Best Cheap Meal

Above: Polish Platter with pierogis, stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes, hunter's stew, kielbasa

The Polish Slavic Center Cafeteria
177 Kent St., nr. McGuinness Blvd.,
Greenpoint; 718-383-5290

It’s not exactly the Google cafeteria, but what this community- center canteen lacks in steam-table style, it makes up for with cheap, delicious home cooking. Everything here is made from scratch, and no bulging plate of grub costs more than $9, with most dishes hovering around the $6.50 mark. Chef Monika Trznadel—who incidentally looks absolutely nothing like the beetle-browed women who traffic in junior-high tater tots—specializes in the kind of rib-sticking stuff you’d expect to find on the bill of fare at a Polish lumberjack camp. We’re partial to the white borscht, the pork meatballs, the Gorski mountain cutlet (thick breaded pork with a fried egg on top), and the cheese blintzes. Main courses come with mashed potatoes and gravy, a choice of salad, and a cup of the cherry-flavored juice called compot. There’s also enough offal here (tripe stew, pig’s feet, tongue with gravy) to feed a small army of Mario Batalis.

Here's the NY Mag review:

The portions at the spotless, skylit PSC (Polish Slavic Center) Cafeteria in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are so much better than Le Cirque's that even the burly working men who congregate here wobble like tentative tightrope walkers as they carry their pierogi-packed trays back to their tables. Satisfying slabs of meat loaf, chicken cutlets, and beef-and-pork-stuffed peppers are a few of the hearty entrées heaped high with mashed potatoes and gravy, red cabbage, coleslaw, rye bread, plus a glass of compot (the room-temp fruit drink)—all for under seven bucks. Throw in a measly extra dollar and you get a big bowl of the soup of the day. Or splurge on dessert: perhaps the best cheese blintzes in Greenpoint served with a dollop of vanilla-sweetened sour cream.


Source NY Mag