Midtown Lunch

On a recent non-rainy day (seriously, why does it always start pouring at lunch time?) I finally was able to take a walk up to the All Good Things market on Franklin St. (at Church) to see what they had to eat for an actual lunch. Some of you don’t think doughnuts or ice cream count as a real meal, so I was after something of the sandwich or soup variety. There aren’t a ton of options, but three of the vendors – Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, Cavaniola’s Gourmet Cheese Shop and the fish purveyor/farm stand – have a small selection of sandwiches and soups. Dickson’s has started serving chili for the colder months, but I decided to save that for winter and instead grabbed a baguette sandwich from Cavaniola’s.

The cheese stand seems to have four or five sandwiches ($9) available or you can get a ready made cheese plate (seen at the bottom of the picture) if you like to keep it classy. There was one involving soppressata, a mozzarella tomato and basil variety and the one that sounded tastiest to me at the moment – turkey, asiago, artichoke and roasted red pepper.

The sandwiches aren’t kept super cold so you could eat it as is, or they’ll ask if you want it pressed which I opted to do. A few minutes later I had a noticeably flatter, crispier and more fragrant sandwich in my hand.

This sandwich isn’t a hefty specimen for $9, but all of the ingredients are high quality and there were about four thick squares of asiago in here on top of the white meat turkey that was somewhat strangely also cut into concise rectangles. A few bits of roasted red pepper and some marinated artichoke rounded out the fillings of my meal that was decidedly more like a toasted cheese sandwich than focused on the turkey. If you like the scales tipped more in the meat direction, you’ll probably want to head to Dickson’s across the aisle. The fish counter had a delicious sounding $10 sandwich involving tuna confit, but no one was working there when I was on the hunt for lunch.

If you’re in search of a cheap lunch, All Good Things is probably not the best destination, but I didn’t feel ripped off by my $9 sandwich as it was full of high-quality cheese. And no one will judge you if you get an ice cream cone instead of chips as a side.

Cavaniola’s Gourmet Cheese Shop, inside the All Good Things Market, 102 Franklin St. (at Church), (212) 966-3663