The PERFECT Manhattan Dinner Date!

Break out your formalwear! Even a fashion-spitter usually has one tux, or one gown (sometimes both), gathering dust in their closet; here’s a chance to put it to good use!

Manhattan’s many celebrated five-star restaurants are as legendary for their food, as they are for their pricing, but this special find somehow eluded the recommendations of the city’s top food critics, who must be getting kickbacks from the food-spitting, wealth-hating waitstaff, that is just as legendary for hurling something “extra” onto your plate, or cloaking it brilliantly in your appetizer. Since this is not The Food Spit, we cannot endorse such unsanitary conduct, much as we like to see life made nasty for the world’s very invoiced persons (VIPs). You won’t be hated upon by the helpful staff at this place, and you can see the food being prepared in front of you anyway. The combination of best-in-category offerings of this place, and its unbeatable pricing, make it the perfect dinner-date for cost-conscious fashion-spitters. I’m talking, of course, about Papaya King”, at 86th and Third Avenue (or their newer location at 14th and Seventh Avenue). Not Gray’s Papaya, the well-known knockoff chain that has decent hotdogs of its own. That place is great if you need a quick meal, but culinary snobs who want best-in-category fare, for a premium of a few dollars or less, will want the “original Papaya,” the one started by legendary fashion plate Gus Poulous in the 1930s.

Put some sneakers on under your formalwear, because you’ll want to run from your double-parked limo into this efficient venue, and get ready for the best hotdogs you ever tasted, along with some of Manhattan’s most fascinating tropical-drink offerings. For less than $10.00 a person, and not too much more than $5.00, you will emerge with a pretty fucking good meal, at a damn good price. Your recession-conscious date will be so impressed with your seamless integration of style and thrift, that she’ll instantly want to replicate your DNA.

You can take the IRT to get to Papaya King, but make sure to splure one one of Manhattan’s many fine yellow limousines. Rumor has it that there’s even one floating around that might just pay you, if you’re lucky, and have a thing for trivia.