Midtown Lunch

This blog exists so you don’t have to eat like this. Via FitR.

• Van Leeuwen Truck’s empire keeps growing beyond truck in Soho. [Daily News]
• A look at the offerings at fancy food hall All Good Things. [NY Times]
• Let’s hope Dickson’s Farmstand Meats will serve its sandwiches here. [Tribeca Citizen]
• Musings on the cyborg cashiers at Yip’s. [Eater NY]
• Egg salad + ham = a win at Barbarini. [SENY]

Anyone who’s worked in the central part of Soho long enough probably knows about Cafe Duke on Broadway (btw. Spring & Prince). I’d never been inside before but braved the hordes of shoppers to check it out and found it to be a massive space stretching from the front of the building to the back, with another entrance on Mercer St. Up front you’ll find sandwiches, some hot items, then a by-the-pound buffet that had such delights as fried chicken and some Chinese food, but you may want to head to the back to a counter merely marked “grill.” That’s where you’ll find bibimbap, a by-the-pound noodle saute station, ramen and what I was after – donburi.  Read more »

There were rumors that La Nueva Conquista on Lafayette St. (at Spring) had shuttered, but I needed to lay eyes on this tragedy myself. The Dominican cheap eats institution leaves a hole in the Soho lunch scene that’s sadly void of affordable plates of fatty pork and rice. Yes, Chinatown’s a short stroll away, and I guess Cafe Habana can take up some of the slack in the roast pork department, but it just won’t be the same as standing in line with construction workers and restaurant deliverymen at La Nueva.

Yesterday the new Wafels & Dinges cart made its first appearance in City Hall Park, and ML contributor Brian spotted it at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, taking advantage of all those tourists and hungry employees from 1 Centre St. The cart will be there wafting its delicious smells from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, so now you can get a taco across the street at Nixtamalito and supplement it with a waffle with spekuloos. Or put the taco meat on top of a waffle? The possibilities are endless.

The other day I headed out in the sudden lunchtime downpour to check out the Toum Truck which serves Lebanese sandwiches and rice platters along with some items like fried kibbeh, pizza and homemade lemonade (which gets a thumbs up from ML contributor Sarah). The truck first stopped in the Financial District last week after mostly parking in the Flatiron, but ran out of food and decided to give us a bonus day to make up for that. After ordering my meaty sandwich, another lunch’er and I stood in the rain, watching it be assembled and were in awe of the sheer size of my lunch that made a Chipotle burrito look like a finger sandwich.

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