Midtown Lunch

We have plenty of street meat options downtown but they’re pretty much all one-cart operations. That was why I was at first confused, and then excited when I saw that the Biryani House cart that has brought kati rolls and biryani to the Financial District added a second cart next door with an all-curry menu. A quick chat with the guy working there revealed they’ve been there for a couple of days and serve Kashmiri curries so it’s a completely different menu from the regular cart that sells everything from hot dogs to chicken tikka. As he so eloquently put it “they serve dry curries and ours are wet.” OK then! Read more »

Many of you probably know Yip’s for its extensive and fairly cheap by-the-pound buffet. It’s less than $6 per pound and has a vast selection of carbs and fried meats swimming in sauces. Normally I would have been all over that, but this time I went for the $4.50 special I’d seen advertised in the window.  Just this once I was glad I walked past the huge buffet  (garlic fried fish, I’ll be back for you!) to the back counter at the location on William St. (btw. John & Fulton).

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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 Chitra who works in the WFC but makes it over to the FiDi on occasion for some vegan food or falafel.

Name: Chitra Agrawal

Occupation: Marketing at American Express and food blogger at The ABCD’s of Cooking

Where you work: World Financial Center

Age: 31

Favorite Kinds of Food: Vegetarian, preferably spicy – Indian is my favorite, Mexican, Italian, Middle Eastern, Thai, Japanese and I love nachos!

Least Favorite Foods: Fast food chains, chocolate and orange together, raw broccoli, fake meat

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Little Lad’s Basket on Broadway (at Cedar) is kind of a bizarre place but I love it.  The owner is a Seventh-Day Adventist and a huge advocate of vegan eating.  It’s a dimly lit dining room at the bottom of a random office building, but it is the cheapest lunch downtown – $5.43 for whatever you can fit on a plate or in a bowl from their vegan buffet of fresh salads, soups, Asian noodles, quiche, pastas etc., and they also serve herbed popcorn there randomly.  The place attracts a cross section of people and most of them don’t seem to be vegan.  Falafel from Sam’s Falafel cart on Cedar (btw. Broadway & Trinity) with the eggplant, hummus and hot sauce is so cheap and amazing but you do have to wait in line for it.  He is there later, though, so if you go after the lunch rush, you don’t have to wait on line as long.  I order the tofu bahn mi at Mangez Avec Moi on W. Broadway (btw. Murray & Warren) and usually eat there because I really like their muraled walls and the casual feel of the restaurant, but they also have a to-go counter next door. At Pakistan Tea House on Church (btw. Duane & Reade), I like to order the naan with their cabbage curry, saag and dal or a potato curry. The naan is one of the cheapest around and is made fresh by Amjad Mizra whose been working there for over 10 years and is the sweetest guy.  I love the Sicilian slice at Columbus Bakery in the World Financial Center on Liberty (at West). It’s kind of pricey and the people who work there are mean but it is worth it and I do like to get their salad combos sometimes (avocado & tomato, falafel with veg. and feta, etc.) but their sandwiches are not so good.

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If there’s a true food truck backlash, I could see it starting with the new grilled cheese purveyor, Gorilla Cheese. They made their lunch debut in the Financial District on a gross, rainy day but that didn’t stop a lot of you from checking them out at Hanover Square. When I got there at the tail end of prime lunch time there was a crowd waiting under the scaffolding in front of the truck, but I soon discovered they had already ordered and were waiting for food. Comments of “This better be worth it,” were heard, and I thought the same thing as I ordered my $8.50 sandwich. Find out the verdict after the jump.

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