Local food you love or miss

[Chewbaccus]

What I miss from NYC:

- New York-style pizza, specifically from Pizzarama on Franny Lew, right across 200th St from my house.

- Baked goods in general: bagels (Top Hat Bagels on Bell), pastries (Mario & Sal's on...Northern, if I remember right), rolls (I think there was a place in Whitestone we got them from.), etc., etc.,

- Italian food. And if you're someone that thinks Olive Garden or something of the sort is Italian food, do me a favor and start wearing blue-colored tinfoil on your head, so I know who you wackjobs are.

- White Castle burgers.

- IHOP. Once you enter the area between the Appalachians & the Mississippi, they cease to be. Hell, maybe between the A's and the Rockies, for all I know.

- Drake's Coffee Cake.

- Cheesecake from just about anywhere: Junior's, Bayside Diner, it's all good.

I used to miss the Chinese food, but the damnedest thing happened: a store opened in Plum under the same name as the place we always went to three blocks from my dad's place in Bayside. Except for very, very minor differences (pork fried rice in Bayside place has bits of egg in it, Plum doesn't), the food is exactly the same. I mean, it's eerie. God-thankingly fantastic, but eerie.