It’s not too difficult to dine cheap in New York City. While New York City remains famous for it’s culinary tradition and incredible restaurants, a bargain gourmand can eat well, whether it be it at cheap New York City restaurants or even while fine dining in New York City

Here are some quick tips on dining cheap in New York City.

1. Street Vendors: Where I live, we’re somewhat spoiled and many of us wouldn’t dream of buying a hot-dog or taco out of a mobile restaurant (a.k.a a taco truck). But in Manhattan, the mobile food vendors are the norm. On every major street corner, you’ll likely find a hot dog cart and usually, a kabob cart (courtesy of the growing Egyptian population in NYC). For $5, you can get a steaming hot plate of chicken with rice. Not a bad deal, especially considering that the food is generally pretty good and very fast. A hot dog can go for $1.50 and remember– NYC is famous for their street hot-dogs, so it might be worth giving it a try at least once.
2. NYC Restaurant Week: Today marks the end of NYC Restaurant Week 2010.  For just $24, diners cound enjoy a lunch at a four-star NYC restaurant and for $35, dinner. I tried two restaurants in NYC Restaurant Week 2010 and will post my review shortly for Blue Fin and Ruby Foos, both in Times Square. In all, I thought that Restaurant Week 2010 was a great deal and an excellent way to enjoy cheap fine-dining in NYC.
3. Pizza-by-the-slice: New York is famous for its pizza-by-the-slice. The only other place that I’ve ever felt compared was the pizza in Montreal’s university district (when I was at Concordia University, we could get a slice for 99 cents, but that was over ten years ago) or perhaps Blondies in San Francisco’s Union Square. You won’t find any 99 cent pizza slice places in New York anymore, you can still enjoy a slice of NYC pizza for $2.50. Of course, you probably don’t want to be eating pizza every day, the same way you don’t want to be eating hot-dogs every day in NYC. But nevertheless, it’s worth trying once.