A hard-drinking literary bar.
This unassuming place is one of the few remaining old-time inexpensive restaurants in the neighborhood. It serves kosher dairy and pareve (non-meat but including fish) food. Since the soup costs only 50 cents more for a bowl than for a cup, always order a bowl. Good challah and good honest food - nothing fancy, but a very fair value. You can view the menu as of 2018 at their Facebook page; some prices have gone up, but it'll give you a fair idea of the selection.
Wed–Fri 8AM–10PM, Tue Sun 8AM–9PM, Sat 8AM-11PM, closed Mon·Soups: $5/5.50 per cup/bowl; omelettes: $8-9.50; sandwiches: $2.50-10; specials: $4-14
This might be one of the few bars left in the East Village that isn't overrun by frat boys, sorority girls and loud drunken youths from New Jersey. It usually isn't crazy even on weekends. They are not whiskey specialists but have a pretty good and relatively well-priced selection of whiskeys and ryes (though prices have started to creep up, and Sophie's, listed below, is cheaper), among the rest of their drinks. The sound track tends toward country and classic rock, the bartenders are personable and helpful, and the clientele tends to be a quirky, friendly motley crew of various ages.
Daily 8AM-4AM
This restaurant specializes in Sichuan dry pot, which is different from hotpot, in that hotpot is a soup that the diner traditionally prepares by being given two kinds of broth and ingredients of their choice to boil in real time, whereas dry pot has some sauce but is not soup-like, is prepared in the kitchen before being brought out to the diner and can be ordered to go without a notable dropoff in quality or freshness. The restaurant also serves appetizers, but the flavorful, aromatic (and if you order it spicy, quite chili-laden) dry pot is what you should order. You must order at least 3 ingredients in your dry pot, but 4-5 are common for an individual and 7-8 for a couple. Ingredients range from $3-12, but cluster around $4-8, so the price can mount fairly quickly, and tabs of around $24-27 plus tip for an individual and $40 for a couple are common. Tastes vary, but some of the ingredients that stand up well to the powerful sauce and spices are the soup filled beef balls, the lamb, the beef tongue and the lobster balls, and among the better ingredients for enjoying the sauce are the bean curd sheets, noodles and enoki mushrooms. Rice is also available for an extra charge of $1 for white rice and $2 for purple rice. This restaurant has other branches at 41 West 46th St. and 245 East 53rd St.
Mon–Fri noon–9:15PM, Sat Sun 11AM–9:15PM·Mala dry pot: minimum $12 + tax with 3 ingredients