Midtown Lunch

With the weather turning cold and rainy I’ve had soup on my mind, as I’m a lover of pretty much anything that involves broth. Actually, I can only think of one soup I’ve ever eaten that I really didn’t like.  Specifically, I was looking for a good noodle soup and that’s a hard proposition in the FiDi so I headed up to Chinatown’s Xe Lua on Mulberry (between Canal & Baxter). Daniel had done a mini-tour of Vietnamese places back in the day and several people suggested the pho at Xe Lua in the comments of that post. Was it worth the trip or should I have just eaten some generic deli udon? Find out after the jump. Read more »

Those of you working in the lunch wasteland that is Battery Park City can get a little excited with the news that you’re getting the first downtown Shake Shack. The local Community Board 1 gave its approval according to Eater and it looks like Shake Shack is slated to open in early-to-mid 2011 and BBQ place Blue Smoke later in 2011. There’s also some fancy restaurant coming in, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize of those burgers. Photo courtesy of Eater.

Anyone know of good places to eat in the northwest reaches of SoHo? One lunch’er is looking for your help in finding a decent lunch on behalf of other office workers in the area.

There’s a little bit of a silent battle brewing (or so I’m imagining for the sake of this post) between two carts on the increasingly-crowded plaza on Broadway between Liberty and Cedar. First you have the Biryani House cart that came on the scene with its namesake dish, kati rolls and the standard meat over rice options (OK, and hot dogs). Then there’s the Bombay Biryany cart a falafels throw away that at first glance looks like your standard halal cart until you notice the chicken biryani sign in the front, with bonus special green sauce. Read more »

I have no idea how I missed this…but thanks to Lunch’er dbdtron for giving me the heads up that the Korilla BBQ Truck is launching its truck this week serving Korean-influenced food and that it’s looking at bestowing its presence on the Financial District. According to their Twitter (which you can also find on their Web site), they are planning on coming down here, but no word on how far south they’ll go. Chris H. did a little investigation a couple of weeks ago and found out that they’re also thinking of hitting Tribeca or other lower-traffic areas as sort of a dress rehearsal for braving the mass of office workers in midtown. The launch was supposed to happen at the end of September, but it sounds like they had to work out a couple of kinks. I’ll keep you updated if they’re planning a downtown stop and we can maybe stop being jealous of Zach having the Kogi BBQ Truck at his disposal in LA. Photo courtesy of Thrillist.