New York in a Dozen Dishes

Join New York City’s most intrepid eater—Robert Sietsema, pioneer of outer-boroughs dining—in an urban adventure like none other. Through essays on the city’s defining dishes, some familiar, others obscure, Robert paints a portrait of New York’s food landscape past and present, and shares a life spent uncovering the delicious foods of the five boroughs. Gobble up a century of New York pizza, from the coal-fired pies of a thriving Little Italy to the slice joints of a burgeoning rock ’n’ roll East Village. Discover Katz’s Delicatessen as Robert did, on a foray into the hardscrabble Lower East Side of the 1970s. Take Robert’s hand and he’ll bring you through the Mexican taquerias of Bushwick—with their papalo leaves and piled-high sandwiches—then visit the underground Senegalese dining scene hidden in plain sight in 1990s Times Square. See the evolution of New York fried chicken from Harlem’s spare, ancient style to the battered-and-brined birds of hipster Brooklyn. Hunt with Robert for Hangtown fry and a vanishing Chinese-American cuisine, and follow him as he ferrets out the city’s most elusive foods, including the Ecuadorian guinea pig.