21 replies to this topic

[TheCruisco]

Whats your favorite Diner in the city?  Come on everyone, you can't always feel like eating at the finest eateries all the time.

[jhlurie]

Actually we're also big on cheaper Ethnic eats here at eGullet as well.

NYC Diners.  Hmmm.  I haven't been to a good diner inside of NYC limits for years... no decades.

[Fat Guy]

Does the Jackson Diner count? How about that place in Elmhurst that used to be a diner but is now a Korean restaurant?

Seriously, I'm with Jon -- haven't been to a really good diner in years (I'm defining diner in the New York City sense of diner or Greek coffee shop/restaurant, as opposed to the stricter definition that would call for an actual diner car as the restaurant's physical housing). They all seem to have settled into a mediocre rut. The kind of food I used to associate with good diners seems to have been relegated to a slightly higher level of restaurant, like Popover Cafe and self-conscious moderately upscale recreations of diners like Comfort Diner and EJ's Luncheonette. I've tried to like that cute diner in Chelsea, and others that various people have vouched for, but they've utterly failed to capture the great diner taste of my youth.

[Steve Klc]

I originally thought this was a trick question.  Who would willingly go to any diner often enough to have a solid favorite, or even be in a position to compare them?

I did have a good breakfast, espresso and service in that cute diner in Chelsea but probably wouldn't go back for food that didn't involve eggs and sauteed potato things.  Maybe this place can't measure up to your youth, Steven, because you aren't going there at 2AM after the bars close--isn't that the real role of diners?

[Fat Guy]

I have nothing against the old-time American diner concept of simple, honest food seasoned primarily with salt, pepper and butter. If one opened near my house and it served a good hamburger made from freshly ground beef, good hand-cut fries, good rare roast beef sandwiches, and the like, plus well made breakfast items, all at very reasonable prices, I'd go there all the time. It just so happens there is no such place in Manhattan as far as I know.

And who says I'm not out at 2am? I'm more likely to be out after midnight than at almost any other time. However, in New York, don't bars stay open until 4am? At least the topless ones do, I'm sure of that.

[Pan]

Do Polish diners count? If so, Teresa's would be my favorite, and yes, I'm a regular.

[Liza]

My diner standards:
1. Toast - they've got to be able to serve it properly, meaning toasted and not simply wilted.
2. Sausage - links not patties.
3. Service - slightly surly is ok, though having lived in Baltimore, I do like being called "hon" by bouffant-haired waitresses.
4. Coffee - just coffee, once they get into lattes and such, they are no longer diners.

My second favorite was Gee-Whiz, on the corner of Warren and Greenwich, which is closed now for renovation. They had my possible #5, a house egg dish - scrambled with cheese on pita. And an excellent tuna on rye toast. Plus, matzoh ball soup every day.

My number one diner: The Hotel Edison diner. A variety of soups (mushroom barley, borscht, matzoh ball, cabbage), decent egg creams, and limitless coffee. Plus they've been there forever and so have the waiters.

[jhlurie]

A decade ago, when I briefly lived on the Upper East side, I loved EJ's Luncheonette.  Even if it was a self-conscious moderately upscale recreation.

[reggie_212]

As other "old" Stuyvesant alums might recall, there was a place on first between 15 and 16th called Ambrosia where literally I went for lunch everyday.  I don't ever recall it being all that good but it was one of the few places in the neighborhood that had seats and in the dead of winter, I was certainly not going to sit in the park.

I'm more familiar with diners in Queens and for the most part the best one I've been to is the Georgia diner on Queens Blvd right by the old Macy's.  The Georgia is very good for Queens but if we expand our boundaries a bit, New Jersey diners are far better than NYC diners.  Diners in Jersey have perfected the art, right down to the pink formica.  

Speaking of diners, does anyone know the name and location of the diner in the movie Goodfellas where they're always eating?  I've always wanted to visit that particular diner.

[Fat Guy]

Reggie, a bizarre story regarding Ambrosia: My girlfriend and I used to eat there twice and sometimes three times a day when we were at Stuyvesant. We always had a surly waiter named George. When I went away to college I figured I'd never see George again. I even went to look for him one summer, maybe between Junior and Senior year, and he was gone. Well, amazingly, when I went to Fordham Law School, there was a diner -- Cosmic Coffee Shop -- right nearby, and the first time I went there who did I see but George! He remembered me and we fell right back into our old epic battle. I wonder if he's still there.

Liza, I'm sure you're aware that the Hotel Edison diner a/k/a Cafe Edison is known as the "Polish Tea Room."

[Liza]

But of course! I wouldn't be a card-carrying Egullet-eer without knowing that! (Should we have cards? Or a theme song, like the Mouseketeers?)
(And if they had a shoe-shine, they'd be the Spit & Polish Tea Room  ;)

[tommy]

i'm surprised the kiev hasn't come up.  she's all remodeled and be-autiful now.

[Jason Perlow]

The Cheyenne on 33rd and 9th.

Makes a damn good buffalo burger.

[jhlurie]

The Cheyenne on 33rd and 9th.

Makes a damn good buffalo burger.

Is that the one behind the huge Post office?

[Wilfrid]

I agree with the mood of the thread.  I use diners occasionally for convenience, but if I venture further than some eggs and toast I usually come out thinking, "Well, that was lousy."  The Moonrock on 57th between 8th and 9th used to be a local, and it was competent - but I wouldn't recommend it as a destination.

Further east on 57th, there is a completely ersatz mock dining car called itself The Brooklyn Diner ("the finer diner").  It is decorated with murals of Ebbett's Field, and runs old baseball tapes on the TVs.  The menu is a kind of post-modern interpretation of what diner food might have been.  But some of the cooking is pretty good, and portions are huge.  I recall a very nice chicken soup with tarragon.

As Steven Shaw says, I would definitely visit local diners if they could just make a decent burger and fries.  They can't.  Many bars seem to be able to, so I don't know why that is.

[glenn]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop on 5th Ave in the Flatiron District.  The place has been a fixture forever, well, about 50 years, and the sole waitress looks like she's been there since it opened.  The guys behind the counter even wear paper hats.  I haven't gone beyond the tuna and chicken salad sandwiches on an onion roll.... why mess with perfection?  And the egg creams come close to those I remember way back when.  Cheap too.

[reggie_212]

Steven,

it's funny how you mention ambrosia waiters!  there was one waiter there named Spiro who I bet served me maybe 100x a year.  so a few years after i graduated a friend and I were in a diner in jersey and my friend was wearing his stuyvesant jacket, he's a little younger than i am.  when the waiter came over to take our order he asked us how Spiro at Ambrosia was doing!  I guess there's a brotherhood of Greek waiters where they all know each other, kind of like firemen who know someone in every company.

[Fat Guy]

They're also a bit like strippers, because those are rarely their real names. Like, George's name wasn't George. It was something very long and Greek. But 90% of them go by George or Nick, which I guess are the Greek-waiter equivalents of Tiffany, Brittany, and Asia.

Did you go to DiBella's often? That was my favorite place in the 'hood. It was surviving as of a few years ago. I wonder if it still is.

[reggie_212]

Did you go to DiBella's often? That was my favorite place in the 'hood. It was surviving as of a few years ago. I wonder if it still is.

Steven,
Alas, Dibellas has gone the way of Stavy's.  But certainly missed more than that rat infested sinkhole.  YES!  Of course I went to Dibella's.  If we weren't at Ambrosia, we were at Dibella's.  Was it the same nice Korean couple that ran it when you went to Stuy?  I always found it odd that a Korean couple passed themselves off as purveyors of fine Italian groceries.  But then again, I have come to expect anything in NY.  

Oh how I miss those sandwiches.  Suprisingly, it was a simple formula now that I think about it.  Offer a cheap hero with lots of meat and slath it with mayonaise.  

Last time I walked around the area I think it was a converted Korean grocery.  So they got rid of the Italian theme.  But the same couple was not there.  I think when they moved the school down to Battery Park City it took a huge chunk of business from them.  

In many ways, while the old Stuy was in serious disrepair, there was so much character in both the neighborhood and the building itself.  I graduated a couple of years before they moved and I visited the new building when it opened.  In the old Stuy it used to be that you would see anyone and everyone by walking up the "down" staircases.  Now they have escalators.  I don't even know if the students are allowed to leave the building for lunch.

[jaybee]

Not exactly a diner, but the Lexington Luncheonette (corner of 83rd and Lexington) serves classic burgers, tuna melts, egg creams and all that simple fare we associate with good fast food.  The place isn't retro, it just is as it was, a real luncheonette.  Service is always friendly and the lemonade is fresh made.  If you crave White Castle, there is a redoux called Sassy's Sliders on Third and 86, right next to The Papaya King.  http://www.sassyssliders.com/home.html The fries are very good and the burgers are just what a real down and basic burger lover wants when the mood strikes.  Order no less than four per serving.

[Fat Guy]

Reggie: Sounds as though we graduated around the same time (are you '87?). The smiling, laughing Korean couple was the same, and the "Stuyvesant Sandwich" was my lunch staple on days when I was broke. I think objectively those were excellent sandwiches. I assume the Korean couple bought the place from the DiBella brothers sometime in the early 1980s (or was it late 1970s?), when all the Italian groceries were replaced by Korean ones. Perhaps they kept the same suppliers, or were even trained by the DiBellas. The bread had a terrific crust, the meats were of the highest quality, and the sandwiches were assembled in intelligent proportion. There are precious few delis able to make a sandwich that good anymore (Melampo, Italian Food Center, and Monte Titano's are the only three I can think of right now; maybe that should be its own thread).

Jaybee: You're talking about the Lexington Candy Shop, right? I wish the prices weren't so high, but I agree that most items are of high quality and I appreciate the old-fashioned soda-making technology. At some point I want to assemble a list (on a new thread) of all the places in the metro area that are still making soda from syrup and mixing it by hand. Hinsch's in Bay Ridge is another that comes to mind.

[mikeyrad]

Try the Apollo Coffee Shop on Park Ave S. bet 23rd and 24th. I've never had their burgers, but their chicken sandwiches on pita rock.