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TimesLedger announces new food blog: Budget Bites

By the TimesLedger Staff

Queens has the best restaurants in the city. There. We said it.

Like the rest of New York City, you can find dishes from anywhere in the world.

But here, it’s different.

Just under 50 percent of the county was born abroad, and when the numerous immigrant communities set up shop, they brought their culinary traditions with them.

In Queens, we don’t eat our tacos from fusion restaurants.

We eat them from a truck on Roosevelt Avenue.

With its subterranean food courts and no-frills dumpling shops, no other Chinatown in the city can touch Flushing.

A southern Indian cafeteria located in a Hindu temple? Yeah, we’ve got it.

Explore Jackson Heights and you will find tiny Nepalese and Tibetan cafés populated by Asian expats — not tourists.

Queens even does classics.

A pub in the Irish enclave of Woodside stakes a claim on the No. 1 burger in the entire city.

Many of the foods sampled by the staff at TimesLedger Newspapers are too good to keep to ourselves, which is why we are launching a new blog called Budget Bites.

We will take you to some of the best places on and off the beaten path, and since we live on a reporter’s salary, it will always be at a bargain — no more than $10 a pop.

Trendy spots are popping up in the west of the borough, but Queens is largely about authenticity.

Many restaurants are inspired by the cuisine from other countries, but the cooks in our kitchens are creating that inspiration.

And it’s delicious.

Check back every so often for a new post about a tasty meal that will fill you up without emptying your wallet.