Looking for a quick bite before your broadway show? Not the app for you. Precious designer cupcakes? Does that count as food?

This is real, stand-up food. The kind that chefs eat when they're not the ones cooking. Taste the new York that you can only taste when you're in New York. A 4AM Gray's dog, the best pastrami sandwich you've ever had in your life, a slice of pizza so good it'll make you cry. These 36 places are where you'll find the chefs after a grueling double shift on the sauté station, it's the food that New Yorkers miss the most when they're on vacation, food so good, that's been around so long, that you'll never hear about it unless you ask a local.

And locals complain that we're giving all their haunts away - screw 'em! They complain too much anyway. Who cares if you're in their way when you're walking through Times Square - they're probably rushing by you to make sure they nab that last counter seat at Yasuda before you do (don't let 'em!)

This is food worth coming to New York for. You've only got a few days, you'd better make the most of them. Just 36 of the city's finest eats.