Midtown Lunch

There are now two cheap eats spots on a grimy stretch of Canal St., with a branch of $1 pizza spot Roll And Go and the recent addition of Black Burger right next to each other at the corner of West Broadway. Both places were clogged with high school students and because Black Burger is little more than a counter with a couple of stools for eating, it doesn’t take much for the line to stretch out the door. Inside, you’ll find a simple menu of either single or double hamburgers or cheeseburgers (fresh, never frozen!), fries and shakes with a grilled cheese and calamari fries thrown in for good measure. And beware the warning on the wall: “Once you go Black, you never go back.”

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In a continuation of my quest to tell you about some delicious food that I haven’t gotten around to sharing with you on Downtown Lunch yet, today’s installment comes from Fanelli Cafe on Prince St. (at Mercer). I’ve never eaten anything at Fanelli’s other than the burger and vegetable burger, and I really don’t think there’s much else worth ordering except alcohol. This bar is one of my favorite old-timey spots in the city and is one of the few non-pretentious places to get a beer and some decent food after dealing with the hordes of tourists in the area. But back to this veggie burger. I think it’s the sum of its parts that make it great, or perhaps the fact that it doesn’t fall apart into a pile of mush when you bit into it. And dare I say it tastes a little meaty?

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If you’ve been in the prime shopping area of Soho, you’ve probably walked past SoHo Park without even noticing it (or stopped at Hampton Chutney Co. before getting to it). It’s on Prince St. (at Lafayette) and is one of the cheaper lunch spots you’re going to find in the neighborhood, especially if you want a burger. It just so happened that all last week I was intensely craving a burger and fries, but I felt like this site has reviewed many of the options that are $10 or less, of which there aren’t that many. I thought about heading for Brinkley’s for the massive $14 burger that Serious Eats so loved, but instead decided SoHo Park was more in the ML budget and deserving of a look.

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I can’t say I’ve ever actively searched for a way to combine chorizo and ground beef into one delicious lunch, but when I saw the frita on the menu at the Bongo Brothers truck (which is at Old Slip & Water today), I knew it must be mine. This monster melds those two types of meat into a patty, and showers them with those shoestring potatoes that come in a can and sauteed onions and then adds some ketchup so you don’t have to. This all sounded marvelous, but how would it taste? Was this going to be too much meaty goodness to handle?

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Earlier this year I was doing a scouting lunch for a freelance story and ended up eating lunch at The Bailey Pub & Brasserie on William (at Pine). It’s a very Wall St. restaurant right down to the red leather banquettes, giant bull sculpture and flat-screen TVs silently tuned to financial news channels. In other words, this is not a very Downtown Lunch kind of place. The prices also aren’t very DL because unless you sit at the bar and order sliders you’re not going to get out of here for less than $12 and that’s not including tip. So why am I writing about this place? They happen to have one of the best burgers I’ve eaten in the Financial District.

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A couple of weeks ago a friend who also works in the Financial District told me they had eaten at Burger Burger on Pearl (at Stone) and had an extremely disappointing experience involving a way overdone patty and fries that were nearly cold when they got them. I’ve never eaten there and Daniel reviewed this place way back in January of 2009. He seemed impressed with his Aussie burger (which did look pretty good from the pictures) but a lot of things can go so very wrong in more than two years, so I decided it was time to do the only reasonable thing and go eat some grilled meat and fried potatoes.

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There are the fancy parts of Tribeca, and then there are the parts on both the extreme lower and upper reaches of the neighborhood that are a little dirty and contain some eating and drinking gems. Located on the corner of Lispenard and 6th Ave., Nancy Whiskey Pub is one of those places and while based on the crowd there during the noon hour on a weekday many people are here for alcohol, they also serve a menu where basically everything is less than $10. Or you can splurge and get a large pizza for $12.50.

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