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 recently-transplanted lunch’er Craig who is burger crazy, and is slowly ticking lunches off his list during his time downtown.

Name: Craig W.

Occupation: Consultant

Where you work: Big 4 accounting firm

Age: 22

Favorite Kinds of Food: Anything artery clogging, especially burgers and fries.

Least Favorite Foods: Seafood and sushi.

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Adrienne’s Pizza Bar on Stone St. (nr. Hanover) for an old-fashioned pie with pepperoni; Sophie’s Cuban (Multiple Locations) for the roast pork meal with yellow rice and black beans, covered in amounts of the accompanying green sauce that make your coworkers say, “Are you sure you need that much?” It’s lunchtime gluttony at its finest.; Goodburger on Maiden (at Gold) for  a third-pounder classic cooked medium rare with bacon, cheese, fried onions and ketchup; Sam’s Falafel cart on Cedar (nr. Broadway) for a falafel sandwich with hummus, baba gannouj, fried eggplant, fried onion, lettuce, tomato and tahini; Wafels & Dinges truck on Wednesdays for a liege with Nutella, banana, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Delmonico’s if I’m not paying.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: At the moment I’m two blocks away from a Goodburger, and I have a really hard time going to the Hale & Hearty across the street with my health-conscious coworkers when I can smell those juicy third-pounders.  I’ve only been based out of this office for a few weeks now and am still exploring the mind-boggling plethora of options downtown, but for now I’m gonna have to go with Goodburger for my burger addiction.  It’s definitely not the best burger I’ve had, but I have to give it the title of my favorite chain/fast-food burger.  Everyone’s on the Shack Shack train except for me, and I’m not a fan of Five Guys. This new brand of quality meat cooked thin and well done will just never cut it for me.  Sophie’s Cuban has also been a once-a-week favorite.  You can’t beat the amount of delicious food you get for $10, or the instant food coma that ensues.

Places downtown you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: Sadly, I didn’t know about the new downtown section to Midtown Lunch until I emailed Zach about getting profiled.  I can’t wait to start knocking off every single place that”s been written about over the next three months that I’ll be downtown.  A few places I saw: Backyard Chicken on Pearl (btw. John & Fulton), Burger Burger on Pearl (nr. Coenties Alley) – a solid substitute for Goodburger;  Hot Clay Oven on Maiden (nr. Gold) – It’s been recommended by several Indian coworkers; Korilla BBQ Truck (kimchi bacon fried rice- sounds a lot better than it was).

Dream job location, purely for lunch purposes, and why: As much promise as I see downtown has for lunch options, I’ll always miss Midtown west.  I used to work near Rockefeller Center for a few summers, and together with my previously-profiled brother, Superman aka NYCFoodGuy, we dominated that area.  With two of my favorite burgers in New York City a block away from each other (The Burger Joint and Brooklyn Diner), it’s really no competition.  Then throw in Lenny’s (there is a sub-par downtown location), Virgil’s, Del Frisco’s if I’m feeling crazy, and Tuscany Catering and it’s over.  Hopefully I’ll be back up there, but until then, its time to dominate the Downtown Lunch scene. I’m going to also have to give a quick shout out to the Exchange Place stop of Jersey City for Milano’s Deli.  It’s one stop on the PATH (5 minutes) from the World Financial Center stop or a 7 minute ferry trip, and completely worth it.  They have a hot section that I’ve never had anything bad at, and some of the biggest, best heroes I’ve had.  Ever.  The chicken parm is heavenly, the meatballs are melt-in-your-mouth tender, the Italian is an explosion of flavor, and almost everything comes with thick creamy slices of fresh mozzarella.

Anything you’d like to ask the downtown Midtown Lunch readers?: If anyone has any more burger recommendations that haven’t been brought to my attention, I’m all ears.  As you can see by Brooklyn Diner, I don’t mind shelling out $20 on a burger if I think it’ll be worth it. I’ve heard good things about Zaitzeff on John & Nassau, and Wall St. Burger Shoppe on Water (btw. Broad & Coenties)- they’re already on my list. Also, if you could have one more meal downtown, where’s it going to be?

I think you have most of the burger bases covered, but for a good pub specimen you might check out Blarney Stone on Trinity Pl. (btw. Exchange Pl. & Morris). I think if I only had one more meal downtown (hopefully not last meal ever) I would eat at Adrienne’s. Hell, maybe I wouldn’t even share my pie. 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.