PROFILE: Downtown Lunch’er “Richard”

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 Richard who works a little out of bounds, but really loves BonChon Chicken.

Name: Richard Chen

Occupation: Web developer

Where you work: Bleecker and Broadway

Age: 31

Favorite kinds of food: Asian! Specifically, Korean, because I can eat it all day and still not get fat or unhealthy.

Least favorite foods: Diner food. It’s very tasty but blasé on creativity, on the unhealthy side of things, high in oils and salts & also because they’re an N.J. invention, though their desserts are typically good.

Favorite lunches downtown: BonChon Chicken – I first heard about “Korean chicken” four years ago when a friend took me to its former location on Chambers St. Even though it was later spurned for being a fraud, I still loved the idea and now visit both its Leonia, N.J. location (closer to where I live) and the one on John St. Beware of imitators though, there are a few using similar signage. I usually get the six piece with bone and with soy and fresh garlic sauce; I subway down from wherever I am in the city for Bian Dang, especially if they’re in Soho, just to get this lovely food despite how they have a fixed location in the Food Gallery 32 in Midtown. I usually get the snack platter which, despite its name, is actually a full meal with an unpictured side of clear broth soup. (Favorite lunches continued after the jump!)

I went to XO Cafe Grill on Walker St. religiously until one day last year when I was horrified to see they were closed. They didn’t put up a sign to say they’d moved to a more central location on Elizabeth St. (at Canal)! Alas, I go loyally because the quieter nature and spacious seating are unlike a lot of Chinatown places. The good stuff isn’t on the menu but rather off one of the special dishes on the paper sheets taped to the walls. Those dishes are familiar to the chef’s versus the menu’s dishes. The prices are low and the service is snappy and attentive. I usually get the salt and pepper squid with the lunch special’s borscht, tea and fried rice.

Places downtown you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: Downtown? I discovered the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck on Midtown Lunch years ago and oh, man am I excited for its return. Summer’s here!

Dream job location, purely for lunch purposes, and why: Lower Manhattan because the resurgence of food trucks down here in this less busy part of town is worth supporting whereas Midtown already has a healthy amount of support for them.

Anything you’d like to ask the Midtown Lunch: Downtown readers? Yes! What’s your idea for a food truck that no one’s done yet? And what’s your favorite food blog that’s not on the ML Blogroll?

I’m going to leave these questions to you guys since I’m pretty happy with the variety of food trucks we already have. 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 downtown@midtownlunch.com.

Posted by Andrea H at 9:30 am, May 29th, 2012 under PROFILE: Downtown Lunch'er.
3 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post

3 Comments

LuxeSmurf:

This is my idea for a food truck:

-The Bread Butchery
Menu-Fresh baked breads-which one could purchase as a whole loaf or as a big, heaping slice
-Offer a rotation of non-traditional breads- Strawberry Basil Minty Bread.

Accompaniments-Home made butter/flavored butters/cream cheeses/jams/jellies
Special of rotating cheeses/cured meats/greens

Drinks-Cold, locally sourced milk

*In order for this to work…would need a really great oven/convection oven that could bake bread fast.
*With the tech available….one can place an order and pay….and your order would be timed so that you could pick it up nice and hot…right out of the oven.

–

May 29th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
- MWinston:
  
  Dang, that’s a really thought out idea!
  
  May 29th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
richardc020:

That is seriously awesome idea. As with all dreams, take it and run with it! Let us MidTownLunchers know when it’s available!

Jun 2nd, 2012 at 10:07 am