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I’m from Chicago and I’ve never been to NYC. From what I’ve heard about bodegas however, the difference seems to be that a bodega requires a cat.
It’s not just a corner store, it’s a corner store with a cat
So after reading through all the valuable comments here it seems like a bodega is a way to say you live in New York while trying to not seem like you’re bragging about it but you actually try to brag about it
bodegon deez nuts
spreads cheeks to identify self as not a cop to purchase illegal weed
My understanding is that at least one type of bodega is known for taking a relatively short list of ingredients and making a wide variety of food out of them.
We’ve got a couple of places like that down here in Hampton Roads - the Sun and Moon deli, for example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nALYSXamP-ksJG9N1C2qjB59ytRqYb56/view (menu)
I love that mix of stuff of which some of it seemingly is random, but it really does re-use a lot of the same stuff.
The lamb over rice is just fantastic. Everything we’ve had has been. Not on that menu, but they have a Jamaican meat patty and it’s clear it’s made homemade in-house. It’s so tasty.
I know both of these placs down here in Newport News are separate, but both run by folks from Yemen. Well, I don’t know what’s up there, but I 100% approve of Yemini-run bodegas down here. They’re delightful! :)
If that’s the definition, every taqueria is also a bodega.
We had one of these by Granville island here in Van BC. Homeade soups, sandwiches, burgers, meat pies, pastries. You name it, she had it and it was cheap and pretty darn good. Raising rent prices chased them out and nothing has been able to replace it…
Ah, that sucks. Because that place sounds like it was frickin’ awesome.
They got beer and chips, and snacks in $1 bags. They also have a sweet Tortie guarding the place. That’s the real reason to visit.
yeah i was going to ask about the cats
new yorkers think having an american, chinese, indian, italian, and mexican restaurant to choose from makes them unique. im not even kidding i saw a new yorker tweet that those choices can only be found in new york city
Swap Indian for Thai and you just described the food options in my Redneck SoCal city.
Lol, maybe if it was 1980.
They also think they have the best of all of the above, they do not. I was there last month the pizza was ass I’ve had better from just about every other state I’ve been to, and they have fuck all for good soul food. Ask a New Yorker for some grits, biscuits and gravy, fried spaghetti, porkchop sandwiches, or collards and watch their fucking head spin. Then ask about barbecue, and when they answer, ask what style that barbecue is and the head twists right off because half of them don’t know Memphis style from Western NC style if they even knew there were different styles at all.
Then they move anywhere and get pissed off that other places aren’t the exact same as NYC, go the fuck back then idiot!
I’m just going to say it: NY style slice pizza is shit. And the thing is New Yorkers know it too. That’s why they fold the slices in half to eat it, they want it to be over as quickly as possible.
Tbh NY “style” pizza is fine, even great from some places, but it is better outside of NYC than inside. They’re not even best at their own style.
Oh my god, I’m from central North Carolina, we call New Yorkers “halfbacks” because they move to Florida, hate it there, so they move halfway back, to North Carolina. And then you get “where I’m from, we…”
I have now decided to no longer tolerate that behavior in my presence. Next time I hear a fookin noo yoaka start a sentence about where he’s from, I’m taking hostages.
Tell 'em to keep going!
“Where I’m from we-”
“I don’t fucking care. Go back if it’s so great. Now.”
If they wanted it to be a little similar but cheaper they should have moved to fucking NJ.
I grew up in Florida (sorry about us clogging up your mountain towns in the Fall). I share the rage. That accent actually triggers me.
they actually have new york barbecue, but its so sad and pathetic youd mistake it for pig feed
my dude i live in california our barbecue is grilled.
the grass can always be browner
In fairness to them… BBQ comes from Virginia. But we didn’t really develop our own unique style, so it sort of faded out somewhat. We have BBQ here and it’s usually NC or some other style (I think generally sort-of-TX more than anything, but NOT quite TX). We have some good places and some meh places.
It sucks that we don’t have VA style BBQ, but… eh. I’ll take good food whatever the source. :)
Always cute to watch Americans argue about good food 😶🌫️
I’m a food enthusiast, personally. I love the fusion of cuisines. For example, many European cuisines were able to do amazing things with tomatoes and potatoes. And one of my favorite dishes involves Japanese curry, which went from India to England to Japan.
We have so many tasty food options these days, and it’s because you can get so many more ingredients all over, and people share ideas and “steal” ideas and make them their own and make them better. :)
Now that I’ve never heard of, so I assume you’re correct lol.
I’m in a small town in southern North Carolina. I’ve got all that plus 2 Peruvian, and 2 Thai, within a 5 minute drive.
Plus you guys get Cook Out!
We might be neighbors; is one of them a Thai Orchid in the building that used to be the old Pizza Hut, next door to the ABC store in the building that used to be the new Pizza Hut?
That doesn’t sound familiar, sorry. It’s good to know that other small towns down here have just as much variety though!
How bazaar
NYC here.
If someone asked the average New Yorker what a bodega was, the most probable answer is “What are you, stupid?”
Not me, because I would be mugging you.
Wow! NYC!
MA TAKE A PICTURE I’M GETTING MUGGED BY THE CITY ITSELF :D
Now try asking the Québécois about dépanneurs
That’s just a convenience store, in French.
That would require me to go to quebec and defile my tongue with french.
Don’t worry, it’s not really French
Nothing special about them. It’s just a different name for a regular convenience store.
Huh, I guess you’re right actually. I’m in Québec often and I always thought a dépanneur was specifically a convenience store that sold alcohol but it seems like it does refer to any convenience store
Ok but conbis are actually pretty great. That or I just like beer and onigiri with a short walk
I love a good conbi crawl getting shit faced through Japan.
Will I wake up in a completely different city? Maybe, because Japan is insanely safe and public transport is perhaps too convenient
I was surprised at both the selection of stuff at a conbini and how they were literally everywhere when I was visiting Japan. Good stuff. Best I got back at home is a single gas station convenience store in walking distance.
I eat conbini sandos all the time, chasing the high of a decent sandwich but only feeling their echoes as a couple of thin slices of ham whisper across my tongue.
I should just stick to rice balls
My fren really got into those sandwiches a while back. I don’t get it. They are crazy expensive compared with the onigiris and other things and don’t look that convincing to me. Maybe worth a try some day
The real magic is I can walk to several open bodegas almost any time of day or night.
Just like a corner store!
It depends where you live. Most places in the US you can’t (safely) walk to anywhere, and many places aren’t open 24/7.
A bodega is a gas station without the gas
So a corner store?
Or even a bodega
I experienced that first hand. Colleagues going to their cars to drive 200m down the road to park again and then walk 100m back on themselves to a deli.
It’s baffling how something as simple as a corner shop that can be walked to is a novelty yet here in Europe, it’s the norm everywhere.
I think back in the day there was a dispute about whether there should be corner stores everywhere. Some disagreed, were put on boats, and sent across the ocean.
You’re right, but that’s equivalent to saying that most places don’t have corner stores. It being walkable is a prerequisite.
It’s all about the relationship you cultivate with the owners and operators of the bodega.
Soooo, same as any corner store?
Depends on the locale, but I believe so.
Where I grew up the market had been cornered, so to speak, by a small city level chain. 26 stores for a proper city and it’s ~6 suburbs.
You got the good food, and some extras like fresh donuts and ice cream from their bakery and creamery, but the staff were almost exclusively university kids with weird schedules you would never see more than a few times.
It was weird for a minute when I lived near a corner store where the owner also was just at the register and talked to people. (To be fair, he was also a university student, he just wanted to let the family manage the family business while he became a pathologist of all things. )
And their Bodega cat.
The most important part of the Bodega!!!
Yep. It’s simple and human. That’s it. That’s the magic.
Not New York but “Topeka Bodega” is a common “practice sentence” in phonics and oratory and I think its a more mellifluous phrase than “cellar door.”
“Topeka Bodega” is quite pleasing to say. I’ve just said it like five times and my wife was like, “What the hell are you going on about now, dear?”
