Midtown Lunch

While out and about yesterday I spotted a papered over window for a place to “Eat.Drink.Enjoy” called Earl’s Court on the corner of John St. & Gold. At first I thought it was an outpost of the Earl of Sandwich that’s coming to midtown, but that’s not the case. I have no idea when the paper went up (even though it’s next to the gym I technically belong to but rarely visit) and a quick web search turned up nothing, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see if it’s anything good or just another fancy looking generic deli.

Here’s a confession: I’ve always wanted to eat at the Pearl St. Diner based solely on its sign. You just don’t find places with awesome neon signs like that anymore. Plus, whenever I walk by its location on Pearl (at Fletcher) it always looked packed with a diverse crowd of people and it just seemed like a good place for solo dining. On one of our many recent days of gross weather, I headed over because clearly eating outside was not going to happen and there aren’t a ton of places in the FiDi to have a sit-down lunch within ML price guidelines. Off I went with visions of greasy diner food dancing in my head. Read more »

As you readers of ML Downtown may have noticed, there aren’t a lot of “lighter” things like soup featured on here. It’s not that I’m purposely trying to omit liquid-based lunches, it’s just that they’re not that exciting (unless they’re pho, which is exempt from this bias). When I first went to Toloache Taqueria on Maiden Lane (btw. William & Gold) to try the tacos I saw they had a couple of interesting soups on the menu. Since it’s been freaking cold outside I figured it was the perfect time to try their version of pozole. Read more »

I had a plan for lunch the other day, but that quickly got derailed by the intensely crappy weather. (It’s the second time in two months I’ve had an umbrella destroyed while in search of lunch). The cart I was looking for was MIA and I ended up at Niko Niko on Pearl St. (at Wall) to dry off and eat something hot. The ramen soups sounded appealing, but something involving a bunch of rice sounded better. And I wanted that rice covered in Japanese curry and fried meat. Read more »

If you’re like me you didn’t know Goodies existed in that weird mall of sorts on Fulton St. (btw. William & Gold) where you will also find Tandoor Palace and the infamous Spa 88 and its three-course lunch. And even if you knew it was there, you probably never thought about eating there. It was touted in the forums as being underappreciated so I decided to go check it out since I hadn’t had good, greasy Chinese for lunch for far too long.  After looking it up online I discovered that there used to be a place called Goodies on East Broadway in Chinatown, and I can’t imagine this is a very common restaurant name. This made me pretty excited to go eat there because we are lacking in good Chinese in the FiDi. Read more »

If you were outside yesterday then you know there were sub-freezing temperatures ahead of the snow, but that didn’t stop you lunch’ers from freeloading! When I got to Hot Clay Oven on Maiden Lane (at Pearl) at about 12:45 p.m. the line was nearly to the end of the block. It later grew longer as people walking by couldn’t resist the siren song of free food. After about a 30 minute wait outside, I got inside only to wait 30 more minutes to order my food. This wasn’t because of a lack of organization, but partly because people cut the line and partly because of the sheer number of people waiting. See what I scored for my patience after the jump. Read more »

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve scavanged in the basement of Zeytuna on Maiden Lane (at William) for a decent lunch, and usually ended up with soup or a random container of stuff from the by-the-pound buffet. Yes, even serious lunch’ers have lame lunches once in a while. When I’ve ventured further afield to the Mexican station or tried the falafel I’ve only been met with disappointment and regret. Lunch’er Mel recommended the pizza (and Indian) which I’d never thought to try. Grocery store pizza, here we come! Read more »