Diners are wonderful, and very very much a metro-NY thing in this incarnation. (There are other diner types, excellent in their own ways, but they're sufficiently different as to be out of scope.) They build communities, too, and "Diner regulars" are a pretty ecumenical bunch.<p>Nearly everything I miss about NY has to do with food, and nearly all the food I miss is diner food: mystery meat gyros, the diner hamburger that's slightly too wet for the bun so you can't put it down once you pick it up, the right kind of natural-casing link sausages that snap when you bite into them, and above all, the matzoh ball soup: cure for everything. For dessert, rainbow cookies or a slice of pie from the glass rotating case -- and don't forget the weird chocolate mints on your way out.<p>A half-decent bagel, good pizza, and any bodgea's sausage egg and cheese on a roll round out my list of foods I atavistically seek out every time I'm within 40 miles of central park.