Midtown Lunch

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 »

I am hardly ever in the area where the Open Air Cafe is, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and next to the gigantic 1 Centre St. building. Two of the four kiosks that make up the cafe had opened a while back, and I ate a delicious sandwich at The Pantry. Choza Taqueria was not yet open when I went over there (and neither was the now-open Sauced that serves pastas and pizza), which totally bummed me out since I really wanted tacos that day. Well, I am happy to report they’re open serving tacos, burritos, salads and a few side items (there’s also another location opening in the Flatiron soon) Let’s take a look at what was nestled in the corn tortillas, shall we? Read more »

If you’re like me, you don’t really go to the area of Centre St. near City Hall unless you’re on jury duty, get arrested (I would imagine) or you work there and/or are defending someone in a court of law. The other option is that you are a tourist or just really like walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. One day after getting off the subway at the City Hall station, I noticed a couple of food kiosks had popped up in a weird triangular area at the base of the bridge. They were Choza Taqueria and The Pantry, and they make up half of the Open Air Cafe. Two other kiosks for Lucky Buns (not this kind, sadly, but burgers) and an Italian pizza and pasta kiosk called  Sauced are on the opposite side of the massive 1 Centre St. building. I had originally ventured over to check out Choza’s tacos only to find the place closed. So I walked over to the neighboring Pantry to see what they had on offer.

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When I woke up on Friday it looked like it would be a beautiful day for the first ever vendor-organized pushcart market downtown. People from the Street Vendor Project told me the day before that they had no idea what carts would show up or even how many.It was a pilot project, and if successful enough they hope to do it once again, Marisa Jahn from the SVP said before the event. A subcommittee made up of vendors chose the food carts that would be at the market.

By the time I headed over to Park Place (btw. Broadway & Church) shortly after noon in my stretch pants (really) and with an empty stomach the weather was cool and looked rainy. The Biriyani Cart from midtown and a Jamaican cart from the Bronx were supposed to be there, but I saw no sign of them. There were about 10 other food vendors there, including a transplant from the Red Hook Ballfield vendors in Brooklyn, a new Taiwanese cart,  and a lady selling pastelillos or what you could call Puerto Rican empanadas. Also on hand was a truck called the Cinnamon Snail selling vegan and organic food, some people selling fruit, two or three halal vendors and a guy selling a fried rice with ribs and a chicken wing for $7. That one seemed popular with construction workers.

So, what did my $10 buy me at this vendor mash up? Plenty of food porn after the jump.

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