Midtown Lunch

It appears that fresh on the heels of Vietnamese Sandwiches opening in the Financial District, there is a branch of Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches opening soon. I had spotted this space under construction on Ann St. near Nassau, and Nicky’s Web site confirms that there is a new location near there opening soon. There are a lot of vacant storefronts nearby, but this was the only one that was under construction or looked suitable for a sandwich shop. Eater is reporting that it should be open in the next couple of weeks. It’s a couple of blocks from Baoguette and pretty far from the other places selling banh mi, and Nicky’s definitely will win the price wars if it keeps its pricing model where sandwiches top out at $5.50. It will be interesting to see at what point the Financial District reaches Vietnamese sandwich saturation.

There’s no signage yet, but the opening of the new Five Guys on Fulton St. (at Dutch) is nearing with plywood going up over the last couple of weeks. A rep from Five Guys says it’s expected to open on July 31 which is somewhat weirdly on a Saturday. So there’s only a few more weeks to go until you can pile the free toppings on your burger and eat a heaping helping of cajun fries. Also, according to Zach is the closest thing you can get to In N Out Burger in NYC. Read more »

There have been a couple of new additions to the downtown cart scene recently, and I spotted another one last week with the Biryani House Cart, on Liberty St. (nr. Broadway). Midtown has the famed Biryani Cart and the Kati Roll shop and I was always a little jealous that we didn’t really have a cart or shop where you could consistently get good biryani or kati rolls, aka, Indian burritos. You have no idea how excited I was when I saw this cart had been added to the collection on Liberty St.

I happened to check out Biryani House on its second day of existence, and was excited to learn that it’s not just a transplant from midtown like its next-door neighbor the 99% Vegetarian Food Cart. Nope, this is a spankin’ new cart, as its friendly owner from Bangladesh told me. Read more »

A friend tipped me off to a new sandwich place called…Vietnamese Sandwiches that’s on Pearl St. (btw. Pine & Wall). Yes, that’s right, it’s actually called Vietnamese Sandwiches. It looks the shop just opened, and according to the menu you can get a free soda with your sandwich until July 31 for their grand opening. There are eight different sandwiches for $6 including the usual pork roll and pate model, BBQ pork, roast beef and Vietnamese meatball. There’s also an avocado shake there that’s calling my name. If anyone checks this place out, give your first impressions in the comments.

A while back when I was reviewing Tandoor Palace on Fulton St., to what did my wandering eyes did appear but…a Russian/Turkish bath house with a restaurant. The unnamed restaurant is within the enormous Wall Street Bath & Spa 88 (seriously, I could have gotten lost in there), and they serve a just out of Midtown Lunch price range three-course lunch for $11.95. “This is amazing,” I thought to myself. And so, one day I rounded up a co-lunch’er and went with an empty stomach and thoughts of erasing the vegetarian lunch I had the day before from my mind. Read more »

There are a lot of places serving slices in the Financial District, and I’m always on the hunt for my favorite. I think I may have found a new front runner with It’s A Pizza on John St. (btw. Broadway & Nassau) – a place that caught my attention with its sign that makes it look like a chain even though, to my knowledge, it’s not.

They have a very busy front window that displays a number of signs for what they sell including pizza (99 cent slices from 3-5 p.m.!), pastas, a chicken over rice special and sandwiches. Things only got more awesome when I got inside and noticed they had some very un-Italian specialties listed including something called a samsa and some dumpling-looking things called hinkali. Part of me wanted to order all of these crazy things, but since it was my first time visiting I thought I should actually eat some pizza since it’s the place’s namesake. Read more »

I don’t know if there’s a vent outside my window from McDonald’s or from the generic deli on the ground floor of the office building I work in, but the smell of cooking hamburgers is constantly wafting in to my desk. I guess it’s better than rotting garbage, but it’s annoying getting hungry at about 11 a.m. every day.

Most of the time I can ignore the meaty smell, but one day I just really wanted a greasy burger and fries for lunch. I thought about checking out the newish Go Burger Truck at the South St. Seaport (anybody checked this thing out?) but reviews have not been promising. So instead I went to the forums and saw that lunch’er boomshanka had listed a cheeseburger from the Blarney Stone on Trinity Place (btw. Exchange Pl. & Morris ) as one of his go-to lunches. I was doubly intrigued because while another Blarney Stone on Fulton St. recently closed, this one was featured a couple of months ago as the recipient of a make-over by some new reality show called “Construction Intervention” on the Discovery Channel.

And that was how I ended up at a newly classy bar at noon on a Monday with a burger on my mind. Read more »