​The overstuffed chili dog at Dickson's. If you look carefully, you can see the glint of mayo through the morass of chili.

Papaya King, watch your ass! Papaya Dog, too! There's a new chlli dog roaming the city's dog runs, from boutique meat source Dickson's Farmstand Meats.

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​At Potbelly you'll be serenaded, as Andy Warhol looks on.

When Potbelly and the Earl of Sandwich debuted a few months ago, they were treated as co-equal combatants in the new sandwich-chain sweepstakes. The first came via an ancient Chicago sandwich shop; the second as a claimant to the actual pedigree of the guy who supposedly invented the sandwich.

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​Papaya King, 86th Street and Third Avenue, 9:30 p.m.

Founded in 1932, Papaya King is the first of the Greek-owned hot-dog chains to serve papaya drink -- to aid in digestion, or so the claim goes. The pairing of hot dog and papaya drink was also thought to be especially healthy and nutritious when the place was founded. Now, hot dogs of this type are anathema to nutritionists, due to fat and salt content. And, truth be told, the beverage (and its various troupical-juice brethren also available) is not all that great. Spring for the fresh orange juice if you must moisturize.

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​Mmmmm -- Ever tempted to eat something that's absolute garbage?

This quick meretricious gobble features a skin-on all-beef hot dog made in New Jersey, a lake of canned chili with beans (you know you love that canned taste), and "cheese" that was squirted via a hand pump out of a big can that rests on the griddle to keep it warm.

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Lauren Shockey

Mmmm, fried

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What can we say, we're suckers for anything fried: fried pizza, fried green beans, fried bunny rabbit. Submerging food in vats of bubbling oil just adds to the deliciousness factor, hence the trend at county fairs of frying anything edible (even Kool-Aid balls and sticks of butter). So when Chipsy (99 MacDougal Street, 212-244-7799) opened over the weekend, we knew we had to pop in and sample the deep-fried Oreos.

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​The meatball parm hero now being served at Faicco's is an Italian-American classic.

A holdout in one of Manhattan's last remaining Little Italys, Faicco's Pork Store has been an anchor of Greenwich Village's Bleecker Street since 1966. The fully stocked store is famous for its homemade soppressata (a large-bore Apulian salami, hot or sweet), made-to-order hero sandwiches, homemade mozzarella (the best in the city -- plain, lightly salted, or smoked), and, of course, raw pork products.

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The cheese is so yellow it hurts your eyes, running in rivulets across the vast volume of meat-only chili. You can't even see the fries underneath, which are not of the shoestring, but of the waffle sort. The fluids are so viscous, though, that the holes in the fries don't allow any liquids to pass.

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​The smoked brisket sandwich is a very lush production.

The brunch menu at Fatty 'Cue is, in many ways, more approachable than the restaurant's regular menu. There are strange sandwiches, plates of ribs, and a soup among the 10 offerings.

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​The "fries sandwich" ($3.50) will really fill you up.

Boy, Dr. Atkins really did a number on us! Most restaurants now refuse to serve bread, low-carb wraps have replaced sandwiches, and your mashed potatoes have been reduced from a big fluffy pile to a tiny schmear under the steak that's more than half butter.

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Rebecca Marx

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A couple of weeks ago, a friend returned from Brighton Beach, raving about the khachapuri she'd gobbled up on Neptune Avenue. Having enjoyed a long love affair with the Georgian cheese bread, we resolved to make a trip, and holy hell, we're glad we did.

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