In Search of the Elusive $1 Menu Item

By Jennifer 8. Lee

The economy is in turmoil. Food prices are rising. We have to watch our budgets (if not our waistlines). Restaurateurs have been raising their prices this year. Even Gray’s Papaya, once famed for selling hot dogs at two for a dollar, has long gone up to $1.25.

So City Room decided to compile what is left of New York City’s dollar menu (like McDonald’s dollar menu, but not).

We surveyed a number of New York City food blogs, including Midtown Lunch, Serious Eats and one whose name we cannot print.

Pizza. We have long observed the tandem relationship between New York’s subway fare and pizza, so the fact that pizza slices are pushing $3 in parts of New York does not seem favorable for commuting costs, given the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s current deficit. So kudos to the folks who are still serving 99-cent pizza or a dollar, which impressed us then, but even more now.

“It’s incredible given that all the elements of pizza are going up,” said Ed Levine, a blogger with Serious Eats.

But pizza gives vendors wiggle room. “People are used to eating pizza made with pretty inferior ingredients,” he said. “Even if they are taking it down another notch ingredients-wise it’s not that much worse that it was being served.” 99¢ Fresh Pizza, 151 East 43rd Street, (212) 922-0257, and 569 Ninth Avenue, (212) 268-1461. 2 Bros Pizza 32 St. Marks Place, (212) 777-0600 and St. Marks, 2 Bros. Pizza Plus, 599 Sixth Avenue.

Fried chicken: There is soul food place called Piece of Chicken that sells — amazingly — $1 pieces of fried chicken, thighs and drumsticks. The breast pieces are $2. This isn’t Korean-fried chicken, but it certainly gets favorable reviews from the food blogs. Some street vendors in Chinatown also sell $1 chicken, but they are harder to nail down. Piece of Chicken, 362 West 45th Street, Midtown, (212) 582-5973. Street vendors in Chinatown.

Dumplings: Chinatown may be our savior when it comes to bargain food. Among the favorites are dumplings, which come four for a dollar, or five for a dollar. They are well-reviewed by a number of food bargain sites. Prosperity Dumpling, 46 Eldridge Street, (212) 343-0683, among others

Skewers: The Chinese also bring us $1 skewers, ranging from lamb to chicken to fishballs to corn. It also comes courtesy of a street vendor at Forsyth and Division Streets, underneath the Manhattan Bridge.

Hot dogs: Gray’s Papaya may now cost $1.25, but there are still dollar dogs on the Upper West Side at Mike’s Papaya. And in Chinatown, Jumbo Hot Dog still offers six-inch frankfurters for $1. But onions, relish, sauerkraut — and the paper tray — cost an extra 25 cents each. It impressive that some have been able to keep beneath the dollar threshold. “If you think about it, how much is an eight-pack of hot dogs in a grocery store,” said Zach Brooks, the blogger behind Midtown Lunch. “It makes sense that they would be able to sell them for a dollar, and make a small profit.” Jumbo Hot Dogs, 149 Canal Street, and Mike’s Papaya, 2832 Broadway, (212) 663-5076.

So it’s slim pickings. But guess what you can get for a dollar these days in New York because of the economic turmoil? A number of once respectable stocks. A few weeks ago, the Motley Fool investment site put together a Wall Street dollar menu: Sirius XM, Citadel, Rite Aid, Six Flags and Vonage. That’s what we’ve come to, folks, a bargain hot dog costs more than a share of many companies’ stocks.