Mark is cheap, delicious, and comfortable. The menu is tiny: sliders, fries, chili, pie, milkshakes, beer. Hidden away under a staircase on St. Mark’s between 2nd and 3rd Aves., it’s a long, skinny place that looks like a bar but feels like a café, with an open front wall, little ottomans to sit on, and no crowd at all when I was there with my friends Meredith and Jordan.

Our waitress described these as “like White Castle but better”, which is an understatement. They do taste a bit like White Castle’s, but they’re at least twice the size, meaning you don’t need a sack of 10 to get full, and they don’t leave you feeling bad about yourself after you eat them.

The sliders come “regular”, covered with cheese and onions, or “bacon”, which means bacon is chopped and mixed into the ground beef. Meredith and I both agreed that the regular one was actually better, surprisingly. I don’t even generally love grilled onions so much (I prefer raw), but these perfectly blended with the juicy beef and soft bread.

The tables come equipped with four different fry-dipping sauces: chipotle ketchup, jalapeno, barbeque, and regular ketchup. The chipotle just hinted at chili flavor, but it was my favourite. Our fries were saturated with oil but still managed to be crispy on the outside with potato-y centers.

Don’t let the looks on these ladies’ faces confuse you–we all agreed that Mark is one of our best finds for NYC cheap eats.

Mark
33 Saint Marks Place
New York, NY 10003 (map)

I noticed on Facebook the other day that one of my friends joined a group called If you can’t afford a 20% tip, don’t go out to eat.

I think I’m going to start my own Facebook group, and I’m going to call it If You Expect Me to Tip You 20%, Don’t Take 20 Minutes to Bring Me My Bill Because You’re Too Busy Flirting with the Old Rich Dude at the Table Next to Me.

Or, better yet, I’ll call it If You Actually Expect a $55 Tip on a $275 Meal, You Sure as Hell Better Not Scowl When I Decline to Order Another of Your $17 Cocktails.

I still love you, restaurant industry.

The first time I saw a black and white cookie, it was at my best friend Tracey’s “Seinfeld”-themed bridal shower. Everyone else gushed over the cookies, but I thought they were stupid. The bottom was soft and fluffy like a cake, and if I’m going to eat cake, I want an inch-thick layer of frosting on top; the stuff coating these things was icing, the kind you see on a slice of cinnamon-raisin bread, and I don’t go to bridal showers for bread.

The black and white cookie is native to New York, though, so eventually I had to give in and eat one. My boyfriend and I were at one of the weekly summer street fairs last summer and happened by La Delice Pastry Shop, an 80-year-old bakery in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, with black and white cookies in the window.

Oldschool baker on a skateboard!

Something just . . . took hold of us . . . and we found ourselves being dragged inside to purchase two of the oversized treats. And they were delicious! Like, really, really delicious! It turns out that the cakey cookie part is an invariably moist shortbread and that the vanilla icing forms this sort of crunchy layer to juxtapose the sponge cake. (The chocolate icing doesn’t, for some reason, and I always eat the chocolate first to get rid of it, because the vanilla’s so much better.)

sugar-associated guilt

Since then, we’ve had about a zillion black and white cookies from all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, and I haven’t had one yet that I disliked. Court Pastry Shop in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, has the biggest in diameter (like, monstrously huge). Flavors in Battery Park, Manhattan, has the moistest. Crumbs, the mighty cupcake chain, has the thickest (although The Lunch Belle thinks it sucks).

the black and white cookie from Crumbs

I know everyone has strong opinions about black and whites, and I’d love to hear where you buy your favourites. I’d also like to know if you think the vanilla icing is so much better than the chocolate, because it is.

The totally-not-sanctioned-by-KFC @kfcdoubledown tweeted the other day to tell me that I won the KFC Double Down photo contest on Foodspotting!

I didn’t even know I was entered for the contest, so it was an extra-awesome surprise. And now I have $25 in KFC gift cards coming my way, so if any of you have been too scared to try the Double Down, now’s your chance–on me!

Thanks to Travis Bye, the man behind @kfcdoubledown, and Foodspotting!

Too many exclamation points in one post? Sorry.

I was reading The Girl Who Ate Everything’s post about her makeshift Filet-O-Fish yesterday, and I was struck by how delicious the sandwich looked.

I blatantly avoid seafood as an adult, as you probably know, but I remember actually enjoying the notorious McDonald’s sandwich as a kid. I’m convinced it’s not because of the actual fish portion of the sandwich, though; I think I just really love American cheese and tartar sauce.

Why isn’t tartar sauce more popular? Why don’t I ever see it on anything other than cheap fried fish? If it’s mayonnaise-based but tastes way more awesome, why am I settling for plain mayo on my chicken and pork?