While the current trend in noodles may well be ramen, this bafflingly-named Japanese restaurant just ten minutes from my apartment specialises in udon. Unless you are my friend Diego Zambrano it will probably take you several visits to get through all the things you need to try on the menu - the gyoza are otherworldly, the sushi 'tacos' clever enough without being silly. New York has thousands of awful Japanese places; this is not one of them. It's super nice to come in on a Sunday night and eat at the bar next to curmudgeonly old guys barking at each other in Japanese.

Lovely Italian restaurant with a beautiful backyard. I usually have the Orecchiette Salsiccia Broccoli or the spaghetti Vongole.

Grand Central is big and beautiful and it also periodically hosts free cultural events - poets at typewriters custom-composing poems on demand - or Alvin Ailey dancers performing in Artist, Nick Cave's horse suits!

I have been getting burgers here since I first moved to NYC. I think it is 1000 years old or something like that. Only two types of burgers, with or without bacon. I like easy decisions and this place is full of them. There is usually a line to be seated, but it always seems to go fast with $2.50 mugs of McSorley's. It's also at this strange vortex in the west village where 4th street and 12th street cross. Maybe that's why the line never takes too long and everything is so cheap.

This artist-run gallery is a hub of the Brooklyn gallery scene. You'll find Bungee, a celebrated fixture, snoozing comfortably in the office and somehow oblivious to all the surrounding chaos.