Midtown Lunch

The opening of the Nixtamalito Taqueria kiosk was a big deal for the area around city hall and the 1 Centre St. building that was mostly void of decent lunch options. Since that opened several of the other kiosks nearby that were vacant have become occupied, selling things like burgers and cafe fare, quiche and gluten-free pizza, fancy grilled cheese and shaved ice. One more is set to open next to Nixtamalito, selling Korean BBQ, making this one of the most concentrated areas of decent lunch options downtown. Click through for a look at what municipal workers and those on jury duty can look forward to come lunch time.

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Since we don’t have 2 Bros. Pizza way downtown the $1 slices that are common in other parts of the city are something of a novelty here. The newly-opened Roll And Go on Broadway (at Franklin) is the only place I’m aware of (other than craptastic Papa John’s) below Canal selling slices at this price. When I got there the place was packed, but since almost everyone was getting cheese slices they had a bunch ready to go and it wasn’t long before I had food in hand.

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To anyone who says there’s no good Mexican food downtown (or in NYC…or anywhere outside of some shack in the back of a gas station in California), I would say you should go out of your way to eat at Nixtamalito. Or if you get called for jury duty at least you can look forward to a torta come lunch time. I’d gone when they first opened and ended up ordering tacos which were good and all, but I wanted to try some of the other items on the menu that you can’t readily find downtown. That was how I ended up standing in front of Nixtamalito in the pouring rain, despite intending to go somewhere else (indoors) for lunch. Read more »

The new kiosk venture from Tortilleria Nixtamal, Nixtamalito, opened late last week where Choza Taqueria used to be. They opened so quickly, in fact, that the signs for Choza are still up as well as a menu from something that was there selling breakfast sandwiches before that. I really liked the tacos at Choza and was sad to hear that they closed. When I heard that Nixtamalito was coming from the people making some of the best corn tortillas out there, I really wanted to run over and get a tamale, but alas President Obama was in lower Manhattan that day, and large crowds of people plus barricades meant no tamales for me. The following day I was determined to eat there, and so were a lot of other people judging by the line that stretched long even after 1 p.m.

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I was a little surprised at how much interest my post about the $8 lunch special at The Copper Barrel on Murray (btw. Broadway & Church) got from all of you lunch’ers. Then it was pointed out that there’s not much in that area for lunch, either good or bad, although if you go up to Chambers St. there are at least a few options. Most of those are fast food, though, and sometimes you just don’t want to order your meal by number. The sign outside gives no clue as to what the lunch special is, so I decided to step inside yet another dark bar in the middle of the day to find out.

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I had occasion to go up by City Hall the other day and on a desolate stretch of Reade St. between Broadway & Church streets saw two Japanese restaurants essentially right next to each other. The lunch menu at Sun Cafe looked better so I went inside to eat. The place was packed and they put me at the table always reserved for the solo diner, right next to the bathroom. After looking over the lunch menu I was trying to decide between gyoza and roast pork when I spotted the house special udon soup ($8) which contained both of these items. How could anything with roast pork and gyoza be bad? Read more »

It’s been awhile since I’ve randomly eaten at one of the many nondescript street meat carts dotting the sidewalks along Broadway. The Sahara Express cart at Broadway & Warren caught my eye because the signs on the side said they supposedly served fish over rice (and hummus, but I wasn’t fooled by that one). I love street meat fish and had one of the tastiest lunches ever ordering sea creatures from a truck. I put in my order behind a guy who had obviously been sent on a lunch mission for his office, and quickly came to realize that I was going to be eating either chicken or lamb. Read more »