CheapDigest

When NBC announced that they were going to hold a contest for local New York City residents to win a free lunch from a food truck, I was pretty excited. After all, food trucks are my favorite types of cars. But, when I found out that the lunch would be prepared by either Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud, Paul Liebrandt or Michael White, I nearly dropped my taco. But luckily, I'd never drop food in any situation short of Hogzilla seeking revenge on me for eating so many of his friends and family. Delicious, delicious friends and family. 

CheapEatery.com, with its infinite powers, managed to get me a pair of "Access Granted" tickets to the exclusive lunch event today. First, I got to eat tater tots, 7 layer dip, buffalo wings and chicken riggies during the Super Bowl last night and now I get to have a famous chef cook me lunch from a food truck? Sheeeeeeeeit. I must have died and gone to heaven. 

After jump-starting my palate with a breakfast of more wings and chicken riggies, a friend and I headed out to Midtown where the feast would be. What we experienced when we arrived at the truck was unforgettable.  Read more and see the pictures »

One of the predicaments a New Yorker often finds himself in is feeling like it's cheaper to eat out than cook. CheapEatery.com is a prime example of what New York offers in the way of food choices, since here you find all kinds of delicious and hearty meals for less than $10 per person. Try buying all the ingredients for Kung Pao Chicken and cooking it yourself. You'd be $30 in the hole in no time. It's no wonder every city dweller keeps the menu for his local Chinese restaurant, bulletproof glass, MSG and all.

But when the other shoe drops, you don't have much in the way of nutrition. You shouldn't eat Chinese everyday. You shouldn't even eat out every day. Every health magazine tells you, you're eating healthier when you're cooking for yourself. So -- CheapEatery to the rescue again. We're going to give you a series of meals we think you can cook for less than $10 per person. On the menu today? Briskets and Gravy! Read more and see the pictures »

It's finally here Cheapskates! CheapDigest, the CheapEatery.com blog. We're headed deep into the underbelly of NYC cheap eats to find and eat at the best cheap eateries.

Here's the deal: Just hit us up at requests@cheapdigest.com with an investigation that costs under $10 ("What's the best banh mi in Chinatown?" or "Who makes the most legit tacos in Manhattan?") and we'll hit the streets to get you the breakdown. CheapDigest will post your question and our investigation on the blog. For the lucky reader who gets his question picked, some lunch or a free t-shirt might be in the works.

If your question doesn't get picked but you have some interesting food pictures or food related news, feel free to shoot us an email at cheapstreets@cheapdigest.com and we'll try to post it on our home page.

We hope you enjoy the pictures and the stories. But, don't be selfish by keeping all this sweet blog reading to yourself. Tell a friend or two. Here's our first posting, enlightening all those who've troubled to ask us: "Who has the best cheap chicken wings in Manhattan?"

"The Most UNscientific Chicken Wing Tasting Tour"

Chicken wings. Of all the words in the English language these are among the most important in the vocabulary of the frugal eater, second only to “free samples” or “instant ramen” – though unlike the olive bar at Whole Foods or coiled brains of freeze-dried noodles, chicken wings come without the unfortunate associations with thieving degenerates and the mentally deranged. For most, wings call to mind soggy boxes delivered alongside extra large pizzas, or the jostling crowds of sports bars, bits of passably fried chicken heaped up in giant orange mounds with carrots and celery thrown in, possibly as a joke. But the truth is that chicken wings can be more than just something to eat while the game’s on. Like most food we eat on a budget, there are wings out there that are both cheap and good. We set out to find them.

But no experiment is complete without an arbitrary set of rules to govern it, and foremost among them is this: No sauce. On one level this is because I didn’t want to stain the pages of my notebook, but on another it’s because sauce is generally used to disguise the fact that the chicken you’re eating is gross. Good wings should stand on their own. The second rule, and one more pertinent to your pocketbook, is that you should never, ever, ever pay more than two dollars per wing. Fried chicken wings are, at their core, cheap food -- cheap to buy, cheap to make -- and anyone charging you more than two bucks for a wing is trying to cheat you. With that in mind I found four places that might change the way you think about wings.   Read more and see the pictures »