Midtown Lunch

There haven’t been many new interesting additions to the cart scene at Broadway between Liberty and Cedar streets lately. Last week Lunch’er Jeff wrote in to say that a new option serving Thai food had appeared next to the A-Pou’s Taste cart. A Thai food cart?! I’m on board with any cart offering food that’s more exciting than halal street meat.

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It’s not often the starch is the star of the show at lunch time, but that’s what I found when getting one of the mini meals at the Trinidad & Tobago cart on Whitehall (btw. Bridge & Pearl). The cart has stayed in its regular spot despite the fact that many office buildings in the area are not open. Nio’s Trinidad Roti truck has started parking up Whitehall St. across from the Bowling Green subway station, but the cart drew me to it with a shorter line and promise of stew chicken.

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Several of the carts downtown remained in their spots during Hurricane Sandy providing food, coffee and conversation to neighborhoods without electricity or operational restaurants. Alan’s Vegetarian Delights cart (which you may know as Alan’s Falafel) was out in its spot on Broadway (btw. Liberty & Cedar) on Wednesday just as the icy snow started falling. In addition to the new name, Alan’s has an expanded vegetarian menu including Italian classics with fake meat.

They had been unable to make it into the city since the Friday before Hurricane Sandy hit, which was 12 days away from the city and seven days of lost business, as one of the workers told me. The cart’s workers were happy to be back and have people to feed, and I’m happy to report that they have a veggie burger and fries that’s a delicious value.

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Yet another new cart has made its way to the Financial District, as Midtown contributor Brian tells us. This one’s called Toast Monster and it doesn’t serve overpriced juices, but it does have toasted sandwiches involving Nutella and cheese (not together). He learned that they’ve been around for a few weeks, used to set up in Tribeca, and that they may or may not be back in the FiDi on Thursday, but could be here next Wednesday. You can take a look at the menu they were serving at Maiden Lane btw. Front & Water yesterday straight ahead.

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There is no limit to the love for a good plate of biryani from a cart, apparently, as several new carts have popped up all over the Financial District lately. One of the latest, NY Express Biryani, made the ballsy move to set up shop right across the street from the Biryani House Cart on William St. (at John). As the weeks went by, I saw the line grow at NY Express and decided it was time to check it out. The menu is fairly broad, including kati rolls, biryani, the usual meats over rice and falafel, and because I’m indecisive I opted to start with the dish the cart is named after.

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While heading to lunch yesterday I spotted a brightly-hued new cart at the corner of Pearl St. & Hanover Sq. It’s called The Squeeze, and serves fancy juices (my eyes glazed over after I saw the $8.95 price tag), along with something called “living lattes” and some raw vegan breakfast and lunch items including sandwiches, salads and some sort of hot dog involving kimchi. Click through to see how many food forms cashews can take!

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Those of you who were sad when R. Retha’s Cart disappeared after getting shuttered by the Department of Health should probably just stop reading this post now because it contains no good news. Yesterday, the owners of the Jamaican Dutchy Truck posted on Twitter that they had a cart for sale, with the above photo attached featuring the telltale Jamaican flag flying from the top. It wasn’t looking good when the cart’s parking spot at William & Beaver was taken over by a halal food vendor, but here’s hoping another outfit buys it (the Cinnamon Snail Truck owners seemed interested) and we get to reap the benefits.