“I wondered aloud if I would be able to find a decent meal in what was surely a culinary heart of darkness.”

A favorite pastime here at LGM is making fun of New York food writing, well New York writing in general but especially food, with its frequent columns of wonder and amazement that other parts of the nation also have food and culture. So this LA Times April Fool Day’s slap back is the best thing I will read today.

The bright lights of New York City beckon to the restless and the hungry. In the city that never sleeps, as they say, the marquees of Times Square nearly make one forget the concrete dystopia of what is seemingly an unlivable urban wasteland. Surrounded by rats, black trash bags and graffiti-tagged storefronts on Broadway Street, New York’s primary thoroughfare, I wondered aloud if I would be able to find a decent meal in what was surely a culinary heart of darkness.

In Los Angeles, we’re spoiled by the breadth and quality of our dining options. In addition to outstanding year-round produce, I can get great huaraches, refreshing mul naengmyeon and impeccable chả giò within 15 minutes of where I live. But what about New York, a largely culturally bereft island that sits curiously between the Hudson and East Rivers at the foot of the Catskill Mountains? Sure, we’ve all heard of hot dogs, a staple of every New Yorker’s diet, famously gnawed on by rodent and human alike in that “toddling town.

But as it turns out, there’s more. A lot more. A number of daring experimental and fusion restaurants have opened in recent years, vastly improving the city’s scrappy culinary scene and making it a legitimate dining destination. Others are emphasizing seasonal fruits and vegetables in what seems to be a clear nod to Los Angeles. A weekend spent in the “city so nice they named it twice” leads this writer to recommend, rightly or wrongly, that food enthusiasts consider paying a visit to New York (The Big Apple in local jargon), a city that just years ago was terrorized by “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz.

My first culinary encounter was with pizza, a mysterious kind of baked tlayuda, covered in macerated tomatoes and milk coagulation, and occasionally smothered with a type of thinly sliced lap cheong called pepperoni. The odd dish, sometimes referred to as a pie, washed ashore from Naples some years ago. While the taste takes some getting used to, pizza can be enchanting when done properly.

Look no further than Roberta’s in up-and-coming Brooklyn, a dangerous, brooding suburb accessible through the city’s antiquated system of underground metal cars (similar to Los Angeles’ Metro system, but more expensive). It was, nevertheless, worth the arduous trip to enjoy a Lil’ Stinker pizza ($18), covered in tomato mash and curdled milk, along with garlic and tangy peppers.

On the topic of transportation: While New Yorkers don’t drive, cars are seemingly everywhere, especially in the form of yellow rented automobiles (taxis) that traverse the city. Near the large quadrangular park in the middle of the city, horse and buggy is, shockingly, still the preferred mode of transport. Uber and Lyft, both of which launched in California, would seem to make sense and help modernize a place like New York, which has few viable means of transportation. Perhaps these services will catch on.

“I’m walking here!” a man growled at me as I brushed past him in a crosswalk. The New Yorker temperament is famously brusque, but I was at fault in this case. I was distracted by the bagel I’d purchased at Russ & Daughters, an outfit that has seemingly popped up overnight into a store with a bustling cafe down the street.

The Jewish-style delicatessen I am well familiar with — Los Angeles has the strongest deli scene in the country, after all — but I’d somehow never had a bagel before, a dense version of a baozi that’s boiled, then baked. With a vaguely alkali exterior and a chewy but pliant center, the bagel was puzzling but nevertheless a treat. And that hole in the middle? Apparently, it’s supposed to be there.

Can I just inject this column into my veins?

Comparing pizza skeptically to a tlayuda, which may in fact be my most favorite food in the entire world, is a special point of enjoyment, especially as pizza is the other competitor for my favorite food in the world and most New York pizza is bad.