C: Is for cuisine to check out!

Spring is here and the exploring begins. Here is some new cuisine recommendations.
Gottino
52 Greenwich Ave., nr. Perry St.; 212-633-2590
This one is for Tom. Gottino is a charming West Village establishment with old world charm. Serving wine and a daily changing specials written on a blackboard, but it is the fetishizing menu of snacks, salads, crostini, and inventive small plates that will have you coming back for more. Using seasonal ingredients, the winter crostini with butternut squash will have you sing their praises. Even the salads using brussel sprout leaves and crème fraîche moistened blood orange segments are a unique culinary treat. It’s cramped, cozy, and friendly in a very low-key way, which only makes the food and drink that much more impressive. And in a city of manufactured rusticity, Gottino’s seems entirely unforced, down to the mason jars stuffed with chicken-liver pâté, and the Virginia ham aging in the basement.
Hill Country
30 W. 26th St., nr. Broadway; 212-255-4544
Taken the barbaque world by storm this year Hill Country’s has an impeccably pure Texas product. A confluence of rich brisket is a potent, smoky, meltingly rich expression of all that makes barbecue great. Hill Country’s immense, untrimmed pork spareribs and beef short ribs might, frighteningly, be even better. In the restaurant’s basement, there’s a live stage where honky-tonk bands play till the wee hours, if that’s your sort of thing. Ty, I think this is a place to sink our teeth into.
Birdbath
145 Seventh Ave. S., at Charles St.; 646-722-6570
Laura, this is for you. An East Village animal product free indulgence. Cookies and muffins all vegan with something new, a banana, sesame, agave cake. Crunchy on the outside and tender within, teeming with nutty sesame seeds and impregnated with a few moist chunks of dried banana, just lightly sweetened with agave syrup. Crunchy, chewy, and barely sweet. Besides keeping Manhattan well supplied with oversize chocolate-chip cookies and raspberry bran muffins, Rubin aims to align the organic ingredients in his food with the renewable, ecofriendly construction materials used to build the stores where it's sold.
Crif Dogs
113 Saint Marks Pl Phone: (212) 614-2728
There aren't many eateries in New York where you can play Galaga, Centipede or Ms. Pac-Man while downing franks, but this place keeps the '80s spirit of the block alive. A mixed crowd sprawls out among the checkered tables and counter stools, eyeing posted specialties like the Spicy Redneck ("makes you want to marry your cousin") or the more demure root-beer float ("One straw or two?"). Dog choices are limited to the standard Crif (an up-to-snuff smoked frank), the snappier, bolder-tasting all-beef New Yorker and the veggie, delivered in signature combos, ranging from the satisfying chili dog to more eccentric styles. Once you've abandoned yourself to the lipid-rich, brain-dissolving Chihuahua--wrapped in bacon and topped with avocado and sour cream--you may be ruined for any other 3am meal. Tom, who do we need to take here?

Snack Dragon Taco Shack
199 E 3rd St
A red flashing light warns potential customers of "Taco Fever," to which many passersby happily succumb. Red and multicolored strings of lights adorn the facade of this tiny orange and blue shack, with a lone employee dishing out cheap Mexican basics to a post-party crowd, who eat standing on the sidewalk with pop music playing in the background. The menu might be limited, but that just means the shack focuses on making a few items well. The fish tacos, filled with tender pieces of grilled sole, are given a subtle kick from the chipotle coleslaw and radishes. Another standout dish is the nacharitos, made with a warm blend of black beans, melted cheese, salsa and cilantro layered atop a crispy tostada shell. Blue corn tortillas come stuffed with either soft chunks of chicken infused with salsa verde or smoky carne asada, overflowing with mounds of cheese, beans, salsa and cilantro.

All of these places have on thing in common they are inexpensive and show you don't have to be rich to enjoy life and that in these times is a soothing F.A.C.T.