Midtown Lunch

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, we have Max who is a part-time downtown lunch’er (and also part-time midtown lunch’er) and likes to save his stomach space for some Vietnamese sandwiches.

Name: Max

Occupation: Project Manager at a brokerage with four names

Where you work: Water Street (various locations), 7th Ave. & 51st St., and… Purchase, N.Y.

Age: 32

Favorite Kinds of Food: Vietnamese sammiches, TAMALES, Japanese curry, roasted
pig, Peking duck, any kind of pancakes, dumplings, char siu bao, bimbimbap, roast beef
sandwiches (on rye, tomatoes, no lettuce please), yakitori, Jamaican patties… the list goes on!!

Least Favorite Foods: I don’t get the appeal of mac and cheese. Bad pizza, cookie cutter street market food (e.g., deep fried oreos, those giant sausages, friggin’ mozzarepas)

Favorite Lunches Downtown: I need to make surgical strikes when I am downtown because I “actually” work in Westchester. This is very embarrassing for a downtown/midtown lunch’er. When I am downtown, I make sure to hit: No. 1 Bahn Mi Cart on Pearl St. and Hanover (wish they would do pork chop sandwich! Sau Voi Corp. owns them), Baoguette on Maiden Lane (btw. Broadway & Nassau), Alfanoose on Maiden Lane (btw. Broadway & Nassau), blows Chickpea away.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: The cafeteria in the Purchase office park. Have I mentioned I don’t like to waste a lunch downtown? Also the XPress Power Lunch street meat on Wall St. (at Pearl) – a good but lazy choice.

Places downtown you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: No. 1 Bahn Mi Cart, Champs on Broadway (at Rector) – that is a pretty good cheesesteak.

Dream job location, purely for lunch purposes, and why: Hong Kong for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or Thailand for the Khao Soi and street food!

Anything you’d like to ask the downtown Midtown Lunch readers?: Any options at all downtown for Chinese/Hong Kong breakfast, like Hing Won in midtown? Best Indian takeout in the Financial District?

Well, I’m stumped as to where you would get anything close to a Chinese/Hong Kong breakfast in the FiDi, but I’m sure there’s something in Chinatown. I have yet to find any reasonably-priced Indian takeout under $10 that’s worth recommending and that doesn’t come from a steam table. Do any of you downtown lunch’ers have good ideas where Max can find either of these? 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.