Midtown Lunch

Well, I guess it’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned cart vs. restaurant battle downtown. I stumbled upon the above (apparently, great minds think alike) on the side of the C&H Halal cart at the corner of Chambers St. and W. Broadway. The cart serving standard street meat parks in front of what is now Plein Sud, a French restaurant in the Smyth Hotel. My first thought was that these places are not exactly in competition with each other for customers. A representative from the restaurant agreed, and said the problems lie mostly in trash from the cart. Read more »

There has been much talk on how sub-par the burritos are in this city, with places like Chipotle drawing long lines with their weirdly flavored rice and dry meat. And then there’s Calexico, which has carved a niche for itself with its carts manned (and frequented) by hipsters, making California-style burritos. So far they have won a Vendy Award in 2008 and opened a brick and mortar store, yet they have never been graced by a Midtown Lunch review. I know those in Midtown got their hopes up that a cart was coming their way, but sadly that did not materialize. Downtown is a comparable wealth of Calexico riches with two carts in Soho, and I hit up the one on Broome St. (at Crosby) to see what all of the fuss was about. Read more »

There has become quite the crop of places selling lobster rolls in the city, and downtown has not been immune to this trend. First, there was the Urban Lobster Shack on Stone St. (btw. Broadway & Broad), and now there’s Ed’s Lobster Cart at the marina behind the World Financial Center in Battery Park City. I went two days after it opened, so I’ll keep that in mind with this assessment.  It’s an offshoot of the fancy-pants Ed’s Lobster Bar in Soho, and the prices at this cart are lower rent, but still pricey for cheap-ass lunch’ers. Read more »

There’s a list on the NY Mag site today of the top 101 sandwiches in the city, and the downtown area did not come up short. Sadly, I’ve only reviewed two of the top sandwiches: the sesame pancake with beef from Vanessa’s Dumpling House in Chinatown came in at No. 99, and the oyster po’boy from Cheeky Sandwiches was ranked No. 73. Sandwiches from other places I’ve been meaning to check out like Farinella Italian Bakery in Tribeca,  Despana in Soho and Chinatown’s Banh Mi Saigon were also included. The sloppy bao from Baoguette made an appearance, but the highest ranking sandwich downtown was from Alidoro in Soho. I guess my stomach has some eating to do.