<p>I'm living in Broome Street, and am transferring to NYU from CC. I'm wondering if anyone has any input on whether or not I should purchase a meal plan??</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>It looks like the nearest dining hall to you would be Kimmel and other dining halls in the
Washington Square area. That is a good 15-20 minute walk for you. So getting to the dining halls would not be that convenient unless you can eat right before or after classes. </p>
<p>You do have a kitchen and it looks like 3 supermarkets nearby. So it is probably better for you if you do some cooking, even if it is easy recipes you put together quickly. Also, if you like ethnic food, you are very close to Chinatown and little Italy. There is a lot of cheap eats in Chinatown and fresh produce, seafood, fruits and other ethnic Chinese foods that can be very reasonable in price. Though you can buy pizza and maybe go to Lombardi’s for a moderately priced meal, Little Italy tends to appeal mostly to tourists, so food tends to be more expensive there.</p>
<p>So the short answer is: Better to go with the smallest meal plan (or maybe even no meal plan) if you cook. Unless you want to hang around or travel to Washington Square for food during meal times (for the convenience of not having to cook).</p>
<p>By the way, I meant to refer to Umberto’s Clam House because it has been a fixture in Little Italy forever. They have pasta with different sauces - sweet, spicy, etc. Also, scungilli, calamari, clams, etc. Lobster bisque. Not the cheapest but not the most expensive place. It will cost more than the $9-$10/ meal average for the NYU meals. However, you can buy their jars of sauce and make your own pasta at home to save a little. There are also some small shops to buy Italian deli items (think they are still there).</p>
<p>In Chinatown, you can get a meal for $5.99 with rice or noodles and 2-3 main dishes, like beef, chicken, tofu, shrimp, vegetables, etc. There are also places for cheap barbeque meat (like roast pork, duck, chicken, spareribs) that can last you 2-3 meals with rice or noodles. Or you can just order a meal with rice/ noodles with different main dish choices for under $9. There is also Malaysian food and Vietnamese food, along with the different regional cuisines of China (Cantonese being the main one, but there is also F u kien, Shanghai style food). Go in the off hours or towards the end of the day (around 7 PM) and you get discounted prices on “dim sum,'” Chinese small eats, as well as bakery items (cakes, rolls, bread). Very reasonable and tasty if you are into this kind of food.</p>
<p>Haha, I had to space out the letters for F u kien food because CC thinks it’s a “no-no” word!</p>
<p>I’m at the same place you are in, also a transfer from CC! Haha. I got the 175 Flex, just because I don’t want to have to worry about food in between classes, I could just go to whichever dining hall and eat.</p>
<p>You can go with the lowest flex mealplan, which I did for my D her sophomore year so that she would be able to eat lunch while at classes. she only did this for the fall semester, and opted out of it for the spring semester. She had a kitchen at Palladium so she prepared most of her own meals. You or your parents can preload your campus cash account with money and use it to pay for meals in the dining halls. It comes down to how focused and organized you are about meals.</p>
<p>Son is transferring from CC to NYU/Broome. We’re going with the 225 Flex. Probably overkill on the plan, but we can always change it and the good thing with the Flex is that the meals carry over each week, until the end of the semester at least. The other nice thing is if you plan ahead, you can buy an extra meal, put it in the fridge and enjoy it as leftovers.</p>