Midtown Lunch

There are a lot of bars and pubs that serve food in the Financial District but most are out of ML price range. That’s mostly the case with the Irish American which just opened in John St. between Broadway & Nassau, but one item on the menu caught my eye. They’re serving a Juicy Lucy, aka, the burger that originated in Minnesota and involves the cheese being cooked inside the patty rather than put on top. It’s $13, but most of the other burgers on the menu are also more than $10 so if you like molten cheese wrapped in meat this might be worth a shot.

We don’t often post things about the increasing number of promo food trucks gracing the streets (tacos and Gap jeans anyone?), but this one involves free things for some of you Downtown Lunch’ers. Cookware maker All-Clad is launching a truck next week, and will make stops throughout Manhattan giving cooking demonstrations with chefs, and more importantly, giving out food samples from what is being cooked. One of the stops will be in Soho on September 21, and we’re giving away four VIP spots to meet chef Marc Murphy who you may have seen on the Food Network (or eaten at one of his fancy restaurants) and get a tour of the truck. There will also be some freebies involved. Interested? Tell us in the comments why you should be on of the four VIPs chosen, and obviously being in the Soho area at lunch time on the day of the stop is required. You have through Monday, Sept. 19 to try to snag one of the spots.

You can’t even call Pane Panelle a sandwich shop as there are no seats (other than outside) and you have to step aside to make way for deliveries going into the kitchen. It’s essentially a hallway. That being said, it’s kind of genius for an upper crust restaurant such as Stuzzicheria to open a lower-brow sandwich place by simply blocking off part of its dining room and having a separate door. Put up a couple of signs advertising that you exist and you’re done. There are six sandwiches to choose from here along with a lone “appetizer” of sorts. And those sandwiches come with one killer side. Read more »

Cafe Sage had the shutter partially down on Friday afternoon, and apparently I wasn’t the only who noticed that the Thai restaurant on John St. was closed. A tweet from a downtown lunch’er alerted me that there was a yellow Department of Health sticker affixed to the restaurant. Sure enough, according to the DOH Web site they were shuttered with 40 violations included presence of mice and roaches. Suddenly, eating from that quick and cheap lunch steam table they were popular for isn’t sounding so great.

I’m not sure what happened between May and now but that empty jewelry shop on the corner of Water & Coenties Slip that was reportedly going to be a third location of Rhong Tiam now has a different restaurant opening in it. A walk by on Friday revealed signs saying that OBAO noodles and BBQ was “coming soon.” But wait, that’s not Rhong Tiam! Anyway…there’s a location of OBAO in midtown and they serve a mix of noodles, Vietnamese and Thai food so it’s not all bad news. Zach seemed a little confused by a certain soup they were serving back in 2009 but he did concede that it was good.

This sandwich inspires hoarding. Courtesy of A Passion For Food.

• The meatballs at La Nueva Conquista look naked. [Lunch Studio]
• Chipotle is coming to the non-fancy part of Tribeca. [Tribeca Citizen]
• Apparently Cafe Habana is a go-to spot for elote. [Fork in the Road]
• A veg sandwich at Soho’s Olive’s is good enough to buy three at a time. [Passion For Food]
• Potbelly‘s sandwiches don’t fare too well in a taste test. [Grub St.]