What does New York lack despite its size that other Acela metros have? (NYC, food)
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You're definitely over-simplifying food for the sake of proving a point.
Thick cuts of pastrami made in-house stacked high on fresh rye are definitely a notch above what you'll find in most of the rest of the county. There are many places in New York that do this, but you'll have a hard time finding anything better than mass produced Boar's Heat in the vast majority of the U.S. And even the specialty spots you can find outside of NYC (LaGrassa's or Beantown Pastrami here in Boston) are outliers rather than the norm.
A good bagel takes time to make, including sitting for days in a refrigerator before boiling (and even that isn't just water), and then baking. Many places skip the boiling altogether because time=money and all of that. Others don't refrigerate the dough as long. Even the ingredients in the dough varies. You can find a good bagel outside of NYC, but the quality isn't nearly as consistent once you leave the city. I have a couple of good bagel shops I frequent here in Boston, but you can just as easily get the cheap, baked crap all over the place if you're not actively seeking out "good" bagels. It's even harder in other parts of the country.
Even if you genuinely believe every bagel or Pizza west of the Hudson is some cheap imitation of NYC magic bread, (and we run with this assumption) you can’t even get a cheap imitation of scrapple, a Chow mein Sandwich or that canned brown bread in the vast majority of the country.
Pretty much everything in New York falls pretty close to Buffalo Wings, Memphis BBQ, or Philly Cheesesteaks. Something throughly nationalized but locals insist is so much better there than it is elsewhere, than something like a Chow Mein Sandwich or Cincinnati Chili which basically is non existent outside a it’s little corner of the country
Last edited by btownboss4; 08-16-2023 at 09:59 AM..
Even if you genuinely believe every bagel or Pizza west of the Hudson is some cheap imitation of NYC magic bread, (and we run with this assumption) you can’t even get a cheap imitation of scrapple, a Chow mein Sandwich or that canned brown bread in the vast majority of the country.
Pretty much everything in New York falls pretty close to Buffalo Wings, Memphis BBQ, or Philly Cheesesteaks. Something throughly nationalized but locals insist is so much better there than it is elsewhere, than something like a Chow Mein Sandwich or Cincinnati Chili which basically is non existent outside a it’s little corner of the country
Not every, but a large amount of it. There's long standing competition in NYC for pizza and bagels and it's not all the same. The large amount of consumption does help with making sure things are fresh, but the prevalence and competition means that there is generally better versions of it in NYC for the most part. It doesn't mean other metropolitan areas can't have standout shops for these, but it's not always the case and when there is such, it's usually pretty limited in where you can find it. It's also not a west of the Hudson thing. You can go east of the Hudson in the US and have mediocre pizza (though there are some standouts) and bagels. You can also go west of the Hudson into Northern New Jersey (or Staten Island which is also west of the Hudson) where there are also great bagels and NY-style pizza. The kind of NY-style slice shop is also rare elsewhere as the most prevalent kind of pizza in the US is more similar to the thicker crust, doughier pizza popularized by chains started in the Midwest like Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesar's, and Papa John's all of which are originally from the Midwest. The NYC-style pizza slice shop arguably has a hard time existing in much of the rest of the US because there's just not the foot traffic to make it work out as a quick, simple meal that's usually pretty fresh and has a thin crust that would get soggy if you just let it sit forever.
Claiming it's just bagels and pizza is also inaccurate. The kind of chicken and rice / lamb and rice halal plates were invented in NYC and again has greater prevalence and more competition here. It's started to spread elsewhere especially with the Halal Guys chain, but there's not the kind of multitudes of high quality variations. There are fine dining dishes like chicken a la King, lobster Newburg, and Waldorf salads, and various much cheaper fare like the halal plates, chopped cheese, and black and white cookies. I understand what you're saying about a lot of these things becoming popular or invented in NYC first and then spreading and that does happen given the number of people who emigrate from and/or visit NYC, but there are dishes that haven't made it very far out or are relatively rare outside of NYC.
Tangentially, NYC because it brings in so many people from elsewhere also ends up having a fairly large variety of cuisines from other regions of the US and much of the world. The problem though is that NYC's a tough market because of how expensive rent is and the cost of doing business so you get some really interesting restaurants, like a fantastic mom and pop restaurant that was making noodles and other dishes from this group of people that were essentially Muslim Han Chinese living in Central Asia since a couple of centuries ago, but the restaurant unfortunately didn't last very long.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-16-2023 at 10:49 AM..
In fairness, you can get a good chocolate chip cookie anywhere and outside of the trivia world, I doubt anyone has associated the chocolate chip cookie with MA. It's still hard to find a NY quality bagel outside of the NYC area. Same for NY pizza. Just because NYC is influential enough that things are labeled "NY Style Bagels" or "NY Style Pizza" in other parts of the country doesn't mean that those things are truly comparable to actual NY pizza or bagels.
This one may just be me, but I've yet to find a Jewish deli outside of the NYC area that really compares to what I've had in NYC. Pastrami on rye is probably the most well known order, but there are others too.
Bagels, i agree. Hard to find good bagels outside of NY NJ
NYC has significantly fewer old historic buildings between an inclination to tear the old down and fires early in the city's history.
I think when you look at the sheer number of the buildings from the 1800s in Brooklyn (and to a lesser extent in the other boroughs), not to mention surviving houses, churches, forts, cemeteries, bridges and even parks from the colonial era, I think New York probably has more historic buildings then just about anywhere else. But its not just the buildings and such, in New York you are surrounded by history if you know where to look.
Bagels - North Jersey/NYC/LI - I get them hot and fresh every Sunday morning. It's a tradition in these parts. Crispy on the outside, perfectly chewy, airy and delectable all the way through. No toasting required. It's a race for 2nd place after these areas.
Last edited by BigCity76; 08-16-2023 at 03:06 PM..
I think when you look at the sheer number of the buildings from the 1800s in Brooklyn (and to a lesser extent in the other boroughs), not to mention surviving houses, churches, forts, cemeteries, bridges and even parks from the colonial era, I think New York probably has more historic buildings then just about anywhere else. But its not just the buildings and such, in New York you are surrounded by history if you know where to look.
Percentages, probably not. New York City has nearly five times the population and probably three times the number of buildings (or more) as its next closest East Coast rival, the city I live in. There's probably a higher percentage of historic 18th- and 19th-century houses and other buildings in Philadephia. But New York has a higher percentage of 17th-century buildings because it was already more than 50 years old when the town of Philadelphia was founded in 1682, and it still had about a 20-year head start on the first European settlements in what is now Pennsylvania.
Bagels - North Jersey/NYC/LI - I get them hot and fresh every Sunday morning. It's a tradition in these parts. Crispy on the outside, perfectly chewy, airy and delectable all the way through. No toasting required. It's a race for 2nd place after these areas.
Yes, while a lot of people in NYC area exaggerate about how much better a certain food is there… bagels are ones that are actually better in NYC AND hard to replicate outside the area.
Yes, while a lot of people in NYC area exaggerate about how much better a certain food is there… bagels are ones that are actually better in NYC AND hard to replicate outside the area.
Okay but there is a pretty vast gap between “well bagels are better in NYC” and these other regional dishes.
Like Bostonians know what bagels are. If you asked for a Can of Bread at a NYC shop there would be a complete sense of confusion and a reply “A can of what?”
It’s simply not possible for NYC to have that sort of weird niche thing. Cause like Kramer would have been obsessed with it in Seinfeld cause the concept of Canned bread is kind of funny.
There is not a single person in the country that would ask “what is a bagel” bit about 300,000,000 would have to ask “what is scrapple”
Okay but there is a pretty vast gap between “well bagels are better in NYC” and these other regional dishes.
Like Bostonians know what bagels are. If you asked for a Can of Bread at a NYC shop there would be a complete sense of confusion and a reply “A can of what?”
It’s simply not possible for NYC to have that sort of weird niche thing. Cause like Kramer would have been obsessed with it in Seinfeld cause the concept of Canned bread is kind of funny.
There is not a single person in the country that would ask “what is a bagel” bit about 300,000,000 would have to ask “what is scrapple”
Does other places copying something mean that it's no longer native? I think that's arguable. You also don't need to go with just bagels. Are you going with bagels and pizza (and again, there are different kinds of pizza out there and NY-style pizza is distinctive) because you aren't too familiar with other dishes? Is it possible that you're naming the most popular ones because you don't know the other ones?
Does other places copying something mean that it's no longer native? I think that's arguable. You also don't need to go with just bagels. Are you going with bagels and pizza (and again, there are different kinds of pizza out there and NY-style pizza is distinctive) because you aren't too familiar with other dishes? Is it possible that you're naming the most popular ones because you don't know the other ones?
AFA pizza is concerned, thanks to a couple of guys from Wichita, that food has gone national much as bagels have. But while NYC pizza — especially the large cheese wedges that you fold in half lengthwise to eat — is distinctive (and there are a couple more distinctive varieties there), lots of pizza aficionados point to New Haven as the birthplace of pizza (apizza, at several New Haven establishments) in the US.
And there are other distinctive styles elsewhere, some of which, like Detroit-style, have become trendy. Ther's also Boston Greek pizza, Chicago deep-dish (which has gone national thanks to Uno), and St. Louis-style pizza, topped with a cheese found nowhere else (Provel).
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