For Chinese, I would recommend Grand Sichuan on St Marks Place, especially for the cumin beef, pork soup dumplings, wontons in red oil, mapo tofu, garlic eggplant, cold cucumbers in scallion oil, and the Gui Zhou spicy chicken.
Try Bodhi Tree on 3rd ave/11th st. The last time I was there they had an awesome $7 lunch special that included 2 appetizers and an entree. It's Thai food and it's good.