Midtown Lunch

There are so many small cafes in Soho that it’s hard to distinguish which of them could possibly have food that’s not expensive without scouring their menus. I recently saw a couple of reviews of sandwiches at Fiat Cafe on Mott St. (nr. Spring) on Serious Eats and while the visuals didn’t blow my mind, the prices were pretty unbelievable for the neighborhood. It’s pretty rare to find a great, filling sandwich here for less than a 10 spot, but Fiat Cafe’s top out at $7.50 – even the ones with meat on them! I could definitely get behind this place.

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Most people who know of Saluggi’s in the uppermost part of Tribeca on Church St. (btw. Canal & Lispenard) know it for pizza. A look at the menu online told me this maybe wasn’t the best place for a solo diner to go. When I got there I discovered they have a special of two slices and a soda for $6.50, but I already had my heart set on one of their sandwiches – particularly the sausage and broccoli rabe variety. Read more »

You can’t even call Pane Panelle a sandwich shop as there are no seats (other than outside) and you have to step aside to make way for deliveries going into the kitchen. It’s essentially a hallway. That being said, it’s kind of genius for an upper crust restaurant such as Stuzzicheria to open a lower-brow sandwich place by simply blocking off part of its dining room and having a separate door. Put up a couple of signs advertising that you exist and you’re done. There are six sandwiches to choose from here along with a lone “appetizer” of sorts. And those sandwiches come with one killer side. Read more »

There are so many pizza places downtown that I haven’t even begun to chip away at eating at all of them. While walking down Cedar St. between William and Pearl the other day I noticed a pizza place called Liberatos next to Pita Press and after deciding to go inside to take a look, couldn’t resist getting a couple of slices for research purposes. What I found was some decent pizza, and a great foundation.

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It’s hard to remember that Harry’s Italian Pizza Bar exists since it’s off the beaten path of Maiden Lane, down Gold St. on a short little stretch of Platt St. that’s only a couple of blocks long. In the summer eating there is a nice treat as there is plentiful outdoor seating and the lunch menu is vast and full of pizza, parm sandwiches and pasta (or macaroni, as the menu calls it). The only problem is that nearly everything except the sandwiches and a small calzone are $10 or more. Sometimes it’s nice to sit and have table service instead of eating on a bench or at your desk, but is the extra cost worth it? Read more »

The World Financial Center (and Battery Park City in general) is short on good, cheap lunch options so I’m sure many of you got excited when word got around that Caravelli’s Pizzeria was opening in the food court area. Anticipation built as word got around that one of the owners was Ed McFarland of Ed’s Lobster Bar fame who has a kiosk selling lobster rolls outside. Sure, pizza and seafood are pretty different foods, but how hard can it be to screw up bread, cheese, sauce and the occasional topping? Read more »

It’s not often you see a food truck with a calorie count listed on its menu, as I discovered Eddie’s Pizza Truck does when I finally got to eat one of its bar pies earlier in the week. (Really, no one wants to know how much those Korean tacos or kati rolls are adding to your waistline). Eddie’s clocks its cheese bar pie at 270 calories and that only encouraged me to add sausage to it. The truck returned to the Financial District after debuting downtown a year ago and then abandoning the weekly parking spot in favor of more busy pastures. The truck makes a stop every Friday on Hudson St. in SoHo, which is a hike to get to for me, so I stopped by to check out the $10 bar pie lunch special while it was within walking distance.

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