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Polecat:

A sawbuck is a ten dollar bill

At the Dumpling House, on Eldridge between Broome and Grand, $1 will get you a pint of the best wonton soup you've ever had, 5 succulent fried pork and scallion dumplings, or 4 tasty pork buns. A giant sesame pancake sandwich tips the scale at $1.25 for vegetable and $1.50 for tuna or beef, but its worth the extra quarters.

Canal Street around Mott and Mulberry used to have a number of carts selling pork buns at 50 cents a piece, at the time. My recollection is that Rudy Giuliani banned the vendors in the name of "improving the quality of life in NY." My life didn't improve and guess who never voted for Giuliani and never will.

These were steamed buns that were reheated on a griddle which gave them a nice crust on the bottom. The shells were relatively thin for steamed buns and the insides were full of meat and cabbage. There may have been two suppliers to the vendors as some buns had a brown sauce and others didn't. They were very tasty and a buck bought a nice snack or lunch on the street.

I haven't seen these in years. Does anyone know if they are available elsewhere in Chinatown?

I can only think of bakeries, primarily in Chinatown. I don't have any recommendations as I like pretty much all of them, but you can get stuff for 50 cents at the smaller ones. Since I like ALL Chinatown bakeries (for the buns...ohh delicious buns filled with delicious things), these cheap foods are verrry very dangerous for my waistline, and way too easy on my wallet. There's a bakery on Mott Street between Hester and Broome that sells stuff even more cheaply that other places and I don't know why. Defective bun? Like it's not cheap enough already?

There are also random street vendors in Chinatown that sell stuff for a dollar, like vegetable buns, meat buns, steamed cake, mantou, and..OH MY GOD, green sandwiches! Ever have those? They're these chewy sesame seed-ed buns filled with spicy chopped...greens. Of some sort. If you haven't had it before, there's definitely more info about it somewhere:

http://flickr.com/photos/roboppy/102879897/

It's one of my favorite things. I'd rather not know where it came from though. I'll admit to having eaten many of those dollar items just out of curiousity without getting sick...not immediately, at least. Hm.

Oh, besides Chinese bakeries, Mexican bakeries have awesome stuff for under a dollar. I've only been to one on 110th street though.