Home of the best $1 dumpling deal in town, this Chinatown mainstay is looking a lot spiffier these days. Back when it was known only as Dumpling House, it was half as wide, twice as dirty, and usually steamy from the vats of cooking dumplings. The long line of locals waiting outside was the only sign that anything tasty was going going on in there, and speaking Chinese certainly helped in jockeying to be the next order. Now with snappy new signage and a relatively spacious seating area, this feels like a whole new place. Fortunately, the dumplings still rock.

They’re pricier now (4 for $1 instead of 5) but it’s worth it. Get the pork and chive dumplings–fried-crisp yet tender pockets of juicy pork (defuse an embarrassing squirt of juice by nibbling a hole in your dumpling first, instead of biting it in half, similar to eating a soup dumpling). The sesame pancake sandwiches, at $1.50-$2.00, are one of the best deals around. Sesame pancake is a fluffy, buttery wedge of flatbread studded with sesame seeds and stuffed with fillings, like fried egg and cucumber ($1.50) or pork, cucumber, carrots, and cilantro ($2.00). The pork sandwich was my favorite although ideally there would be more filling to balance out the thick, greasy bread. I thought the just-barely-spicy hot and sour soup with tofu and mushrooms was okay, but I loved the fact that a hefty bowl was only $1.25. The only thing I didn’t like was the steamed vegetable bun, which was oddly rubbery. Fried is obviously the way to go here.

The menu (expanded from the one on menupages) is packed with items that cost under $3, so no surprise it gets busy here during the evening rush and orders may take ten or fifteen minutes. But the pork dumplings are undeniably delicious and so cheap it feels like stealing. There’s also a 14th St. location, expect to pay more there.

Vanessa’s Dumpling House, 118a Eldridge Street between Grand and Broome
7:30am-10:30pm every day
Frozen dumplings available 50/$9.00

Let me ask you this–could you contentedly quaff the thickest, darkest, highest-alcohol beers in equatorial climes? Hell, no. To enjoy a beverage like this, it has to be COLD out there–so cold that touching your face feels like being uncomfortably close to a stranger. So cold that your glasses fog up when you go indoors anywhere, leaving you in a dorky little cloud, helplessly smearing water vapor around your lenses. You certainly couldn’t enjoy Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout, unless you’re well-versed in January’s indignities.

Dark, slightly bitter chocolate, malt, and alcoholic warmth predominate this pitch-black brew, which only gets better upon sipping. Despite the high ABV (10%), the chocolate flavor masks the alcohol fairly well, and considering the beyond-Belgian bang you get from 12oz, it’s also a good deal ($11.99 for a sixpack at Whole Foods Beer Room). Treat yourself to a bottle and then try to remember why you hated this time of year in the first place.

A- on Beer Advocate

Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room
95 Houston Street near Second Ave/Chrystie St. 8am-11pm

It’s easy to miss L’asso–maybe it’s the abstract signage. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s a block away from Lombardi’s, a New York institution. I went a few times when it first opened, liked it, and forgot about it. It’s doubly easy to miss the fact that they serve pizza by the slice, something that Lombardi’s and many other famous, old-school pizzerias don’t do. But in case you think they don’t know their pizza, L’asso prides itself on adhering to the rules for Pizza D.O.C.–guidelines that specify the type of tomatoes (san marzano), the type of mozzarella (buffalo milk), and the type of oven (domed, brick, and heated to 420 degrees), deemed necessary by the maestros Italy to produce a genuine neapolitan pizza.

The atmosphere is very laid-back chic-cafe, with a wine list and dubby mood music, and a fairly extensive menu with about eighteen varieties of individual-sized pizzas. The slices ($2) are behind the counter, and since most of their customers are ordering off the menu, yours will have probably been sitting for a little while and warrant reheating. It’s still as decent a slice as you’ll find in the area - just stick to the margherita and steer clear of the blandly cheesy bianco. On Monday through Friday they have a happy hour special - $1 slices with $3 Brooklyn Lager on tap. They were churning out slices at a good clip during my happy hour-timed visit so mine was fresh from the oven, with a light, slightly chewy crust, sweet-and-tangy sauce, just a few melty daubs of fresh mozzarella, and drizzled in olive oil. Granted, it was about half the size of a regular slice but it was a freakin’ DOLLAR so I wasn’t complaining.

I am over sloppy, face-sized, cardboard-crusted Artichoke slices–this is closer to a slice as it should be.

L’asso 192 Mott Street at Kenmare
Sun-Wed 12pm-12am, Thurs-Sat 12pm-3am

Doughnut Plant is probably the only eating establishment I have visited twice in one day. It’s that good.

First, there are the yeast donuts, in glazed, jelly-filled, and creme-filled varieties. They’re squarish, faced-sized and unbelievably light, with airy, melty dough under a sticky layer of sweet glaze ($2). Perennial faves are vanilla bean, Vahlrona chocolate (messy), and peanut butter and jelly. There’s a rainbow of seasonal flavors too, including fresh strawberry, pomegranate, pumpkin, and banana pecan. Vanilla is simplicity perfected if you usually find donuts too sweet or too fried. Often there’s one fresh from the oven on a baking sheet poking through the kitchen window, and they’ll drop that one in your bag instead of the one on display in the shelves.

Then there are the cake donuts–smaller, round with a hole, with a more condensed, doughier middle; a closer relative to the traditional donut (think Krispy Kreme). Tres Leches ($2) has a ring of sweet custard running through it–a phenomenal improvement over Boston Creme, because you get just a little bit of creme with every bite. If you must try only one donut here, get this one.

There are the cinnamon rolls, huge doughy spirals encased in a crackling glaze, spiked with swollen raisins, and cinnamon-sugary filling growing more concentrated as you eat your way into its sticky heart.

And finally there’s the dude behind the counter, who is pretty much the embodiment of the happy gourmand donut shopping vibe. He’s always smiling. I love buying donuts from that guy.

There’s only a couple of seats, so count on getting your donuts to go, and munching your way down Grand Street. Plan to get an extra one, so you don’t have to make that second trip.

Doughnut Plant, 379 Grand Street (also sold at Dean & Deluca, but best to go to the source)
Tues-Sun 6:30 am - 6:30 pm

Update 3/18/09: Kossar’s is no longer open 24 hours. See hours below.
I never tasted a bialy before I lived in New York City. Even in New York these cousins to the more-mainstream bagel are hard to come by. Try to find a good one and most likely, you’ll end up standing at a certain spot on Grand Street, where trendy Lower East Side melds with Chinatown and overlooks a grim shoreline of projects. Here stands Kossar’s Bialys, the remaining stronghold of downtown’s vanished bialy-baking industry.

Inside it seems like little has changed since they opened seventy years ago. Behind a simple counter stand a few wire racks piled with warm bialys, bagels and bulkas. Across a powdery floor, trays of dough placed in tall racks await their turn in the brick oven, whose depths are plumbed by a lone baker with a pole. Seating consists of a bench outside, with an old guy already sitting on it.

But atmosphere isn’t the point–this place is all about bialys. While bagels are boiled rior to baking, rendering their crusts hard and shiny and their innards dense, bialys are simply baked, leaving them lighter and airier, but still chewy and delicious. Instead of a center hole they have a dimple filled with sweet chopped onion. Kossar’s doesn’t toast, so if you do so at home you’ll find even more flavor unleashed, especially with a thin layer of cream cheese or butter spread over top. If you haven’t been for a while, steel yourself for sticker shock–the price of a bialy has skyrocketed from sixty to ninety cents since the halcyon days of 2006. Don’t tell them but I’d probably pay more.

Snack spots, even good ones, come and go quickly in this hood, and I don’t tend to get too attached (witness, if you will, the Chase Bank that was once the venerable Second Avenue Deli). Although the reflex sentiment toward gentrification is dismay, I don’t think shrugging off the past is necessarily a bad thing (now scheduled for demolition/cries of protest–the funeral pyre-ish tower of bedraggled toys on Sixth Street and Avenue B–good fucking riddance). But, ye Manhattan gods! Leave us Kossar’s Bialys! Someone make this a designated landmark of snack before it’s too late!

(shot of the Tower of Toys on East Sixth Street)

Kossar’s Bialys 367 Grand Street at Essex Street. Sun-Thurs 6am-8pm. Fri 6am - 2pm. Closed Saturday. REPEAT: Closed Saturday!! If you forget and head down on a Saturday, don’t worry. Doughnut Plant is a couple doors down, and is worth a visit.