Midtown Lunch

Last week, we at Midtown Lunch: Downtown got a tip that Nio’s Trinidad Roti truck was parked directly in front of Veronica’s Kitchen cart on Water between Maiden Lane & Pine. I went in search of the truck on Monday in the rain and when I didn’t see it parked in that spot, I turned around to see what the situation was at Veronica’s, only to find that the cart was MIA and Nio’s had taken their regular spot on Front St. My brain screamed “WHAT?!,” but I calmed down enough to realize that maybe Veronica’s wasn’t out that day because of the non-stop rain. So I stepped up to the window at Nio’s, feeling like I was betraying an old friend, and ordered some lunch.

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It seems like just yesterday that everyone was waiting eagerly for the first NYC outpost of Potbelly Sandwich Shop to open on Maiden Lane, and now it seems like there are a million of them. A new location was spotted in a building at 90 Broad St., so now you who work far down in the Financial District can enjoy waiting in a line out the door for a sandwich, too. These two shops join one near City Hall on Broadway just off Chambers.

There was quite a lot happening on Water St. between Maiden Lane and Pine yesterday, with the return of Nio’s Trinidad Roti Truck and a new cart called Indian Biryani Delights spotted on that block. The man working at the cart confirmed it’s brand new and will be parking in the same spot daily. There’s meat and vegetable biryani for $5.99 as well as regular street meat, kati rolls and (according to the sign) chapli kebabs. It seems to be something of a cursed place to park as the second A-Pou’s Taste cart was parked here, but now seems to have disappeared, and Fun Buns only lasted a couple of days selling its pork and beef buns before finding somewhere else to park. I hope this cart has more luck. Go try some biryani everyone!

If you’ve never been to Suspenders on Broadway (at Thames), or didn’t even know it existed, it’s because you have to walk down some stairs from street level, past a Subway sandwich shop and notice it before you get to an actual subway entrance. The bar and restaurant has no windows, but what it does have is a giant screen showing sports and Greek and Mediterranean food for less than $10.

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It seems like it’s been awhile since a lunch spot like French Cafe Gourmand has opened in the Financial District – as in a place that’s not a chain or a new branch of a chain. No, this cafe on Maiden Lane (btw. B’way & Nassau) is run by actual French people and they sell a small selection of items including coffee, soup, salads, sandwiches and some French pastries and baked goods. When I went in to check it out, I could almost for five seconds imagine that I was somewhere else but Manhattan (or at least in cafe-heavy Tribeca or Soho).

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I was skeptical of the sign in the window of the Popeye’s on Fulton St. that said the store was closed to “make needed improvements to better serve you,” since no work seemed to be taking place inside the unpapered windows. When I walked by Friday there was a repossession by marshal’s sign on the door, and I’m pretty sure we’re now one fried chicken joint shorter. They closed for these alleged renovations after a shutter by the Department of Health for various violations, so maybe that had something to do with it.

If you work in the Financial District and have a craving for kati rolls where do you turn? Up until last week I thought the only options were a couple of carts at Liberty & Broadway – Bombay Biryany and Biryani House – where you can get street meat chicken or lamb gyro put into paratha with standard street cart sauces. The price is right at $5 or $6 for two of them, but they weren’t anything special, and I’d rather get the namesake dish or street meat from either of these carts.

Profiled Lunch’er Yury asked where to get the best kati rolls downtown, and all of the suggestions came from Murray Hill or Greenwich Village where they’re more abundant. I remembered seeing kati rolls listed on the menu at Bombay’s on Pearl St. (btw. Coenties & Broad) but hadn’t got around to actually eating one. Well, I finally did, and I don’t know if my expectations were really low, but the chicken tikka one I tried got me all kinds of excited.

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