Eating out in New York City

A wide variety of dining pleasures awaits a visitor to New York City, from luxuriating in the fanciest of French restaurants to grabbing a hot dog. With cuisines from every corner of the globe, New York City will feed you very well regardless of your budget.

The least costly alternatives are those used by many natives at lunch time: street vendors, fast food places and delis.

Street vendors' offerings — hot dogs for $ 2.00 or less — are fast, inexpensive and very " New York." Hot dogs (also called " franks" or " frankfurters") are a kind of sausage placed inside a bun. They are often made from pork and can be steamed, boiled, or grilled.

The fast food places, such as McDonald's and Burger King are much the same everywhere in the United States. They offer a pretty standard fare: hamburgers, french fries, and coke (Coca-Cola), at a pretty standard price. A meal will rarely exceed $ 4.00 per person. Hamburgers are made from beef, not ham, and served in a round bun. They are often eaten with tomato, or lettuce, or onion, mustard, and ketchup. A hamburger with melted cheese is called a cheeseburger. There are also some other kinds of burgers with other names, such as the jumbo burger (very big), mush­room burger, or bacon burger, depending on the extra ingredientsadded.

With so many people traveling in cars, fast food places can be found all along the highways. If you are in a hurry, you can drive round to a " drive through " window and pick up your food packed in a paper bag without leaving your car. Likewise, other fast food places may have " drive-in" facilities. A waiter will meet you in the restaurant's parking lot, take your order and deliver the food to your car, where you can eat in the relative comfort of the parking area.

Along highways and in town, " diners" give you a fine oppor­tunity to have a quick snack. They are small-size restaurants, traditionally shaped like a railroad car.

Another option, the delis — short for delicatessen — offer sandwiches and assorted salads. Americans eat a lot of sand­wiches, especially for lunch. They are made with two pieces of bread and a filling. Some, common fillings arc: tuna fish, eggs, ham, chicken, turkey, roast beef, cheese, and peanut butter and jelly. Some sandwiches are served hot, for example, a hot roast beef sandwich. Another special type is the " club sandwich" which is made with three pieces of bread and two fillings between them. One common sandwich is called a BLT, which means ba­con, lettuce, and tomato. Although the bill in delis may run as high as $ 8.00 per person, their advantage is quick service, and of course, as the name implies, the food is delicious.

Another relatively inexpensive alternative is the gourmet take-out shop, stocked with foods for home or picnic. Some places call themselves “family restaurants". This usually means home style cooking. The food is almost as reasonably priced as in delis or better cafeterias.

In a cafeteria you walk through a line, choose your food, put it on a tray, pay at the end of the line, and carry your food to a table.

Turning to foreign cuisine New York City's excellent and inexpensive offerings include pizza and a wide choice of Chinese and Mexican food. Pizza comes in two varieties — thin-crust " Neapolitan" and thick-crust " Sicilian" — and is served by the slice or by the pie. The best Chinese food, of course, is in China­town. To snatch a quick taste of Mexican cooking one may go to Taco Bell or Taco-Time, where you will be offered tacos, chunks of marinated and broiled meat rolled in tortillas (flat bread made from wheat or corn), or chili, a spiced (" hot") seasoned dish of beef, beans, chili peppers, and tomatoes.

Answer the following questions:

1. What new information about eating habits in the USA, if any, have you gathered?

2. Where can one have lunch in the USA?

3. What fast food chains are spread all over the USA? What do they offer?

4. What two kinds of fast food places can one dis­cover while traveling in the USA by car? How

are you served there?

5. What kind of food is one offered at delis?

6. What for­eign dishes have become popular in the United States?

IV. How do you cook that?