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 Matthew who works about as far down in Manhattan as you can get and has a trio of favorite lunch places.

Name: Matthew Bruckner

Occupation: Law clerk to the Hon. Allan L. Gropper

Where you work: The Bankruptcy Court, which is located at the very south end of Manhattan Island.

Age: 32

Favorite Kinds of Food: Spicy, bold flavors.  Lots of Asian foods, and particularly Thai, Vietnamese and Korean.  I also eat a lot of foods from the American South, such as grits, BBQ, etc. Ethiopian is also a favorite.  Ramen on a cold wintery day (or after a trip to the baths) is usually where it’s at.  And what would I do without pork? Oh, and salt, which is almost a food group itself.

Least Favorite Foods: The bland and the boring. Cold cut sandwiches, chain restaurants, well-done anything, bland, American-ized ethnic foods.

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Trinidad & Tobago cart on Whitehall St. (btw. Bridge & Pearl). I’ve never had anything bad from them, but particularly like that they expose me to lesser-eaten proteins, such as goat and oxtail.  I’d say that the goat curry is probably my go-to T&T dish; Sophie’s Cuban (Multiple Locations), although not as good as Margon in midtown, is a standard lunch option. Oxtail, goat stew, pork chops and pernil are my favorites from Sophie’s.  Their cuban sandwich, though, just isn’t pressed long enough.  It lacks the crispiness that it should have.  Maybe it’s the bread too.  In any case, I don’t get their sandwiches, although I love a good, hot sandwich; Bian Dang (formerly NYC Cravings) truck on Wednesdays when they are in the Financial District.  I usually get the porken, but sometimes I’m feeling more poultry or porky and go solely with the one protein.  I always make a mix of the sriracha & thick “Beijing” sauce to add though.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: I don’t eat with my coworkers (we are an office of 4). Quite honestly, I mostly eat at my desk now that I’m downtown – not enough lunch options and it’s just kind of what folks do here.  I cook a lot and so there are always leftovers. If there were more exciting options downtown, maybe I’d eat out more.

Places downtown you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: Bombay Biryani cart on Broadway (at Liberty) is one of the first places I checked out because of Downtown Lunch (for the kati rolls).  Midtown Lunch gave me Margon and the Jamaican Dutchy cart.

Dream job location, purely for lunch purposes, and why: Hue, Vietnam.  I really can eat pho twice a day for a month.

Anything you’d like to ask the downtown Midtown Lunch readers?: Since there is hardly any authentic Thai food to be found anywhere in Manhattan, perhaps it’s asking too much for there to be a decent place in the Financial District, but where are your go-to Thai joints?

Those in the FiDi are generally mediocre and overpriced but the best I’ve found so far are Lemongrass Grill and Bennie’s Thai Cafe. Where do you other downtown lunch’ers go when you’re craving Thai?  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.