Midtown Lunch

• The FiDi’s now home to a creperie with strange fillings. [DNAinfo]
• Blue Planet Grill serves pizza now? [Tribeca Citizen]
• The best tourist-friendly spots on the LES. [SENY]
• How to help out the last holdout at Pier 17. [Eater]

Did you know there is a culture in Japan where you go to a cafe and are served by a woman dressed as a maid? Well, this exists, and apparently we have one of these eateries called Maid Cafe NY downtown on Centre St. (at Walker). Based on reviews online the place has been open for a few months, but we just heard about it, and hey, it’s not often that you get a press release about a lunch spot where the workers wear maid costumes. They mostly have desserts (green tea cheesecake seems to be the thing here), but they also have breads like curry pan along with Japanese curry, rice balls and a beef bowl for Chinatown-like prices. This is the place for you if Takahachi Bakery seems too pedestrian. Photo via Maid Cafe NY.

The South Street Seaport businesses are slowly coming back to life, but there are still many that are closed for good or still under construction. Along Front St. are many eateries that have managed to reopen. Some got lucky because they are raised up off the street, while others like Barbarini Alimentari struggled. News came that the dual owners had parted ways, but one opted to reopen Barbarini as Barbalu. The menu is somewhat the same with reasonably-priced sandwiches and more expensive pastas. They had good food before and I had faith that the sandwiches would remain tasty. I was right.

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The Old Traditional Polish Cuisine truck started trolling the streets of the city a while ago and has been consistently parking at the World Financial Center north food truck lot on Wednesdays. I finally caught up with them, now that it’s not humid or warm enough to make eating a plate of Polish classics sound as appealing as standing on the subway platform at rush hour. The good news is that no matter what you order you’re not likely to go away hungry.

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It was a little surprising to see a new awning and name on the space where pizza/rotisserie chicken/shake emporium Roll And Go was. Now it’s called Wanted and you’ll have to pay $1.50 for a slice instead of $1. I’m not sure if the whole chain was renamed or just this location, but we’ll see if the price hike (and kidnapping-inspired signage) will lead to less of a line out the door at lunch.

You don’t see many tweets from the Banh Mi Cart at Hanover Sq. & Pearl St., but when they do take to Twitter, it’s for something important. Yesterday they announced that beef noodle soup (aka, pho) at the cart starting today. I’ve never had noodle soup from a cart, let along pho, so it will be interesting to see the price point and how it stacks up against the neighborhood’s best at Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches. Based on the quality of their sandwiches, I’m going in with high hopes.

We have a lot of new restaurants that open downtown that are pretty far outside of Midtown Lunch’s price boundaries of $10. When Route 66 Smokehouse announced its opening I took a peek at the menu and saw a bunch of items that sounded delicious including a pulled pork BBQ sandwich that I’d already tried at a pop-up, brisket, and a fried oyster po’ boy. The last one is pretty rare in Lower Manhattan, although you can find an awesome shrimp and oyster po’ boy at Cheeky Sandwiches on the Lower East Side.

I love a good po’ boy, so I took a trip to Route 66 to try an expensive version of a classic sandwich.  Read more »