The only thing New Yorkers love to do more than complain is talk about how great living here is. (You’ll be glad to know that this post focuses on the latter.) The thing about New York is that there is ALWAYS something going on that’s cooler than anything you’ve done before. So, New Yorkers become collectors of experiences, and it’s nearly unforgivable to fail to take advantage of it all.

In an effort to catalogue these essential New York experiences, a friend of mine compiled responses from various folks about what they would describe as absolutely essential to being in NYC. The resulting list was enormous, so I’m creating a series of installments that are split into categories like museums, parks, and arts/entertainment. And as you’ve already noticed, this first installment is devoted to food.

So whether you choose to use these lists as a tourist guides the next time you come to town, or whether you (like me) want to compare them against your own “things to do” checklist, please enjoy! Feel free to vote for your favorites in the comments section, or to add anything that this compilation missed.

• Eat Grimaldi’s pizza after you walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.*
• Have a themed eating meal of similar types of foods from different places. For example, “things stuffed inside carbs”: first Chinese dumplings; then Venezuelan arepas; then Italian pastries.**
• There is an amazing Indian restaurant on 29th & 3rd Ave called Vatan.**
• Dim Sum on Sunday morning in Chinatown or Flushing.*
• Drinks at the Times Square Marriott Hotel’s Broadway Lounge. (Note: It’s only worth it if you go on a mid-week evening and are able to sit by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the madness of Times Square.)*
• Although they can sometimes become tourist traps, I personally love all the street fairs that go on in the summer. Makes the city especially tasty (literally).
• Have a drink in Battery Park.**
• The Chocolate Room in Brooklyn.*
• Have a Mr. Softee ice cream cone on a hot and steamy day.
• Eat ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.**
• Have drinks at Pier 63.*
• Eating at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.
• Ethnic eating tour of the boroughs – Albanian in the Bronx, Thai/Indian in Queens, African in Brooklyn, and Staten Island for the heck of it.**
• Outdoor Biergarten – Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn or Loreley in the Lower East Side.**
• Zum Schneider for authentic Bavarian beer and food.**
• Eat Indian food in Jackson Heights (especially at the Jackson Diner).*
• Mojitos and corn-on-the-cob at Habana Outpost in Fort Greene, Brooklyn – an outdoor bar run only on solar power.*
• Tom’s Restaurant/Diner on W. 112th Street & Broadway (aka the Seinfeld diner).*
• Go to Bruno’s Bakery for pignoli cookies and coffee (of your choice).**
• Both Brooklyn Tea Lounges are fabulous places to chill.
• Eat at the Neue Galerie’s restaurant, Cafe Sabarsky.**
• Sripraphai Thai Restaurant in Woodside, Queens.**
• Eat out somewhere at 4am, just because there are still places open that hour.*

* Done it and loved it.
** Can’t wait to check it out.