PROFILE: Downtown Lunch’ers “Plantains & Kimchi”

As is customary here on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a different lunch’er and get their recommendations for places to eat in Downtown NYC. This week, our fellow Downtown bloggers Plantains and Kimchi, aka Reynaldo and Sonya, get in on the fun! Let’s here what the competition, I mean, our colleagues have to say…

Rey & SonyaName: Reynaldo and Sonya, a.k.a., Plantains and Kimchi

Occupation: Paralegal and Attorney

Where you work: Downtown (him: FiDi, her: Tribeca)

Age: 32 + 30

Favorite Kind of Food: We go through phases, but they always seem to revolve around Asian food. We’ve been eating a lot of Sichuan lately, in all its spicy and oily glory.

Least Favorite Food: He hasn’t yet found anything he doesn’t like. They call him “The Pit,” for a reason. She doesn’t like anything that tastes gamey (luckily, the lamb noodles at Xi’an Famous Foods (88 East Broadway)are too cuminy to taste gamey).

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Vodka sauce pizza with extra cheese, onions and pepperoni at Pizza Italia (11 Stone St.); NY Noodletown’s (28 Bowery, closed) salt-baked whatever, duck with flowering chives, beef and bean curd, etc.; Cafe Hanover (5 Hanover Square) when we’re craving Korean

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: He eats at Bento Nouveau (32 Broadway) entirely too often. She goes to Farinella (90 Worth St) at least once a week.

Place you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: We were very apprehensive about trying Soma by Nature’s (123 William Street) Korean food (don’t like Korean/Japanese menus because they can’t both be equally good!), but after reading Chris’s reaction to the kimchi jigae, we were sold.

Dream job location, purely for lunch purposes, and why: In Manhattan, East Village for the great ramen (Ippudo) and pizza (Motorino), or Chinatown for its proximity to amazing and cheap banh mi (the jewelry shop / Banh Mi Saigon Bakery (138-01 Mott street)) and roast duck noodle soup (Big Wong (67 Mott St.)).

Anything you’d like to ask the Midtown Lunch readers: We’ve really enjoyed Veronica’s Kitchen (Front St at Pine St) and Sam’s Falafel (Liberty Park on Cedar St.). Does anybody have a favorite downtown cart that is just as tasty to recommend?

If you’re looking for street meat (and who ISN’T looking for some good street meat,eh?), I’d definitely recommend Adel’s (Maiden Lane at Front St) or the Homemade Cart (Broadway at Beaver St). What other can’t-miss food carts are out and about Downtown? I know someone knows some good ones in Chinatown!  When you think of  ’em, stick ’em in the comments. And as always, if you would like to be next week’s Profiled Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d like to nominate), email us at downtownnyc@midtownlunch.com.

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