Midtown Lunch

Months ago, one of my coworkers would not stop yapping about this street meat cart. It went missing for a few weeks and he maintained a strict schedule of lamentation every time lunch rolled around. “Oh how I wish the curry chicken cart was still here!” he’d moan. I found the prospect of a curry chicken cart rather dubious and told him as much. Maybe there was a cart that served chicken in something other than jerk or standard halal form up in Midtown, but certainly nothing like this existed in the Financial District. Did this keep him from his daily bitching? Hell no. I put up with that garbage for a month straight, and after that it was more a testament to my resolve not to seek out this curry cart (which had returned), just to spite him. Well, yesterday I broke down from my silent protest. I tracked down this curry cart to see if it was really worth all the anguish.

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

First off thanks to Chris for covering my shift last week. I love lamb, and that cart looked pretty damn good. Anyway, on this week’s post… during a meeting with two recently engaged people to discuss their wedding, we started talking about one of my favorite topics, food. The groom-to-be told me he worked downtown so I asked what his favorite cart was. “Definitely the Halal truck right across from Men’s Warehouse on Broadway, they have the best chicken and rice downtown.” I had to check it out, so yesterday I headed to what I’ll name The “Frito Lay” Truck since they have no name or menu but several large Frito Lay stickers slapped around the truck. If the chicken was better than Musthafas Halal cart (aka Zak’s), which is about 20 feet away, I’d be a very happy camper.

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When Zach asked me to write the Downtown Lunch segment this week, I was ecstatic. Then nervous. Then petrified. I tend to be something of an imaginative fellow and despite having read this particular blog for a good long while and knowing that the readers are good people, the only thing I could really grasp on Monday afternoon was a sense of impending doom. See, the big, bad blogosphere is sort of like Rikers Island. You’ve got to come in swinging for people to take notice and know you mean business (not that I have a lengthy criminal record or anything, but I’ve seen a few episodes of Oz). So the only question left is “who are you gonna shank?” Do I choose the Mexican hole-in-the-wall with the steady clientele of Spanish speakers? Nah, too out of the way, nobody would notice. What about the greasy Chinese joint tucked down a dank alley? No, that might not pack quite enough oompf for my first go around. No, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it properly, Midtown Lunch style, and that means only one thing: Street meat.

I’ve had my eye on this particular cart, Michael’s Food Cart, for some time now. Positioned on the southwest corner of Wall and South streets, I’d heard it was one of the select few carts in the city that actually did cubes of lamb. And I’m not talking about cubes of that big spiced cylinder of processed lamb that you get in your gyro (though, full disclosure, I am a fan of that). I’m talking real chunks of lamb, seasoned well and grilled over a hibachi. And I don’t know about you, but when I think about grilled meat, I start drooling more than all of Pavlov’s dogs combined. I had to see this for myself.

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

Little Lad’s Basket was definitely a change of pace from my usual greasy meat laden lunches, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. There’s no storefront or sign outside this Vegan restaurant, but if you enter through 120 Broadway and make a left at the first staircase you’ll see it at the bottom of the stairs. The restaurant was quite huge and a bit daunting at first. I couldn’t figure out how to order so I asked someone. You just take a tray and then you can fill up one bowl and one plate for $4.98!

Seeing how cheap that was I was a bit hesitant about what the food was going to taste like. I kept walking around the hot and cold buffets thinking that maybe some chicken curry would appear magically for some reason because, well… I’m an idiot. It’s VEGAN yes I know I know.

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

Street Meat doesn’t generally peak my interest downtown. I realize you Midtowners have a great selection and crazy competition, but downtown the scene is not quite as fierce. So when I walk by a bunch of street carts I generally don’t stop for lunch, unless I see a line 20 deep- as I saw earlier this week in front of the big red cube on Broadway.

I asked a few people online why this cart was different from the other carts in the area and received answers ranging from “cause its crazy cheap” to “best chicken and rice you can get”, “I don’t know this is my first time but my friend said they have the best falafel.”

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

I’m going to have to say that Pizza Italia has the best Grandma slice I’ve had downtown. I specifically went to check this joint out at the recommendation of two blue shirts I met at the Taste of Downtown festival. We were chatting about the food when I asked where their favorite places to eat down here were. One guy said his favorite slice of pizza was definitely “the triangle Grandma slice at Pizza Italia.”

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.) This week he hits up L&L Barbecue, which Kathy YL Chan (our resident expert on all things Hawaii) calls the Hawaiian McDonald’s.

I hope I didn’t make a mistake by not ordering anything with the word “Hawaiian” in the title on my visit to L&L Barbecue. Then again, I didn’t see anyone eating any of those menu items so I felt pretty confident going with the strategy of ordering what everyone else was eating.

I overheard a customer saying how good the curry chicken katsu is, so I was tempted to go with that- but in the end became mesmerized by the BBQ roasted meats at a different table (probably for bit too long, since the guy put his arm over his plate and gave me a look.)

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