Midtown Lunch

I’m not quite sure why more restaurants don’t have windows selling one item, such as Luke’s Lobster‘s lobster roll express window, and the one I spotted the other day outside Koko on Greenwich St. (btw. Carlisle & Albany). Nearly everything on the lunch menu at this Asian fusion place is priced at or over the $10 limit (OK, there are a few items for $9.50, but who’s going to pay that for chicken & broccoli?). If you’re not choosy, you can get one specific Americanized Chinese item for half price – but you have to order it while standing on the sidewalk.

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Cafe Sage had the shutter partially down on Friday afternoon, and apparently I wasn’t the only who noticed that the Thai restaurant on John St. was closed. A tweet from a downtown lunch’er alerted me that there was a yellow Department of Health sticker affixed to the restaurant. Sure enough, according to the DOH Web site they were shuttered with 40 violations included presence of mice and roaches. Suddenly, eating from that quick and cheap lunch steam table they were popular for isn’t sounding so great.

I’m not sure what happened between May and now but that empty jewelry shop on the corner of Water & Coenties Slip that was reportedly going to be a third location of Rhong Tiam now has a different restaurant opening in it. A walk by on Friday revealed signs saying that OBAO noodles and BBQ was “coming soon.” But wait, that’s not Rhong Tiam! Anyway…there’s a location of OBAO in midtown and they serve a mix of noodles, Vietnamese and Thai food so it’s not all bad news. Zach seemed a little confused by a certain soup they were serving back in 2009 but he did concede that it was good.

My first experience with the Chinese food at Goodies on Fulton St. (at Gold) was a great one so when the craving for noodle soup hit the other day I knew exactly where I was going. The hard part once I got there was deciding which kind to get, and then whether to get noodles or rice cakes in it. Thankfully the woman who’s always manning the tiny dining room had some time on her hands as the place was empty due to the torrential rain outside. When asked, she confirmed that this is indeed the same Goodies that used to be in Chinatown and based upon my second go-round with their food it’s definitely our gain.

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There are so many pizza places downtown that I haven’t even begun to chip away at eating at all of them. While walking down Cedar St. between William and Pearl the other day I noticed a pizza place called Liberatos next to Pita Press and after deciding to go inside to take a look, couldn’t resist getting a couple of slices for research purposes. What I found was some decent pizza, and a great foundation.

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Our options for Indian food in the Financial District are pretty grim and mostly consist of the locations of Diwan-E-Khaas and various carts serving kati rolls or biryani. The Desi Food Truck had a good run parking at Hanover Square until they got kicked out recently, and that was about all that fit in the Midtown Lunch budget. I’d never eaten at Bombay’s on Pearl St. (btw. Broad & Coenties Slip) partly because it’s nowhere near where I work, and also because I just assumed it was at the same price point as most of the surrounding restaurants, which are mostly expensive. Looks can be deceiving, though, and after eating at Bombay’s, I can say that this place is the Indian gem of the FiDi. Read more »

There’s an otherwise nondescript street meat cart on Gouverneur Lane (at Water) called Desi Food that has all manner of fish specialties posted on the front. The couple of times I’ve stopped by, they never have these things but what they do have every day is chicken biryani and since it’s been awhile since I’ve eaten a version from a cart I figured it was worth a shot since the $6 price tag wasn’t exactly going to break the bank.

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