Midtown Lunch

Our fellow bloggers over at Grub St. brought the sad news late yesterday that cheap (and delicious) Korean lunch spot Jup She on Grand St. ( at Baxter) has closed and the inside empty of furniture. It was one of the only affordable spots for Korean in that area and the lunch boxes were a good deal for anywhere in the city. Perhaps the allure of dozens of cheap Chinese and Vietnamese (and Italian) restaurants nearby was enough to keep people from eating here?

I’ve eaten at Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches a couple of times for a banh mi and to try the pho but recently realized that I’d never had their classic sandwich featuring the holy trinity of crumbled pork, pate and cold cut. It just so happened that the next day was miserably rainy and I didn’t want to venture more than a couple of blocks for lunch, so Nicky’s sounded perfect. It was time to see how three varieties of pork stacked up against the pork chop sandwich I’d eaten on my first visit there.

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Thanks to lunch’er Matt for sending along a post on Bowery Boogie breaking the good/bad news that Little Lad’s Basket has found a new home. The vegan spot shuttered its location in the 120 Broadway building at the end of last week while promising they were looking for a new location. It looks like they finally did…in a church at 41 Delancey St. on the Lower East Side and according to a post on their Web site the opening will be “as soon as possible.” So if you want some more of that $5 meat-free buffet you’re going to have to travel to get it.

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 Grace who is into comfort foods from a variety of countries and thinks there should be a nickname for a certain stretch of Maiden Lane.

Name: Grace C.

Occupation: Digital marketing for government agency

Where you work: William St., between Fulton & John

Age: 29

Favorite kinds of food: If I ranked the world’s cuisines: Italian – pasta carbonara, New York pizza, chicken marsala with mashed potatoes and broccoli; Japanese – RAMEN, sushi, scallop sashimi, curry, gyoza; Chinese – dim sum, Cantonese-style lobster, emperor’s tofu, walnut shrimp, whole steamed fish, white rice alone, snow pea leaves, crunchy pig ears, xiao long bao; Thai – Isaan-style barbecue chicken, tom kha gai, som tum; French – escargot; American – grilled cheese, waffles… basically, all my comfort foods.

Least favorite foods: Bottom-feeders such as sea slugs and sea urchins. I also can’t bring myself to bite into an intact octopus head.

Favorite lunches downtown: Fried zucchini vegetarian pita at Pita Press on Cedar (btw. William & Pearl) with Greek herbal tea; pork dumplings with Chinese spaghetti $6 lunch special at A-Pou’s Taste Cart on Liberty St. (nr. Broadway), with corn soup if I’m in the mood; the classic at Baoguette on Maiden Lane (btw. Broadway & Nassau); pizza sandwich at Potbelly on Maiden Lane (at Gold) with a real strawberry shake; bento box at Ise on Pine (btw. Pearl & William) for special occasions; pad see eew with chicken at Bennie’s Thai on Fulton St. (at Gold); kosher falafel at Pita Express on Ann St. (btw. Park Row & Nassau); and Blue Spoon on Chambers St. (btw. Broadway & Church) for pressed sandwiches. In the summertime, I’ll stop for $3 fruit juices from the guy in front of Zeytuna. And salads and small turkey chili with cheddar cheese from Patuca, which are sadly now gone.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: Soma by Nature — the fast food Korean place on William (btw. Fulton & John), Subway, Chipotle for burrito bowls, Chop’t’s $$$ salads, and of course, Yip’s Chinese buffet.

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There are a lot of lunch places that try to make you seem like a better, more healthful person by eating there and it’s rare I step into these places. However, I’m not above trying a place that proudly declares it’s organic and serves food that just might make me live an extra day if there’s some intriguing reason to. When I saw a post about the Katchkie Truck, permanently parked in the lot behind City Winery (site of this ML’s Fifth AnniversaryParty!) I was intrigued. They’re open five days a week for lunch and the menu sounded simple and tasty, with all of the food coming from an organic farm upstate that also sells at farmers markets and has a catering company in the city. Lots of greens and grains straight ahead.

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