Spend twenty minutes in Midtown Manhattan paying $19 for a chopped desk salad, and it is easy to convince yourself that affordable food has vanished from New York City. Step off the main business avenues into the city’s residential corridors, however, and the $10 feast is not only alive—it remains the backbone of how working New Yorkers actually eat.

1 & 2. Lhasa Fast Food & Phayul (Jackson Heights, Queens): Walk down a narrow fluorescent-lit hallway behind a Tibetan mobile-phone and luggage shop at 37-50 74th Street, just off the 74th St–Broadway E/F/M/R/7 station. Inside Lhasa Fast Food, an order of eight plump, hand-crimped steamed beef or chive momos—served with a bowl of clear bone broth and fiery house-made sepen chili paste—still rings up under $9. Around the corner upstairs at Phayul (37-65 74th St), a steaming bowl of Thenthuk hand-pulled noodle soup is an unbeatable cold-weather steal.

3. Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food (79 Chrystie St, Chinatown): Look for the line snaking along Sara D. Roosevelt Park outside this tiny storefront. Inside, a cleaver-wielding master chops honey-glazed char siu roast pork, crispy-skin roast pig, and soy-sauce chicken at blur speed, piling a mountain of meat over steamed rice and braised cabbage drenched in savory pan drippings for well under $10 cash.

4. Punjabi Deli & Grocery (114 E 1st St, East Village): Operating 24 hours a day since 1994 without a single chair inside, this legendary yellow-awning counter has fueled NYC cab drivers and night-shift workers for three decades. A small combo plate of chana masala, saag paneer, basmati rice, and a crispy potato samosa with tamarind chutney costs less than a fancy oat-milk latte.

5 & 6. King of Falafel & Shawarma (30-15 Broadway, Astoria) & Mamoun’s Falafel (119 MacDougal St, Greenwich Village): Whether you visit Freddy Zeideia’s brick-and-mortar Astoria storefront (or his famous green truck) for crunchy falafel shaped like footballs over spiced yellow rice, or duck into Mamoun’s on MacDougal Street (open since 1971) for a classic pita overflowing with tahini, Syrian hot sauce, and pickled turnips, you’ll walk out full with change in your pocket.

7 & 8. Shu Jiao Fu Zhou (295 Grand St, Lower East Side) & Empanadas Mama (742 Ninth Ave, Hell’s Kitchen): At Shu Jiao Fu Zhou, $3.50 buys a plate of silky Fuzhou-style peanut butter wheat noodles and $4.50 adds ten paper-thin pork-and-chive dumplings—meaning two people can eat royally for under $10 combined.