Midtown Lunch

Grocery store/lunch favorite for tons of downtown office works Zeytuna has had what they call a Mediterranean snack cart set up outside on John St. (at Nassau) for a little while now, and I have been meaning to try it. I didn’t so much want to eat there because it was new, but because they seemed to have a pretty random assortment of food. We’re talking something called a maffle, some sort of sandwich called a dove, crepes and “corn in the cup.” Oh, and samosas! After asking what corn in the cup was, I was told they don’t have it anymore and will be replacing it with ravioli. Random! Since the cart will probably only be there as long as the weather is nice, and I really wanted to know what the hell a maffle was, this finally became my lunch destination. Read more »

If there is one thing you lunch’ers should know about me, it is that I love me some seafood. I can’t even think of one kind that I don’t like, and I feel like I don’t take advantage of eating it for lunch enough especially since many of the carts downtown serve some sort of fish or shrimp. Awhile back, Chris tried out the beef stew from what he called the $5 Lunch Truck (you may remember it as the one in which the commenters questioned whether it was Eritrean food or not), and a couple of people including Lunch’er Tom had said the fish ($5.50) from this place was really good. That endorsement and the price made it a done deal in my book. Did I find the fish of my dreams? Click through to find out. Read more »

I haven’t been back to check out the Biryani House cart after eating both their biryani and kati rolls the first week they opened. They were both good, but I also had my eye on the chicken tikka masala and some of the seafood over rice options. I headed over to see if the chicken tikka was any good and if they’d changed their menu at all. Basically, I was just looking for an excuse to eat street meat. Read more »

I don’t get over to the South Street Seaport very often because it’s like the Times Square of the Financial District and full of mostly mediocre eateries. I noticed the other day that a Johnny Rockets is going in below the Pizzeria Uno but it doesn’t say anything about when it’s opening. The Go Burger Truck parks right in front of where it will be, and there’s a Heartland Brewery across the street, so I don’t really know why this is necessary. Find out about another chain coming downtown, after the jump. Read more »

I will admit that despite working downtown for more than two years, I have never eaten at L&L Hawaiian BBQ on Fulton St. (btw. Gold & Cliff). I’m not quite sure why, but I feel that deep in my mind I knew that eating lunch here would make me worthless for the rest of the afternoon at work. When Daniel checked it out last year he called it the “Hawaiian McDonald’s” and while he liked the roast duck and spare ribs all right, he wanted to go back to check out the curry chicken katsu. That sounded good to me, so I headed over with an empty stomach and dreams of Japanese-style fried meat in my head. Find out if the katsu was worth the food coma after the jump. Read more »

Back in the day when Daniel was on the downtown beat, he checked out the street meat truck that’s always parked on Cedar at Broadway and christened it the Frito Lay Truck, because that’s what it was in it’s former life of ferrying tasty snacks. A week or two ago I noticed the truck had been officially named the Gyro House, maybe after one too many people came by in search of Lay’s potato chips. In addition to a name, the owners got extra fancy and added a seizure-inducing sign on the top advertising the wares (I swear the above photo was a complete accident, and did not encourage me to order lamb). Daniel seemed fairly satisfied with the chicken he got there, but I was in search of falafel and wondered how this truck’s would stack up to the heavy hitters Sam’s Falafel across the street and Alan’s Falafel on the plaza in front of the truck. Read more »

The first Five Guys in the Financial District opened last weekend, and I went to check it out on the first day they were inundated with office workers. Also, I must confess that I have never eaten at Five Guys before (I know, I know) so I was really excited to see what all the hype was about. And really, who even needs an excuse to eat a burger and fries for lunch? Read more »