Midtown Lunch

Bad news on the Caribbean cart beat – it looks like R. Retha’s, aka the Jamaican Dutchy, is gone for good. The Jamaican cart was last seen back in April being towed away with a yellow Department of Health sticker affixed to it. When I walked by last week the spot at William & Beaver had been taken over by the New York Halal cart which seems like it might be OK, but doesn’t serve giant plates of jerk chicken. Looks like those of you who work this far down in the Financial District will have to make do with the Trinidad & Tobago cart at Whitehall & Water from now on.

If you’ve walked down Broadway by Trinity Church, you may have noticed a blue cart selling things like baklava and other sweets, along with Greek salad and chicken and gyro sandwiches. Lunch’er blueprintu told us about the cart when answering profiled lunch’er Dan’s question of where he could find Greek food. The cart’s not always there, but they were yesterday when I walked by. Everything seems reasonably priced, and ideal for an afternoon snack or light lunch. A look at the menu is straight ahead. Read more »

It’s been a while since I ate a plate of lamb or chicken over rice, and I set out with the intention of rectifying that earlier this week, after noticing a couple of new carts in the lineup on Broadway between Pine and Liberty streets. Shafiq’s Halal cart is one of those and although I initially was going to stick with the standard lamb and chicken over rice combo, I saw several people ordering biryani and changed my mind.

Read more »

Just in case you managed to walk by the corner of Hanover Sq. & Pearl St. yesterday and missed this new attention-grabbing cart, it’s an offshoot of the Our Heros truck and it serves nothing but sliders. You have four choices of what’s put between wee buns, all of them involving meat or seafood. I stopped by yesterday (as did Midtown contributor Brian who sent along pictures) and sampled two of the sandwiches. Find out my thoughts on them and take a look at the menu after the jump.

Read more »

There was quite a lot happening on Water St. between Maiden Lane and Pine yesterday, with the return of Nio’s Trinidad Roti Truck and a new cart called Indian Biryani Delights spotted on that block. The man working at the cart confirmed it’s brand new and will be parking in the same spot daily. There’s meat and vegetable biryani for $5.99 as well as regular street meat, kati rolls and (according to the sign) chapli kebabs. It seems to be something of a cursed place to park as the second A-Pou’s Taste cart was parked here, but now seems to have disappeared, and Fun Buns only lasted a couple of days selling its pork and beef buns before finding somewhere else to park. I hope this cart has more luck. Go try some biryani everyone!

It’s almost swimsuit season, but that doesn’t mean we should all give up things like beef stew from a cart. While walking by Sandra’s Food Spot cart on Nassau (btw. Liberty & Cedar) I noticed they had a beef stew special that day. We’ve already sampled the cart’s Puerto Rican pasteles amd tilapia (which they have Monday, Wednesday and Friday) so I figured this beef stew deserved a shot. What I found was meat and potatoes served Latin style.

Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, one of our Profiled Lunch’ers mentioned her love of a falafel plate (with extra white sauce) from Adel’s Halal cart at Maiden Lane & Front St. Lo and behold, we’ve never written about the cart’s falafel, only gave it a shout out in a review of their lamb/chicken over rice. There’s always a line in front of the cart which isn’t too common at halal carts in the Financial District unless you’re Sam’s Falafel or Alan’s Falafel – both of which put out great food, so it would make sense that if there’s also a line at Adel’s there must be a reason. Read more »