Downtown Lunch: Mama’s Eatery

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

Downtown Lunch: Mama's Eatery 

Mama’s Eatery is definitely a change of pace for this area of Chinatown. Located across from Columbus park on Mulberry street, Mama Eatery (not sure if they go with Mama as written on the menu or Mama’s as the manager said it) serves up great sandwiches at good prices. The menu features an eclectic range of food, from Pistachio Toast with maple syrup for breakfast, to Pumpkin Soup. I haven’t sampled either though… I go for the sandwiches.   

Downtown Lunch: Mama's Eatery

The Crispy Chicken Sandwich comes with roasted peppers and chipotle mayo. I’m really digging the grinder rolls they use. A heavy textured whole wheat bread, it’s chewy, dense, and quite tasty. For $7 the Chicken Melt Hero comes with a good balance of mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. All sandwiches/wraps/paninis come with crispy, thin McDonaldsesque french fries (I don’t care if the rest of McDonald’s food is crap in the literal or figurative sense, they’ve always made damn good french fries). You can also swap the fries out for onion rings, or their creamy-sweet coleslaw.

Downtown Lunch: Mama's Eatery

The decor there is your typical confused Chinatown interior. A blend of interesting artwork with an inspirational poster thrown in with whatever else Target had in their framed art collection that day, when the owners of Mama’s came to clean them out.  Favorite menu misspelling you ask? It had to be on the Smoked Salmon Focaccia, which comes dressed in “mustard drill sauce.”

The menu is pretty impressive even after the sandwiches. There are several different burgers, pizzas, pastas, and salad options. Overall Mama’s Eatery has been a welcome addition to the area and provides a sit down sandwich shop where you’ll find a diverse menu and group of patrons from locals, court officers, finacial people, and sometimes me, chowing down on a good sandwich with those fries.

Mama’s Eatery, 46 Mulberry Street (near Bayard), 212-608-7440

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7 Comments

  • wow, I am by Mulberry and Bayard all the time and managed to miss this place. Gotta turn my squinty eyes into Spanish basketball player eyes next time I go.

  • ^ ha! nice.

  • Yeah what was up with that? And the whole “Oh it was a sign of affection, a Chinese wink”. Ummm… show me a Chinese person who winks like that please.

  • Why are Daniel’s photos always so much better than everyone else’s? It’s not even close. Yeah, those Spaniards are some ignorant chumps, no way in hell should Madrid get the 2016 games.

  • I don’t know, but if you find out, please share.
    **I’m going to guess the professional camera with a lot of different lenses and all of that costing thousands of dollars have a little bit to do with it. Sure it’s talent too and vision but the equipment … no? :P

  • It’s a mixture of all those things..but I’m a photographer and shoot a lot of food so I’ve had lot of practice.

    but lets put “talent” before the “equipment” in the reasoning next time Yvo ;)

  • Eh. Great review, but I work downtown… like really downtown and most of your restaurants are a little too far for anyone in the FIDI to walk to. As I think this is where most of the working stiffs are, maybe you should move the coverage down a bit. I’ll keep these in mind for the weekend tho; )

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