I had an excellent gourmet week eating my way around New York City’s neighborhoods.

New York City is a place I’m always quick to say I hate, but deep down, I love it so much. Not only is my part-time and freelance work there, giving me an excuse to go up and see great theatre whenever I’m in town. It all started when I moved to New York from Baltimore in college to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Having just studied abroad in Seoul that summer to bounce to the energy of New York was wild, but I only got a year and a half of it before COVID hit. I graduated college early during COVID to avoid the rent prices in the city, as I live at home and save a lot of my money that way, but back in the day I used to go up once a month.

Today’s blog post is a continuation of a blog post I made detailing what I did on an eight day trip to New York City. This was my last trip up for a week, as I was going to be starting a full-time job right after this trip. Unfortunately it’s in-person and my PTO only stretches so far, which means I’m going to have to be more choosy about where I end up going with paid time off.

Anyways: I was living it up on this trip when it came to food. I knew that I had a job lined up and very little debt at the time, so I wanted to go and eat at places I’ve been meaning to go to, but never would because I was hesitant, out of time, or didn’t have enough money. Back in the day I used to do these trips on a steep budget because I didn’t really have any money.

I used to eat good even with those strict budget rules. Regardless: this trip I wanted to be special, and if I wanted something, I wasn’t going to limit myself simply because I had the financial resources to do it at this time. Granted, nothing I ever want to eat is really expensive, but in the past I used to really limit myself and plan meals because of how anxious I was about my budget.

If you want to read up on my trip overall, I suggest heading over to the travel subcategory on my blog. This blog post is dedicated to all of the amazing eats I had—and I had a lot this time!

Let’s get into what I ate.

Yang Guo Fu Malatang has become one of my favorite malatang places.

Malatang is something I became obsessed with when I was studying abroad in South Korea. Yang Guo Fu opened a location on 34th Street, and it’s $17/lb of malatang. The way it works is that you grab your bowl and tongs, then pick out all of the ingredients you want. At the end, you choose what broth you want (I get the original beef broth) or if you want it stir fried and dry.

I always make a nice little sauce at their sauce bar, fill up my water bottle at their water station, and chow down. I get a ton of food and never had my bill be over $20, so I recommend this if you want to fill up and manage your own portion sizes directly.

Cho Dang Gol is my top Korean restaurant in Manhattan.

I find a lot of Korean restaurants in Manhattan to be gimmicky and overpriced, but the lunch special at Cho Dang Gol is one of my favorite eats in the entire city. They have different banchan daily, but they’re all usually quite good.

My go-to is the lunch special with a vegetable stew and mini bulgogi, then I typically try one of their house made makgeollis. I’ve had the pear in the past, but this trip I decided I like the honey one more (although it’s a tad more expensive at $9).

There’s always a huge line to get in, but I found they move quickly inside the restaurant and you’re seated fairly quickly.

tava turkish and mediterranean is a hidden gem in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

This is a lunch special I found myself unexpectedly impressed with. I went with the person I was staying with during a Brooklyn outing, and we split our lunch specials. We got the baba ganoush, hummus, bread, two chicken kabob orders (which came with rice + salad), a baklava dessert platter, and a Turkish çay/tea for only $65 with tip.

That was an insane amount of food, and I was pretty much stuffed the entire day. The workers were also really friendly and chatted with us, so we were both impressed by the restaurant and what they had to offer in terms of quality and affordability.

Chubby Skewers in Midtown is the perfect place for a meal after some drinks.

I had walked past this place prior and was drawn in by the glowing neon signs in Mandarin, but after my friend and I went to an event at the Korea Society, I told her about this place and she was down. It’s open late most nights, but for a table for two on a weekday night we had to wait twenty minutes for our table to be ready.

It’s a Chinese charcoal skewer place, so you’re seated, then you go downstairs and pick out your skewers. You then roast it yourselves, kind of like Korean BBQ. They also have side dishes and a stocked alcohol section, but I didn’t get any. We were both blown away at how much we liked this place, and I definitely want to go back.

Laghman Express is some of the best lagman I’ve ever had.

This is a place that kept appearing on my social media feed, and I made a special trek out to Brighton Beach just to try Laghman Express. During lunch on a weekday it wasn’t busy, so they made my laghman fresh (I literally watched them do it), and with the first bite I was in heaven. I never eat peppers like this and I was chomping down on those peppers. I wanted to cry.

I also ordered a pot of the Moroccan tea, which is too much for one person (and expensive—it was $13). The tea was incredible though too, and I liked it a lot. I just wish they had a half-size in-between a cup and a massive pot. I was enjoying it even though my wallet cried a little when I got the bill.

Gulluoglu Baklava & Cafe has a wide assortment of Russian and Turkish Sweets.

When I finished at Laghman Express and took a walk down the boardwalk of Brighton Beach down to Coney Island, I walked all the way back just to go to Gulluoglu Baklava & Cafe. I don’t think it has a relation to the one in Istanbul, but I was enamored with the cakes in the display case. I picked out a dense cake with a pistachio filling, chocolate cake on the bottom, and a chocolate mousse on top.

With a Turkish tea/çay it was only $11 after tax, and that cake sent me straight to heaven. It was a bit dense for one person, hence why I’ve mentioned that fact twice, but it was so incredible. I wanted another slice later on in the week, but there was no way I was going all the way back to Brighton Beach. I’m dreaming of this slice of cake even now at home.

Woodam in Flushing has Korean food I’ve been dreaming about.

I saw this place randomly on social media one day, and decided when I had a free moment in Flushing I was going to check it out. I had to wait for about 15 minutes during a Sunday afternoon for a table by myself to open, and they seated me by the window where there’s like a little bar. The menu is tiny at this place, but they do what they do really well.

I started with a Jeju Tangerine Fizz drink, which was sweet and refreshing in the summer heat. Not sure if I would get it again unless I was craving it though. I then ordered the sogogi gukbap, or beef soup with rice. It comes with a platter of banchan that you get unlimited refills for. The soup itself was fantastic and stuffed with noodles and meat, and I was chowing down on the radish kimchi and oi muchim.

This was one of my favorite meals of this trip, and I thought this place was really cute overall!

YuanYang has traditional Chinese desserts, and such a good ambiance.

In hindsight, I don’t know if this is a good place to go to alone because of the price point + tip, but I am glad I went here! YuanYang is known for their Chinese desserts, and I ordered the taro mochi cold. You can get it hot, but it was scalding outside in the August heat so I decided against that. It was the perfect portion for one person—otherwise you might want to order two desserts for two people to split.

The mochi were fresh and chewy—they were the star of the show. If you’re not used to stewy desserts, then maybe don’t get the taro mochi. I thought it was fine, but the tables next to me were all getting the shaved ice and sago dishes, which all looked really good. I’m going to try one of those next time I’m in town.

Lots of dates and friends catching up around me while I was slurping my taro down, so this seems like a solid hangout spot as well!

Follow me below on Instagram, Goodreads, and Letterboxd for more.