Midtown Lunch

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 »

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!

If you work in the Financial District and have a craving for kati rolls where do you turn? Up until last week I thought the only options were a couple of carts at Liberty & Broadway – Bombay Biryany and Biryani House – where you can get street meat chicken or lamb gyro put into paratha with standard street cart sauces. The price is right at $5 or $6 for two of them, but they weren’t anything special, and I’d rather get the namesake dish or street meat from either of these carts.

Profiled Lunch’er Yury asked where to get the best kati rolls downtown, and all of the suggestions came from Murray Hill or Greenwich Village where they’re more abundant. I remembered seeing kati rolls listed on the menu at Bombay’s on Pearl St. (btw. Coenties & Broad) but hadn’t got around to actually eating one. Well, I finally did, and I don’t know if my expectations were really low, but the chicken tikka one I tried got me all kinds of excited.

Read more »

The mini chain of Indian steam table restaurant Diwan E Khaas (Multiple Locations) doesn’t get a lot of love on this site, as anytime it’s mentioned it seems a commenter is saying the food is mediocre at best. I used to eat at the nearest location to me, on Nassau btw. Liberty & Maiden Lane, before I realized there were much better lunch options out there, and haven’t ever returned. A while back I noticed they had a sign up for their “winter lunch special” that got you a vegetable or chicken item plus rice or naan for $5.50-$5.99 which seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Would there be anything on the steam table to recommend though? To my surprise, yes.

Read more »

Despite having other meatless options in its roll arsenal, the Biryani House cart on Liberty (at Broadway) only sold two kinds of kati rolls – chicken and lamb – repurposed from their plates of street meat. Now you vegetarians have another option since they added an aloo gobi roll. I thought I’d take a break from the meat for once and try one since their chicken and lamb versions were pretty good.  Read more »

Our options for Indian food in the Financial District are pretty grim and mostly consist of the locations of Diwan-E-Khaas and various carts serving kati rolls or biryani. The Desi Food Truck had a good run parking at Hanover Square until they got kicked out recently, and that was about all that fit in the Midtown Lunch budget. I’d never eaten at Bombay’s on Pearl St. (btw. Broad & Coenties Slip) partly because it’s nowhere near where I work, and also because I just assumed it was at the same price point as most of the surrounding restaurants, which are mostly expensive. Looks can be deceiving, though, and after eating at Bombay’s, I can say that this place is the Indian gem of the FiDi. Read more »

It’s not often that you come across a lunch that’s spicy across the board, but that’s what I found the other day when I finally had a chance to stop by the Desi Food Truck, aka the latest truck to decamp to the Financial District after being kicked out of midtown. They have a vegetarian and meat version of a “Desi lunch special” and since the combination of a kati roll and dal sounded delicious, that’s what I ordered.

Read more »