Best NYC Food Finds Fall 2021

I have officially finished my first semester of grad school in New York City! I had a blast this fall. I loved my classes and teachers, and I especially love (present tense) all of my wonderful classmates/new friends! I also love living in the city. Even though NYC is having a rough time of it again with Covid (I am in fact writing this in quarantine, having tested positive last week 🤦🏻‍♀️), it's been a great city to get to explore this past semester with my friends.

And of course, one of my favorite ways to explore is by eating! I have been very good about mainly cooking for myself during the school week, but during the weekend I let myself go and eat out, usually at a new place. It's a fun way to socialize, try new foods, and visit a new area. Here are some of my favorite foods/eateries that I discovered this fall in the city!

(Also special shoutout to Abe Shim for recommending/taking me to a lot of these places to me 😄)

Jin Ramen - Upper West Side (and other locations)

NYC is full of good ramen places, and Jin Ramen is definitely among them. I am conveniently located between two of its locations (one is on 125th & Broadway, right by where I take class, and there's another on 82nd & Amsterdam). The ramen here is everything you want from ramen: hearty and flavorful broth, springy and chewy noodles. It's the kind of dish that will warm you right to your core. The menu is extensive with something for everyone.

My favorite thing so far is the Kuro Shio ramen - a chicken broth base infused with yuzu and togarashi and served with kara-age (fried pork pieces), a poached egg, and shishito peppers. The bowl is topped with scallions, sesame seeds, nori (seaweed), and black garlic oil. The broth is super flavorful despite being on the lighter side. The pork pieces are delicious and the shishito peppers add a great texture and kick - I've never seen them in ramen before, but it works really well.

Jin Ramen is one of those places that I will continually be going back to (I'm so happy to have a local ramen place!) and I will slowly eat my way through the menu.

Absolute Bagels - Upper West Side

If NYC is full of good ramen, it is overwhelmed with good bagels. There are probably countless blog posts out there on the "best" bagels in the city. Everyone has their own opinion on it. As a non-New Yorker, I don't feel qualified to deem what is the "best" bagel, but I can tell you that I think Absolute Bagels is great.

Located mere blocks from me on 107th & Broadway, my friend Abe thought it was a travesty that I had not yet been months into the school year. After having heard this place recommended multiple times (and having passed by the almost always present line outside the door), I finally went the morning before leaving the city for winter break.

I got a simple everything bagel, toasted, with scallion cream cheese. Absolute Bagels are known for their very thick and chewy bagels, my preferred texture for a bagel. They did not disappoint. I love how satisfying these bagels are to eat. You really feel like you're eating something substantive as you bite down on the fluffy, perfectly doughy and lightly crisp bread. This is the kind of bagel that will tide you over for a good long while.

Oasis Jimma Juice Bar - Morningside Heights

This is the one place in this post that you will likely NOT see listed on any other food blogs. Oasis is a tiny juice bar/healthy food place right by the 1 Metro stop on 125th & Broadway. Because of its optimal location near school, it has become a lunch hub for my classmates. Pretty much every day someone walks in at the lunch break with a smoothie and/or sandwich from here.

Oasis has fantastic smoothies. My go-to is the Times Square - avocado, kale, mango, pineapple, almond butter, and coconut milk. However, there is also one called Smoothies in Heaven, aptly named for it is heavenly. Ingredients are almond butter, banana, coconut milk, cinnamon, dates, and cocoa. I swear, I would take this smoothie as dessert. I would take it over a lot of desserts. It is that delicious. I've never gotten the food at Oasis, (I almost always bring my own lunch), but I often see my classmates with their sandwiches and wraps. The tuna one seems to be popular!

(photos taken from Yelp)

Besides being cheap, healthy, and delicious, Oasis is also run by the nicest Ethiopian man named Abdi. Abdi is seriously so friendly and will offer you multiple free samples every time you go in.

S'MAC - East Village

On weekends (and ok, on some week nights), I venture out of the Upper West Side and visit other eateries around the city with my friends. Actually, I would say that I eat downtown more often than I do in my own neighborhood (I mostly cook during the week). While this post is full of my local haunts, S'MAC in the East Village has transcended the 35 minutes it takes me to get there to make it onto this list.

Another Abe Shim recommendation, S'MAC has a ton of different flavors of mac and cheese as well as build-your-own options. For my first time there, I got the sampler which comes in a skillet with eight different flavors of mac. Though they have many fun flavors, my favorite actually ended up being the All American. There's just something so satisfying about cheddar cheese and pasta; when I want mac and cheese, the All American is what I'm looking for. Other good flavors are the Alpine (gruyere with bacon) and the Napoletana (mozzarella, tomato, and basil).

Eataly (gelato) - Flat Iron

Hot take, but I don't think NYC has the best ice cream. Don't get me wrong - there's certainly really good ice cream in New York. I've been to a number of the renowned ice cream places in New York and they've been great! But nothing mind-blowing. Part of me is always just like, But Salt & Straw is still better...

Hot take #2, I don't think I would necessarily recommend the Eataly rooftop. I have dined there twice now and while it is decorated beautifully and very Instagram-worthy, I honestly don't think the food is that great and it is wildly overpriced for the amount of food you are getting.

All that being said, Eataly does a good job with gelato. Where many other establishments in America have failed, Eataly at least knows how to make a proper Italian gelato. The gelateria is on the ground floor and they have several staple flavors as well as rotating specialty ones. The flavor below is the nocciola or hazelnut which is absolutely delicious. Pistacchio, cioccolato, and stracciatella are also good. If I don't feel like trekking all the way to Brooklyn for Gentile, then this one is a great alternative.

Special shoutout: Crumbl Cookies

To be clear, Crumbl is NOT a NYC establishment. There are no locations in NYC. I am also aware that I am late to the Crumbl train and that this place has been raved about by many already. But I just discovered Crumbl Cookies like two weeks ago, in the state of New York, and it was a game changer.

Was I suspicious since Crumbl advertises itself as having "the best cookie in the world"? Yes. I'm suspicious of anything that contains the word "best". But after having been randomly recommended this place twice in one day by two separate parties, AND discovering that there was a Crumbl 13 minutes away from Will's apartment in Rochester, it seemed like destiny was telling me to go.

Crumbl's flavors change each week so when Will and I went, we got the hot chocolate, buttermilk pancake, red velvet, snickerdoodle, and classic sugar. Sadly they ran out of the chocolate chip so we weren't able to taste that classic flavor.

I was surprised (and delighted) by how enormous the cookies were. They are not messing around over there. Eating them warm is a must. Will and I both commented on how Crumbl has nailed the texture of the cookie - crunchy on the outer edges, but soft and cakey in the middle. The flavors are each distinct and exactly what you want from them. The hot chocolate really did taste like hot chocolate, like Swiss Miss.

The buttermilk pancake was the best of the batch we got. The maple frosting on top with a dollop of butter (was it butter or butter flavored buttercream?) was perfection. It was so good that Will was nearly convinced that Crumbl does indeed have "the best cookie in the world".

Again, Crumbl is NOT in NYC, but it is in a lot of other random locations throughout the United States to definitely check it out if there's one near you 😌

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I hope you enjoyed this NYC food finds post (plus the Crumbl detour)! I am looking forward to continuing to explore the city through food, so look out for a spring post 😉