Midtown Lunch

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack. This week Lunch’er Kevin discovers the wonders of an Israeli egg salad sandwich.

Egg Salad does not get a whole lot of love here on Midtown Lunch. In fact, there’s little about this old lunchtime workhorse on the site beyond this post on the forum sending those seeking egg salad to Ess-a-Bagel or Eisenberg’s.  And I can understand why. Bad egg salad is truly awful, and most egg salad out there is bad egg salad. I love egg salad that I’ve made myself when I can keep the mayonnaise level under control, but I almost never order it when I’m eating out.

Unless there’s a really good reason to, and the relatively new Jou Jou Café at Nassau St. and Maiden Lane offers up just such a reason: Their egg salad is not just any egg salad. It’s Israeli egg salad.

Hell yes.

Read more »

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack. This week Lunch’er Chris tries to find Downtown’s version of 53rd & 6th.

I went back to the basics this week to try and find the Financial District’s equivalent of the street meat all-stars reigning over Midtown we hear so much about. It’s always “Famous Halal Guys” this and “Trini-Paki Boys” that. Well when’s it gonna be our turn? When are we gonna have a Halal cart to make the Midtowners drool? This is the mission I’ve taken upon myself: to find the best Halal cart downtown. It will be difficult, but I am willing to sacrifice many a lunch break in this treacherous journey. And I shall not rest until I have found that cart.

*Ahem* Right. So, the cart that caught my eye this round is called Ruchi Cafe on Maiden Lane between William and Nassau. I’ve been keeping an out for any stirrings at the downtown Baoguette location at 9 Maiden Lane and when I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary a couple weeks ago, I took a wander down the road and stumbled across this cart. I didn’t remember seeing it there before so I took a gamble on a rainy day to see what I could come up with.

Read more »

Some news for our Downtown Lunch’ers about the Frites N Meats Truck… not only are they now open until 7pm, and will take orders over the phone (917.292.9226), but they’ve also added a new “Burger of the Week”.  The first one gets introduced on Monday and it’s called the “Mediterranean Burger”, featuring “Ground Lamb, Goat Cheese, and Figs Marinated in Port”.  Oh my.

Related:
Downtown Lunch: Your First Look at the Frites N Meats Burger

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack. This week Lunch’er Kevin hits up Yips.

Yips could be a Manhattan restaurant empire, or “yip” could just be a Chinese word for restaurant. I am absolutely clueless. Either way, there are a lot of them. There’s the Yips that Zach wrote about in Midtown (plus Ho Yip), and The Google has listings for three Yip’s downtown as well a Yip’s Dragon Style Kung Fu on the Lower East Side. So while there’s nothing apparently “Dragon Style” about the Yip’s Restaurant on Beaver St. between Broadway and Broad, its sprawling pay-by-the-pound buffet is chock full of ways for cheap Chinese addicts to get their fix.

Read more »

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack.  This week Lunch’ers Chris & Kevin hit up the brand new Frites N Meats Truck, and Chris filed this report.

I hate decisions. Quite frankly, they’re one of the reasons I avoid pay-by-the-pound lunch bars because I want a little bit of everything on display. And I’m no different when it comes to choosing a place to eat every week or two to write up for Downtown Lunch. So on Wednesday when we heard about the Frites N’ Meats truck opening, it was like the clouds had opened and the sun was shining on my little cubical. And the best part? The menu was just two items! Burger + Fries. And I had to write about both of them? No choices? The heavens were definitely smiling… or so I thought.

Read more »

Earlier in the month the Schnitzel Truck threw competition to the wind, and hipped everyone to a brand new vendor hitting the scene called Frites N Meats. One would assume burger and fries from the twitter account, but it’s all been pretty shrouded in secrecy… until today. The Frites N Meats has been spotted setting up on Greenwich and Chambers this morning- and from the looks of their website they’re serving up burgers and fries. They’ve got two kinds of burgers from DeBragga (grass fed angus, and wagyu), three different buns from Balthazar (brioche, potato onion, and sesame seed), and 5 different kinds of cheese from Murray’s (gruyere, goat, brie, cheddar, and blue.)  Uh… that sounds pretty great.

We found out that their permit is only for that location in Washington Market Park… so sadly there will be no Frites N Meats for Midtown. (Boooooo!) I guess I take a little bit of solace knowing that our Downtown Lunch’ers are incredibly happy right now (but not much.)

Check out the menu, after the jump.

Read more »

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack.  This week Lunch’er Kevin (from the blog Food Junta), decides to hit up the recently dissed in the forums Ravioli Fair.

The Ravioli Fair cart outside One Chase Plaza got no love in the forums, and I know Daniel was not a big fan, but I think the place is getting a bad rap. I remembered having some great food there in the past… not only their Italian heroes, but also their pasta dishes. I decided to try it out once again.

Admittedly the results were mixed. You guys were right about the sandwiches, which are pretty underwhelming. Decent, just not anything I think I couldn’t get from one of the half-million pizzerias down here. The pasta, however, was even better than I remembered- and more than justifies this cart’s presence on downtown’s crowded streets.

The lasagna alone should put this place on the map, and even if you’re in the market for a hero, you could do a lot worse than Ravioli Fare.

Read more »

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack.  The past few weeks you’ve been treated to Lunch’er Kevin’s thoughts on deli ramen and bourbon chicken. This week Lunch’er Chris is back to defend the Mexican food Downtown.

My first time writing for Zach, I faced the complicated dilemma of who to write about, or, as I so gracefully put it, who to shank? Continuing my prison yard analogy, I’d like to introduce my next victim, one of the options I referred to in that fateful first post, the one I’m going to take down to let people know I’m not backing down. Yes, if you want a burrito, you can go to Chipotle or even Gloria’s Pushcart (on a quick side note, I’m pretty sure she’s Puerto Rican), but what if they just aren’t cutting it? An even better question, what if you want to get beyond the everyday standard of a burrito? The answer to these questions (and more!) can be found at Tajin Restaurant at 85 Greenwich St., just south of Rector St.

Read more »

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack.  You all know that I love me some bourbon chicken… and Lunch’er Kevin (from the blog Food Junta), has tracked down an excellent version downtown.

What is bourbon chicken anyway? Not any kind of authentic Cajun food, that seems to be certain. It’s much more like American Chinese food, pretty similar in a lot of ways to teriyaki, which I realize is Japanese rather than Chinese, but that’s beside the point as the predominating influence here is clearly American. If you’ve got a craving for bourbon chicken and want to make it at home you can go to my new favorite website bourbonchickenspices.com whose secret sauces and techniques will allow you to make bourbon chicken “the same or even better than the malls.”

That has got to be the most questionable endorsement of a food product I’ve ever seen, but I’ve had bourbon chicken at malls, airports, and a few other places, and given the context, it’s pretty damn good. Nothing to chase to the ends of the earth, but a safe bet when you’re trapped in a culinary wasteland like an airport or the financial district.

And the bourbon chicken at Cajun Maggies on John St. between Broadway and Nassau is no exception and may be – dare I say? – “even better than the malls.”

Read more »