[mjn]

That matches my experience. Of places I've spent significant time in the past year, the one with the most reasonably priced food for eating out is NYC, of all places. It has very expensive places too, of course, but a lot more sub-$10 options than anywhere else I've been recently. There are even a few 99-cent pizza slice places still in business (not as many as 10 years ago, but they exist, and $2-3/slice places are abundant).