Midtown Lunch

I don’t know if there’s a vent outside my window from McDonald’s or from the generic deli on the ground floor of the office building I work in, but the smell of cooking hamburgers is constantly wafting in to my desk. I guess it’s better than rotting garbage, but it’s annoying getting hungry at about 11 a.m. every day.

Most of the time I can ignore the meaty smell, but one day I just really wanted a greasy burger and fries for lunch. I thought about checking out the newish Go Burger Truck at the South St. Seaport (anybody checked this thing out?) but reviews have not been promising. So instead I went to the forums and saw that lunch’er boomshanka had listed a cheeseburger from the Blarney Stone on Trinity Place (btw. Exchange Pl. & Morris ) as one of his go-to lunches. I was doubly intrigued because while another Blarney Stone on Fulton St. recently closed, this one was featured a couple of months ago as the recipient of a make-over by some new reality show called “Construction Intervention” on the Discovery Channel.

And that was how I ended up at a newly classy bar at noon on a Monday with a burger on my mind.

The bar was opened by an Irish immigrant in 1968 and survived the attacks on the nearby World Trade Center. From the outside it looks like dozens of other Irish pubs in midtown, but once you go in it’s really nice and spacious.

Did I mention they’re really happy with the renovation?

Lunch is served in a room at the back, unless you’re looking for a purely liquid lunch. There’s a steam table with things like roast chicken, brisket and meatloaf and the burgers and sandwiches are made to order. Most of the sandwiches were between $5.50 and $8.50, with a burger deluxe (sans cheese on this occasion) with fries going for $8. The homemade meatloaf sounded intriguing, but I stuck to my guns and ordered the burger. It took about 10 minutes to get my food to go, although they also have plenty of tables for eating in.

My first thought when I opened the piping hot container was “Holy crap that burger is huge.”

Then I lifted the top bun, lettuce and tomato to get a better look at the burger itself and realized this thing was truly massive. It’s had to tell from the pictures it was an unwieldy chunk of meat and bun that was difficult to hold with one hand. I think I ate my body weight in ground beef that day.

The burger was so juicy that it kind of destroyed the bun before I was done eating, but it could have been because it was in a container for a few minutes before I ate it. My only complaint is that there were no condiments on the burger – no mayo, ketchup, mustard or special sauce of any sort. I had to make due with the couple of packets of ketchup that were thrown in the bag.

There was also a generous serving of fries alongside which were freshly-fried but sadly unsalted. I was just happy they weren’t the wedge or steak fries that seem to be a staple of some bars.

In the end I was pretty happy with my $8 lunch that I didn’t have to order by number from someone in a uniform. And hopefully with its new makeover the Blarney Stone will survive so I can go check out that meat loaf.

THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

• It’s all fancy now and I can’t eat hearty Irish food in this environment.
• The burgers are freakin’ huge and when you add a pile of fries they’re a pretty good deal.
• They have more interesting steam table stuff than the generic delis downtown.

THE — (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

• I like my pub grub served in a dank and dark dive bar, not one renovated by a reality show.
• They give you a lot of food, but where’s the salt and condiments?
• I can get a burger and fries for way cheaper than $8.

Blarney Stone , 11 Trinity Place (btw. Exchange Pl. & Morris), (212) 269-4988