A New York moment in a Turkish home kitchen

Food was the great thread that held together the tapestry of my experiences in New York during an alternately warm and chilly June.

- SAMAR HALARNKAR

seafood bibimbap at Miss Korea BBQ on 32nd St. A hand-pounded guacamole at Rosa Mexicano at Union Square. The simplest and best pork taco I've ever had from a Mexican cart near the steps of the National Museum of the American Indian. A Brazilian family selling homemade relish, and two gruff Italian brothers selling arancinis and gnocchis at a bi-weekly street market in Jersey City. A chicken-rice plate from a halal cart on Broadway, run by an Egyptian, who was thrilled to bits because I bid him farewell with, "Shukran Habibi."

The big news of the fortnight in The New York Times' storied food section was that its secretive food critics would now identify themselves—before writing reviews that could make or break a restaurant's fortunes—and that New Yorkers were no longer running open tabs at bars, preferring instead to pay per drink and leave.

I could not escape it in a city with possibly the most diverse communities and cuisines in the world. The variety and quality of the food was mind-boggling even to me from Bengaluru East and Kamanahattan, the informal moniker for humble Kamanahalli, a nearby suburb famed for its diversity. But, one visit to the original Manhattan, and the boroughs of the great city was a reminder that it was but an inferior desi copy.