Midtown Lunch

Does knife cut beat hand pulled? Via Eat to Blog.

• Paki Tea House is in the top 10 of cheap eats. [Gothamist]
• Fancy Italian sandwich shop Salume has been seized. [Grub St.]
• Barbarini will become Barbalu. [Eater NY]
• All Good Things: Now with pastries! [Tribeca Citizen]
• The roast beef option at Dave’s Hoagies gets a thumbs up. [SENY]
• Veering away from Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles‘s namesake. [Eat to Blog]

If the lines going out the door yesterday were any indication, you all were happy that Zigolini’s is open once again at Pearl St. & Coenties Slip. The grand opening came seven months after heavy damage from hurricane Sandy closed the doors of the popular deli and hot food lunch shop, and the sit down space next door. But wait, there’s more!

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This site has already checked out some of the more traditional lunch options at Tribeca’s Takahachi Bakery on Murray St. (at Church). There was the Japanese pizza and fried cream gravy sandwich (aka, croquettes), and then the ginger beef sandwich. The one thing we hadn’t really tried was the large variety of savory and sweet buns offered on a daily basis. With fillings like ham and cheese, red bean and curry beef, clearly these had to be sampled.

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In a shocking turn of events, Go Go Curry has added fruits and vegetables to its short and sweet menu. The above sign was spotted outside the location on John St. (btw. Broadway & Nassau), and a sign on the window showed greens with katsu sitting on top, with a price tag of $5. Sounds better than grilled chicken or more vegetables, right? No word on whether they put curry gravy over it instead of dressing.

One of the constants in the food truck scene of the Financial District during the past year or two has been the Ambizza Cafe Truck which came blazing in with claims of the city’s best kofta kebabs. That wasn’t necessarily true, but as that was the only dish I’d tried it was time for a return visit.

The truck has been parking at Old Slip & Water every day, even after hurricane Sandy left all of you Lunch’ers down by Bowling Green with few dining options and many trucks abandoned us termporarily due to a lack of parking spots.

Anyway, the short story is I finally did a repeat visit to Ambizza and am happy to report they do a nice plate of chicken over rice for only a couple of dollars more than the street meat carts.  Read more »

That’s a $6 pile of Vietnamese pork chop. Via SENY.

• A firefighter-themed sandwich chain could come to the WFC. [Real Deal]
• Does the FiDi really need another creperie? [Tribeca Citizen]
• Here’s a think piece on Shake Shack taking over the universe. [Grub St.]
• NYC Food Truck Association’s up for an award, and you can help them win. [SENY]
• And BPC’s going to get some BBQ that’s good + affordable. [Eater NY]

If you work in Battery Park City (or the far edge of Tribeca) you may have gotten lunch at some point from Battery Place Market which has two locations in that neighborhood. I decided to visit the larger of those locations at Battery Place and 3rd Pl. after an online perusal of their sandwich selection showed some promising options.

It turned out many of the more interesting sandwiches are more than $10, and that’s all you get. I wanted to eat you, Singapore roast beef sandwich, but I would not pay $11.95 for you.

That was how I ended up order the half rotisserie chicken and two sides. While this was a lunch made from better-quality ingredients than you’re going to find at the generic deli down the street , be prepared for a little sticker shock when you hit the cash register.  Read more »