Midtown Lunch

Among the fast food establishment and tourist shops on the stretch of Broadway between Canal and Chambers streets, shiny new Siring Asian Grill (at Worth) stands out. It’s essentially a Chipotle of Asian food, allowing you to build a wrap or bowl of rice noodles, rice or salad as a base. We’ve seen this type of “build you own lunch” restaurant before but this one’s probably welcome in an area that’s fairly grim with lunch options that aren’t McDonald’s or dollar pizza slices.

I opted to get a bowl over a wrap, as I often do, and went with the pre-fabricated Saigon turkey sliders ($8.27) which is three little burgers over rice noodles, with carrot lime relish. My topping of choice was toasted garlic and I opted to forgo any addition of spiciness, although you can get red pepper flakes or roasted jalapeno if you like.

My first thought was this wasn’t a ton of food, and it’s not, although I was full after eating the bowl. The turkey burgers were not as dry as I feared, although they lacked any seasoning. The carrot lime relish was more like the pickled carrots you get on a banh mi and the toasted garlic was minimal. Basically, this was some turkey burgers atop a pile of rice noodles that were a tad overcooked and kind of mushy.

So basically, I would not recommend the turkey slider bowl, or would perhaps get another flavor combination as this one was kind of dry and bland. You can also get chicken, pork, tofu or beef and there are many other sauce/carb/vegetable combinations to play with. I think this place is a welcome addition to the area, but you have to be choosy about what you order.

Have any of you checked out Siring Asian Grill?

Siring Asian Grill, 325 Broadway (nr. Worth), (646) 370-3032