This past Tuesday, July 16th marked my 3rd year living in New York City. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I celebrated by going to see Cats: Jellicle Ball (gleeful! great!). We’re finally emerging from a disgusting 2-week long heatwave and yesterday I had a panicked pre-theater meal in the Times Square Taco Bell1, one of the more horrendous places on earth, but I love it here!!!! When I was in Philly (so lovely! excited to return!), I felt an itch to get back to the insanity of New York by the third day and it’s nice to reaffirm that I am only suited to living in the biggest possible cities and I actually do have to spend all this money after all.

Here’s an off the top of my head-ish, definitely incomplete list of things I love here. I’m leaving off plenty of things for no firm reason, or I forgot them and I’ll feel annoyed about it. I didn’t include movie theaters because I’ve already talked about those at length, or musical theater because duh!

1. Absolute Bagels’ whitefish on an un-toasted everything bagel and a large Thai tea-cranberry

2. Okay so the American Museum of Natural History has lost a touch of its novelty on account of it being my workplace that I go to 4 times a week but the dioramas!! The whale! The new Gilder Center that looks like sand dunes and has an ant tank!

3. At Astoria Seafood, you pick all your fish out in plastic bags like at a fish market and then you go up to the counter and ask the chefs how you’d like it all cooked and it’s the best.

4. I used to live basically right above Bad Luck Bar, an excellent, moody little bar that makes a great spritz. I miss Brooklyn bars so bad.

5. A schvitz, followed by borscht, at New York’s banyas. I’ve been to Mermaid Spa by Coney Island and Wall Street Spa, both great.

6. Splitting a sturgeon, salmon & whitefish platter at Barney Greengrass.

7. B&H Dairy is a perfect diner. All the bar seats are rickety.

8. Sorry to be obvious, but I am endlessly charmed by bodega cats.

9. A Russian supermarket picnic on Brighton Beach.

10. Brownstones on Halloween. The West Village and Upper West Side in particular go all out, but I’m taking suggestions for decoration-viewing!

11. LES candy shops, Economy Candy (New York’s oldest candy shop, where I replenish my stock of Juicy Pear jelly beans) and Bon-Bon (a Grand Bupadest Hotel-pink Swedish candy store that boasts long TikTok induced lines but unfortunately the candy is really good).

    

    

12. I don’t actually frequent Caffe Reggio nearly as much as I want to, but it feels so romantic to hang out here, having a tea and chatting for hours. Service is horrible, the bathroom is appalling. Yes, I wanted to go after I read the Patti Smith book.

13. The iconic Carvel cakes: Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss.

14. Central Park. I love everything about it!!! To me, this is the perfect mix of green space and human things. I love the turtles, the cherry blossoms, Bethesda Terrace and the walkway leading from it, the cute animal clock at the ZOO, the Delacorte Theater Restrooms <3, the roller skaters, the fact that there’s always someone in Strawberry Fields doing a horrible rendition of a Beatles song (last time it was just some woman singing badly while reading lyrics off her phone).

15. Chino-Latino restaurants are one of the great New York inventions, a result of Chinese Latino immigration to the city in the 1960s. My favorite New York restaurant for many years was the original La Caridad on the corner of 78th and Broadway. I don’t love their 72nd street location as much (sadly!), but I really love La Dinastia right across the street, which serves picadillo in an exciting raised metal dish.

16. Church of Sweden basement restaurant cardamom buns. Admittedly, the better cardamom buns are at La Cabra and Fabrique, but Church of Sweden has the best, weird, cozy energy.

17. Citi Field for a Mets game, a phenomenal place to have overpriced chicken strips. I like that Mrs. Met is smoking hot and I saw the most beautiful sunset here once.

18. City Island is a New England-y little fishing island in the Bronx where you can spend the day eating piles of calamari and visit their tiny nautical museum and have ice cream from a little a-frame hut surrounded by a white picket fence.

19. A coconut ice from a cart in the summer.

20. Columbus Park in Chinatown, the best place for people-watching and a snack. When the weather’s nice, the park is full of old people playing mahjong to the soundtrack of someone’s erhu. Ideal snack is a Mei Lai Wah roast pork bun & a chrysanthemum tea or maybe an order from Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle and a tea from M&W Bakery next door.

21. A day in Coney Island, with a stop at Williams Candy.

22. I first spotted Cowgirl when I lived in the West Village and I liked its kitschy Western look. Then I read about it in New York drag queen Lady Bunny’s grub street diet and decided to make a few friends go with me for Tex-Mex and mason jar margaritas. It’s right by the school where I do my tap showcases, and even though they made us wait a long time with a reservation, it’s a perfect celebratory spot and basically everyone from my tap school, teachers and students, were there.

23. I had a perfect looking burger at Court Square Diner, which always looks so cute by the train tracks.

    

    

24. The Coyote Club was my goodbye to Brooklyn bar.

25. Damascus Bread & Pastry Shop. I like getting a spinach pie and walking around. In all honesty, the baklava & other sweets aren’t very good (cookies aren’t bad), but I have a soft spot for them.

26. The guava croissant at Devoción is, rightfully, always sold out.

27. Egg creams. I get them everywhere I can and New York is a good city for that.

28. Having a mid-shopping sit at Elizabeth Street Garden.

29. The way the Feast of San Gennaro LOOKS, especially the stands that sell drinks in plastic palm trees (I own one). It’s a bit hellish to walk through though.

30. The whole fish at Fish Cheeks.

31. I believe the perfect store is the right amount of messy because it’s important to feel like you rooted around a bit. Fish’s Eddy is good at that, with its many piles of vintage plates.

32. The many giant cookies. I like Chip City and Schmackary’s best.

33. Gray’s Papaya Recession special with a Coconut Champagne.

34. The hot-pot-as-theme-park experience at Haidilao in Flushing.

35. A slice of cake and tea at The Hungarian Pastry Shop. I like the Chagall-ish murals outside (also very Ursula from Kiki’s Delivery Service).

36. I actually prefer the IKEA Ferry to the Staten Island Ferry (both free!) because I like its open top with lots of seating, and I think Red Hook is generally a more fruitful destination unless you’re headed to Lakruwana.

37. The massive bowls of Guatemalan soup at Ix.

38. I spent a lot of time at K&K Discount Store in Chinatown when I first moved here. I needed home goods but I also like hanging out there.

39. The melon-lime soda highball at Katana Kitten.

40. Massive katsu set and curry portions at Katsu-Hama.

41. Katz’s is good and it’s fun to try and sit under the When Harry Met Sally sign.

42. I love you so much, Kopitiam kaya toast and otak otak.

43. The L Train Vintage off Atlantic Ave—not too crowded!

44. L&B Spumoni Garden is worth the trek.

    

    

45. The conchas at Las Conchitas in Sunset Park come in the prettiest candy colors. The funny thing about Sunset Park is that at its best it just reminds me of the Bay.

46. Lincoln Center, my favorite place in the city.

    1. The Moonstruck fountain

    2. The Chagall murals at the Metropolitan Opera House

    3. $10 drinks and a decent public bathroom in the air conditioned lobby of the David Koch theater

    4. Lots of good places to sit (the grassy steps, the chairs by the Lincoln Center Theater, the ledge in front of Walter Reade, the other steps in front of Alice Tully, the fountain)

    5. Summer in the City silent discos (a stupid new thing I can’t stop going to)

47. Little Poland in the East Village has my favorite bigos in the city.

48. I love the Macy’s Day Parade (especially Snoopy!) and one of the best things about my job is that I can watch them blow up the balloons from outside my office window. The day BEFORE the parade, you can walk past all the balloons being blown up, which is a fantastic alternative to braving the parade day crowds. The last two years it’s been Goku right outside my window, I hope they switch it up.

49. Look, we don’t have Maman on the west coast, and I just think this is a cute and reliable chain to get a pistachio croissant and an elaborate lemonade matcha sort of thing when you’re meeting a friend. Librae’s croissants are much better.

50. Two little beers at a time at McSorley’s Old Ale House.

51. In A Quiet Place: Day One (spoiler?), Lupita Nyongo’s character decides to trek up from Chinatown to Harlem for a slice of pizza. If that had been me, I would have gotten lucky because my “one last New York bite” meal would be a Mei Lai Wah roast pork bun, and from there I could have walked easily over to the Seaport evacuation boats. :)

52. The Met Cloisters are so lovely!

53. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Waiter, there is too much pepper in my paprikash”)

54. The spice selection at the Middle East and Indian Spice Shop, a Kalustyan’s-level range that I used to live across the street from.

55. Having a little mint tea at a greenmarket. Union Square, Grand Army Plaza & the Natural History Museum all have a tea stand where you can buy a cup for like $2. There’s also a great tamale lady at Grand Army Plaza!

56. The animal mosaics in the 81st Street - Museum of Natural History subway station.

57. Having a moment of calm in a Muji. Obviously not New York specific, but they don’t have them in LA anymore! I like that they’re always playing weird soft-medieval music or something vaguely Scottish and it smells like essential oil.

58. The jhol momos at Nepali Bhanchha Ghar, followed by sweets at Al Naimat and a Patel Brothers run.

59. The New World Mall food court in Flushing.

60. Sitting in all the different old trains at the New York Transit Museum.

61. Nutcrackers on the beach. I like blue.

62. NY Indonesian Food Bazaar is a once a month event where a bunch of vendors set up shop in a church in Elmhurst and sell curries, noodles, pastries, meat sticks, pandan desserts. My favorite is dadar gulung, a rolled up sweet coconut-pandan pancake filled with sugary shredded coconut.

63. I always went to Pearl River Mart as a kid when I visited New York and would wear the barely-soled $5 Mary Janes all over town. I do still have a pair of their Mary Janes, but mostly I come here to stock up on bar soap, hand towels and mini Tiger Balms. Someday I’m going to buy one of those plastic birds that spits out toothpicks.

64. Hollowed out melons filled with booze at Pocha 32.

65. The Q train when it’s above ground, especially its view of Coney Island.

66. Classic red sauce joints for a slightly goofy date night (I like Arturo’s and Emilio’s Ballato).

67. Rockefeller Center at Christmas (it’s NICE).

68. The S shuttle from Franklin Avenue to Prospect Park. Best line in the city.

69. The soy bean dessert at Yan Wo Dou Bon in Chinatown.

70. S&P Lunch is the ideal lunch counter, except that it’s always so crowded.

71. My favorite sponge cakes in the city are from Spongies. Great flavor selection!

72. Streecha is an East Village Ukrainian basement restaurant with wildly inconsistent hours and a grandmotherly plastic tables interior that does cheap paper platters of stuffed cabbage, sausage, pierogis and little cups of borscht. It is one of my favorite places in the entire world.

73. It would be dishonest of me not to mention the Statue of Liberty. Whenever I see her, I clap in delight like a seal.

74. The Japanese-specific supermarket scene is actually pretty abysmal here (I’m from LA!) but Sunrise Mart felt like home when I first moved. They closed the big East Village location, which was a blow.

75. Tap Dance Central, formerly American Tap Dance Foundation, my sweet and welcoming little tap school in the West Village.

76. Japanese style tea lattes in Greenpoint, especially at ACRE and Kettl.

77. Temkin’s is a great, cheap bar.

78. Tip Top Shoes, a family-run UWS orthopedic shoe store that’s been there since 1940. The customer service is impeccable.

79. Top Thai Greenwich is not the best Thai food in town, but it is a very reliable and better-than-it-needs-to-be spot by my old West Village apartment. They do a nice whole fish. Similarly, I love Pye Boat Noodle in Astoria before a MOMI movie.

80. The blue drink that made me fall asleep during The Bikeriders from Trailer Park Lounge. In truth, I think New York’s pretty lacking when it comes to kitschy bars (for my taste/compared to California), so Trailer Park Lounge’s roadhouse John Watersian Americana trash thing is a godsend. The drinks are strong.

81. Tut’s Fever Movie Palace at the Museum of the Moving Image, a miniature, functional 1920s style movie palace installation inside the museum, complete with a Mae West-manned concession stand and a screen that I believe is still playing Muppets show clips.

82. Buying a box of cookies at Veniero’s. Or hanging out with a slice of cake and tea after dinner.

    

83. Veselka will always be profoundly important to me due to its appearance in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Also I just really love Ukrainian food.

84. The little cup of soup that accompanies every meal at Yemen Cafe.

85. Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery. A classic! I usually find knishes overly dense, but the ones at Yonah Schimmel’s are delicious and shockingly light.

86. Zabar’s. I probably moved to New York because of the Zabar’s scene in You’ve Got Mail.

Honorable Mention: I adore the animatronic-heavy grocery store insanity of Stew Leonard’s, but this isn’t a list about Yonkers.