Now that you've had your chestnuts roasted by an open fire, it's time to savor a different kind of chestnut. I'm talking about our most durable and inexpensive restaurants—the old chestnuts of the city's dining scene. Most of those mentioned here have delivered excellent meals day in day out for decades with little fanfare. A few are justifiably celebrated for their historic significance, while others languish in the gloom of perpetual obscurity. Some of more recent vintage are merely wonderful, and wonderfully cheap. All allow you to dine in surroundings that are at least—how shall we say it?—interesting, with minimal expenditure of the green stuff, which may be in short supply if you've recently emptied your wallet in pursuit of certain quasi-religious holidays. My benchmark is the mythic $25 meal for two—including beverage, tax, and tip. Sometimes we go over by a dollar or two, sometimes we stay way under. This tandem meal could be you and a friend, you and a date, or—what the hell—you and a stranger picked... More >>>