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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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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Those of you who were fans of Win Won , the DOH-shuttered Chinese greasy-spoon on Liberty Place (btw. Liberty St. & Maiden Lane) take note – it’s reopened as the fancy-fonted Dumpling House. The menu isn’t all that different or exciting although the good news is they have four different kinds of dumplings. The bad news is that they’re six for $6 – kind of lame for a place with dumpling in its name. Otherwise there is roast pork and duck listed under the appetizer section, and the usual standbys lumped into a lunch special with white or brown rice and a drink or soup for $8. I guess it’s too much to ask for a 5 for $1 dumpling place in the Financial District?

Pork chop over rice is one of those things that I occasionally crave but don’t really indulge because it requires a train ride to Chinatown. My personal favorite is Wah Mei Pork Chop Fast Food on Hester St. and when a craving struck the other day I ended up looking at my options in the Financial District. That led me to Ho Yip on Liberty St. (nr. Trinity Place) which I had never been to before but had been recommended to me by a friend for having good food and plentiful seating. And they had pork chop over rice on the menu at the “Chinatown style dishes” counter! While I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be the pork chop of my dreams, drowned in pork sauce, I was completely unprepared for what I got.

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Many of you probably know Yip’s for its extensive and fairly cheap by-the-pound buffet. It’s less than $6 per pound and has a vast selection of carbs and fried meats swimming in sauces. Normally I would have been all over that, but this time I went for the $4.50 special I’d seen advertised in the window.  Just this once I was glad I walked past the huge buffet  (garlic fried fish, I’ll be back for you!) to the back counter at the location on William St. (btw. John & Fulton).

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Ever since Tokyo Kitchen closed Cajun Maggie’s has become the last remaining dodgy place to eat on the block of John St. between Nassau & Broadway. They are even classy enough to have someone handing out samples outside the store, just like at the mall. I knew Kevin went there to try out the oh so Cajun specialty of bourbon chicken, but I was interested in their take on some other actual Cajun items on the menu like shrimp etouffee and blackened fish. I wasn’t going in with high expectations of having the food transport me back to New Orleans but would it even be vaguely passable?

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I had one of those days recently where come lunchtime all I wanted to do was eat greasy food and get my recommended daily salt intake in one sitting. While I had many options to do that I opted to head over to Oriental Express on Cedar (btw. William & Pearl) to check out the buffet. I haven’t eaten at a by-the-pound buffet since New China Red in Tribeca scared me with its buffet sushi and communal soy sauce. I hadn’t quite committed to the buffet when I went down the stairs into the underground dining room, but it looked pretty good and at $5.95 a pound I wouldn’t be losing a whole lot of money if it did suck. Read more »