonna cheat a little bit. $3 beers, doesn't count towards the cheap eats. Cheap drinks. So this place is called Joey Rose's after a famous comedian, Joe DeRosa, who owns this bar. And you can see his touch is on a lot of the things around here, very retro vibes. So it's cool, you wait for your sandwich to get made, play a little Mortal Kombat. When I was a kid, I used to play Mortal Kombat 2 at Pizza Hut all the time. I was really good. I forgot a few things. 30 years, I lost. First off, we bake this bread every morning. We import the flour from Italy. It's a secret recipe, I can tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. We're gonna do the rosy. Mayo, American cheese, some nice imported mortadella, Italian bologna with pistachios in it. And what makes our sandwiches great is the eatability, as I like to call it. Everything is paper thin. It doesn't fall out the bottom like most sandwich spots do. And then you rush to eat it because you don't want to have it fall out the back. The next thing you know, you didn't enjoy your sandwich, you just rushed it. Now you're full. Slices of tomato, some hot cherry peppers, a little Joey seasoning, which is just oregano, pepper, and sea salt, Sicilian sea salt. There you go. Some really good extra virgin olive oil. I'm from Bologna here. Look at that, cured meats. We got mortadella, genoa salami. Everything's paper thin. And again, that plays a huge part in how it eats and what separates us from everybody else. It's the same thing as if you have a recipe and you have a beautifully diced onion or you have a big-ass piece of onion. The beautifully diced onion is gonna change the way that that whole dish eats. This is some beautiful ham from Italy. Some beautifully sliced onions, tomatoes, shredded Asiago, and these beautiful hot peppers that we make scratch. Touch of Joey seasoning. You can see the layers in this one. This is beautiful. That's a sandwich. I can wholeheartedly tell you I've never eaten in a New York City establishment what looks like those old microwave TV dinner trays. This is already a win for me. But look how much meat you get for that too. That also has impressed me so much. And the amount of prep they put into it. Two days to bake this bread. Like you could cut so many corners if you want to in a bar. And I don't think anybody would complain. But here, they're not cutting any corners. We're gonna try two different sandwiches. The Rosie, you saw it get made. Let's rock on this. This is the kind of sandwich I'd order at a nice Italian deli, not at a bar. Wow, bread. So soft, airy. And the mortadella and the cheese. Everything else is blending together. Thinly sliced meat, really key. I know they kept talking about it. I read really good reviews, but sometimes you have to come somewhere yourself to actually try it. From the hot cherry peppers, the mayo, the oregano. It's just a smooth bite. And now we're moving on to the dad, because you know dad wants more than one meat in his sandwich. We got the mortadella, Genoa salami, ham, provolone, dahlia onions, asiago tomato, hot cherry peppers, olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano. So really a prototypical New York Italian deli sandwich. Also included in that $10 club. Ooh, I need like a big bite here. Just a meat explosion there, wow. I think I went through all of them in one bite. It was difficult to do, but because the bread is so soft, easily accomplished. This really reminds me of eating an amazing Italian sub in New York, right here. I think you could come to this bar for that experience, and not even have to go to a deli if you don't want to. I don't know whose dad they named it after, but someone's dad's got good taste. I'm really getting a lot of the provolone cheese at the bottom of this meat stack. It's hitting me in like the best possible way. Fresh ingredients, made with love here. You can enjoy it at the bar. You can bring it and play some Mortal Kombat. You can go watch Keenan Peele sketch comedy show on TV. And I'm sure the vibe is very different at night as well. In New York, it's hot dogs with beer, but it really should be sandwiches. I think more bars need to do stuff like this. You think you're gonna keep these for $10 forever? No, I'm kidding. All right, so if you did not know any better, I don't think you would just walk in here off the street. You gotta be in the know. East Broadway Mall. I mean, this honestly feels like we're filming one of those abandoned mall videos. And apparently before COVID, this mall was thriving. And unfortunately, a lot of the businesses have now shut down. All right, and you gotta head down the stairs to find the good stuff. Hi, it's one order of the steam buns, please. For you. We are sitting in the basement of what's practically an abandoned mall. If this right here is not the definition of a hidden gem in New York, I don't know what is. And the price, too. Look how big the steam buns are. Dripping out some oil here. Heard the legend of this spot. I've never actually tried it. Soft, pillowy exterior. And look at all that pork just hiding, waiting for us to devour it inside. The pork has a nice, savory flavor to it. Very oily, very tasty. It's coming out right here. Where has this place been hiding my whole life? I know it's been down here for a long time. And I'm also happy that this has been on social media a lot. Because with a location like this, I imagine in the past it was just word of mouth to get customers here. But for a deal this good, five bucks for six steam buns? Soft, chewy, pillowy. This is the kind of food that makes me want to take a nap after, man. Putting me to sleep in the best possible way, of course. I think you would totally feel like an insider if you took your friends or family here. I mean, this place really is a vibe. You have a lady working here making dumplings behind me. You can hear the subway from the tracks right above the mall. Just a few people walking through. The definition of a hole in the wall, but the quality is way better than you would expect. This place is a surprise. Big time. You know, after that experience down there, I wonder what other treasures this nearly abandoned mall hides. This might be one of the best cheap eats deals I have ever heard of in New York. And we've actually filmed next door at Olfactory Art Keller, the only museum in the world where you smell the exhibits. So head there first, and then eat some amazing dumplings next door. It'll be my first time here. Hello, the $5 dumplings? Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. All right, for five bucks. Feast your eyes on this. What's crazy was there was a huge line when we first got here. There is one magical table. Consider yourself lucky if you can sit here, okay? Because they were mobbed. I even heard an Amazon driver, he said, $5 for dumplings. All right, he's jumped in the line. So they move super, super quick. So what looks like a long line is not going to last that long. I mean, this is the first time in a while I've actually been eating before we even put this on camera. I was just so hungry looking at it. 15 pork and chive dumplings. This is an easy split for two, even three people. Little char on the bottom. I'm liking what I see. We've done videos on dumpling crawls in Chinatown before. Somehow, never went here. Let's give it a whirl. Very interesting texture, because I'd say like half of it on this side is fried, and then on the other side, much softer. It creates a really interesting balance. You see old grandmas in the back working hard. That's what it's all about in New York. Local businesses like that, definitely catering prices to the community, because they easily can raise prices. And this quality for the money, this, I think, is one of the best deals in New York City right now. And I know they've been getting a lot of attention on social media. I saw a big crowd before, so I'm not the first person to report on them, but they are doing the community such a good service with the quality of this food. It really tastes homemade to me. I'll be honest, some of the dumplings don't have as much filling as the others, but I think they churn them out so fast. You get some that have a lot like this one. I actually think the lady may have set a record for fastest service I've ever seen in New York. We didn't time it, but it felt like 20 seconds, and the dumplings were just ready. I think they had 15 ready to go. That, and they also sell, I believe their pork buns are very cheap, and that was selling equally as fast as the fried dumplings. But you really can't go wrong at a little spot like that. Not when you've got the hardworking grandmas slinging them out back there. Would I call this the best pan-fried dumpling I've ever had in New York? No, I wouldn't go there. Would I call this, though, the best deal in New York City? Now we're getting into a debate that we could possibly have. But either way, you will not be upset coming over here, spending five bucks. Jinmai dumplings, something so addicting about these. Can't help myself. Ah, so bad, do that again. Punjabi Deli, a New York institution. This is not the first time we have put them on the channel. It's a legendary cheap eat spot, open since the early 90s. It originally appealed to cab drivers. Now everybody comes here. It has become a legendary spot in the East Village. You can smell that goodness from out here. This place never fails. Just the smell right away, never changes. We'll just do a small bowl of rice with spinach and the chickpeas, number one, number two, and a samosa. $10? One of the best $10 meals. One of my life goals is to make it on the wall of the Punjabi Deli, okay? That's how you know if you've made it. True story, they were actually in danger of closing back in 2020 during the pandemic. And in a single weekend, their customers raised $38,000 to keep them open. So just because a deli like this serves cheaper options does not mean that their customers are not as loyal as a super expensive place. Because I know a lot of folks that swear by Punjabi Deli for quick serve food. And before the pandemic, it was actually a 24-hour spot. You could come here after partying in the Lower East Side or East Village. Now they close at 10. Things have changed a lot in this city, though, since 2020. Open 34 years, 1990. 1990? Yeah, yeah. 75% of my neighborhood come to open the same day. 75% locals. So it's everybody. Every color, every religion, everybody. Vegetarian Indian feast, woo-hoo. Oh, these stools have been here forever. I think it's the same stool as the last time I came like five years ago. True story, when I was here the last time with my wife, Adriana, who's from Mexico, I think they thought that she was Indian. And they made her dish so much spicier than mine, it was hilarious. We're gonna start things off with the samosa, which has some potatoes and some veggies inside. Let's rock. Soft and chewy. Very hearty, too. This probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind in Manhattan for a grab-and-go snack. But it's actually not a bad option. This bed of rice here with the spinach, mustard on top, and the chickpeas on the side. All right, let's give this a whirl. Definitely got a little spicy kick to it. It's like your long-lost Indian uncle just made you an after-school snack. It's four o'clock. So many flavors going on as we dip into the chickpeas here. And as far as chickpeas is concerned, I just realized this is probably one of your healthier options in New York. This is a no-frills spot. Come as you are, you'll be surrounded by all different types of people, as he was saying, all different races. A lot of people live in the area. Cab drivers, Uber drivers like to pop in. Very hearty meal here for seven bucks, okay? I've been lucky that every time I've come here to film, been able to get these two chairs every time. The manager was telling me that it used to be 50 cents for a samosa when they opened in 1990, and 50 cents for a tea. Now it's three bucks and 250. So if you think about inflation, we look at the value for how much food we have gotten for $7, $3 on this, $10 total. I think it is still a good deal. Prices, though, are going up. And I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make this video very easily, even in a year or two, to try to keep the budget at $10 or less. But we'll keep trying. If you like this Cheap Eats video, in this one, we go on a food adventure in a tiny Queens neighborhood, which might be one of New York's best kept secrets. Watch this next.