I was making my periodic pilgrimage to Sri Ganesh's Dosa House -- on the Indian strip along Newark Avenue in Jersey City -- when I ordered my usual luncheon dish: the doctored cream of wheat called uppma. "We're out of it," the guy told me, after casting an appraising gaze into the kitchen. "How about some pongal, instead?"

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.

One of the bright spots of the budget dining scene over the last year or so has been the sprouting up of dollar pizza stores. Yes, the slices at some of these places are inferior to artisanal pizza, but the idea that you could now never be too poor to buy a slice proved a powerful one, and lines formed around the block. Now, dollar burgers step up to challenge dollar pizza for the heart of working-class New York.

To hell with eggs and to hell with bacon. Yes, they can be great, but what if your dietary preferences prevent you from eating them? A brunch at Jersey City's Sri Ganesh's Dosa House is 100 percent just as good -- and strictly vegan, if you avoid the two items out of over 100 that use butter (clearly stated on the menu). And, for vegetarians, you'll be glad to know that there's nothing on the menu you can't eat.

If you haven't been on the stretch of MacDougal Street between Houston and West 4th in a while, you need to pay a visit. This student haunt and historic refuge of bohos from John Reed to Bob Dylan has lately become the city's biggest open-air food court, with a whopping 34 dining establishments, most of them on the middle block north of Bleecker. And many of the eats are incredibly cheap, too. So put on your bib and dive in!

You may think of the three-block stretch of MacDougal between Washington Square and Houston as the recondite refuge of aging beats, hippies, and chess players, along with NYU students trolling for cheap beer. But over the last couple of years, this amazing stretch has filled up with excellent dining establishments, where the food is also often cheap.

Who isn't a sucker for a great restaurant name, or at least a really catchy one? One recent addition to this cadre is Madly Wild Fried Chicken in Sunset Park. Though the place advertises itself as a food court via the less beguiling name of American Star Food Court Inc., there's only one counter inside, and that counter dispenses fried chicken.

Sheng Wang has produced the best hand-pulled noodles in the city for the last five years, and was also the place to introduce peel noodles into Chinatown. The menu has gradually expanded since last year's renovation, and now there is a section of Fujianese-style apps, giving you tremendous flexibility in the size of your meal.