Midtown Lunch

It’s been hard to track down the You Got Smoked truck since it was spotted in the Financial District back in December. They aren’t great about posting their location on Twitter and I refuse to wander the neighborhood on the off chance I’ll find a certain truck. Long story short: I happened upon them at Water and Wall streets on Friday and as it turned out, I was in need of lunch. While I was not wowed by my lunch, there were some high points. Read more »

• The Seaport has a new food truck for the winter. [DNAinfo]
• This awesome hawker market could come downtown! [ENY]
• An updated vegan cafe opening date. [Tribeca Citizen]
• You can get a veg Spicy Rizzak at Tiny’s. [Eat to Blog]
• Khe-Yo’s takeout spot has a new shrimp banh mi. [Grub St.]

It’s been freezing outside, and waiting in the cold for food doesn’t sound all that appealing. That was the case for me until a craving for street meat hit. I thought about where to get my fix, and decided to branch out to one of the handful of carts on the west side of Broadway at Zuccotti Park, since we’ve basically only reviewed Sam’s Falafel. I stopped at Cairo Halal to fulfill my street meat needs. The plate of food I got had some good along with some bad. Read more »

The name of the restaurant Aux Epices on Baxter St. (btw. Canal & Hester) translates from French into “with spices” and that was an accurate description of the riot of flavors in my lunch there. It moved from Tribeca where it was called Franklin Station Cafe, and there isn’t much on the lunch menu that tops $10, but you have to remember that this is Chinatown/Little Italy and that price point is expected. You don’t feel like you’re eating in the neighborhood as you step inside and black and white photos paired with cute cafe tables and French music contrast with the mostly Malaysian and Asian dishes on the menu. It’s a nicer lunch experience than you might find in surrounding establishments, and the seafood dish I had was delicious.

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No longer a source of Jamaican chicken wraps.

When it rains, it pours, and on Monday the actual rain coincided with some lunch spots shuttering in Tribeca. It was termed “Black Monday” as word came that Portobella’s Pizza on Murray St. and Blueberry Fusion Cafe on Church St. (where I once had a tasty but weird lunch experience) were no longer in operation. The third closing was a more upscale establishment that we don’t cover, but still, not good news to start the week. Hopefully some reasonably-priced spots will pick up the slack and open in these newly-vacant spaces.

Amazingly, there are still a couple of slice shops in the Financial District that have not been written up by this site. Lisa’s Pizza is one of those, partly because it’s on a really touristy stretch of Fulton St. (at Gold) and I had kind of dismissed it. After trying a couple of slices, I concluded that it’s not life-changing pizza, but good if you like a lot of dairy. Read more »

• MacarOn Cafe coming to prime spot in Tribeca. [TC]
• Denny’s really, really wants to open in the FiDi. [DNAinfo]
• The bacon cheeseburger at the Odeon is worth the price. [SENY]
• A few of the year’s top sandwiches are Downtown Lunches. [EaterNY]