Midtown Lunch

There’s a strip of Church St. in the lower part of Tribeca that’s chock full of cheap eats. Many of them are steam table Indian or those weird hybrid Chinese/Tex Mex hole in the walls but there’s also falafel and delightful independent places like Mimi’s Cafe. A place called Kool Bloo opened a year ago and terrible, intentional misspelling aside, I never got around to checking it out because it just seemed like a crappy overpriced generic deli and there are plenty of those around already. After Kool Bloo shuttered, Church Street Kitchen quickly opened serving deli sandwiches, fried chicken, burgers and well, basically everything from a generic deli. What brought me there was the reasonable prices and want of some comfort food. And I’d have to say, they delivered.

There are lot of different beige, brown and yellow foods happening in the above container, but the contents would be a turkey dinner that only cost $6. The turkey is cut straight from a bird and I got a mix of dark and white meat, just as I would at someone’s house. You get to choose two sides and the options are heavy on the carbs (or at least they were the day I was there) and included macaroni & cheese, spinach with what looked like a thick blanket of cheese baked on top, mashed potatoes and yellow rice. I went with the latter two, with some mushroom gravy poured over all of it.

The star of this show was that roasted turkey – more specifically the dark meat. I’m not sure if they make a sandwich involving this roasted turkey, but I’m sure you could convince them to put some on a roll with some cheese or whatever else added in and it would be delicious. There was no fried chicken or roast beef present the day I was there, but I appreciate any deli like this that makes the food fresh. There’s nothing too exciting or different being served here, but if it’s comfort food or a made-to-order sandwich you want, Church Street Kitchen can hook you up for a low, low price.

Church Street Kitchen, 178 Church St. (btw. Reade & Duane), (212) 233-5665