Midtown Lunch

It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but a good cheap lunch is not often found on a cobblestone street surrounded by designer clothing shops. Yet this is where Kelley & Ping is on Greene St. (btw. Prince & W. Houston), on a block that you probably wouldn’t walk down unless you were looking to spend a paycheck. Lunch’er Alexandra tipped me off to it and a look at the menu was a little shocking because most of the dishes were less than $10. Not since finding the lunch special at Peep have I been happy to head somewhere other than Chinatown for some Asian food.

When I walked in I was surprised by the vast space as most places in SoHo are on the small side, especially if they’re affordable. The nice woman at the front guided me toward the counter in the back where you order food. There’s no table service here either which I kind of appreciated because it meant plenty of seats and not having to tip if you don’t want to.

The menu is divided into lunch boxes (dim sum!), noodle soups, pan fried noodles and rice dishes and some wraps. I mean, yes, they have a wrap involving bulgogi, but that doesn’t make it OK to order one unless you’re allergic to noodles. A few of the dishes top the $10 mark but for the most part they’re between $8 and $10. At first I thought about getting that dim sum lunch box but instead went for the Vietnamese noodles ($9.95) that were described as pan fried egg noodles with shrimp, vegetables and soy.

The dish kind of ended up being the best of both worlds with some soy broth in the bottom of the bowl, a pile of crispy noodles and a bunch of vegetables. The noodles eventually softened and then at the endI had some delicious broth to drink! I realize that I could get something similar in Chinatown for probably $5 but this part of SoHo would require a train ride or delivery to do that and not everyone can do a subway lunch. Plus, there are enough things for around $8 here that it’s still a bargain.

This place is really nice and when I was there right after prime lunch time there were plenty of empty tables to eat quietly and pretend that you don’t have to go back to work.

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

• You don’t have to fight for a seat.
• Almost everything on the menu is $10 or less, making it cheap for the area.
• They’ll hook me up with dim sum without going to Chinatown.

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

• Seriously, I’d rather just take the train to Chinatown.
• $10 for noodle soup?!

Kelley & Ping, 127 Greene St. (btw. Prince & W. Houston), (212) 228-1212