Midtown Lunch

In between the spam and invitations to things only loosely-related to food sometimes I do get worthwhile e-mails. I recently got one from a downtown lunch’er that opened my eyes to how much it must suck to keep kosher in the Financial District and try to find a good meal. The person was asking where to go for a kosher lunch in the bottom part of the FiDi. I was stumped because while there’s the Kosher Luncheonette (and Milk St. Cafe coming to Wall St.) there really aren’t many options at all (that I’m aware of), especially if you want to actually sit there and eat. Pita Express on Ann St. (btw. Nassau & Park Row) was one of the places I came across, and the mix of Israeli and Middle Eastern food sounded good. Plus all of their sandwiches are under $10, and so I figured I would find out if this place was any good.

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One of the most hotly anticipated food truck launches in recent memory happened yesterday, with Taim Mobile rolling out its un-shiny new wheels. They parked on Hudson St. on the western edge of Soho, away from the heavy foot traffic a couple of blocks away in either direction (probably on purpose), but still drew a long line despite the rainy conditions. My wait time from ordering to food in hand was about 30 minutes, but I blame that on the sheer number of orders because they actually seemed to have a good system going and plenty of people working in the truck. And man, was the wait worth it. Read more »

Grocery store/lunch favorite for tons of downtown office works Zeytuna has had what they call a Mediterranean snack cart set up outside on John St. (at Nassau) for a little while now, and I have been meaning to try it. I didn’t so much want to eat there because it was new, but because they seemed to have a pretty random assortment of food. We’re talking something called a maffle, some sort of sandwich called a dove, crepes and “corn in the cup.” Oh, and samosas! After asking what corn in the cup was, I was told they don’t have it anymore and will be replacing it with ravioli. Random! Since the cart will probably only be there as long as the weather is nice, and I really wanted to know what the hell a maffle was, this finally became my lunch destination. Read more »

If there’s one thing downtown is lacking in, it is gross (and I mean that in the best possible way) mash ups in sandwich form. The last place I expected to find such a thing was at Baba Ghanouge on Church St. (btw. Chambers & Reade), where their tagline is “Eat Healthy Live Longer.” Even the healthiest people like to put crappy food in their bodies sometimes, and for that purpose there is the chicken beiruti sandwich. It contains a secret ingredient that elevates this sandwich a few notches and almost makes you forget you’re eating in a place that’s trying to make you healthy. Read more »

Does this photo even look like it was taken in New York? I think you’ll agree that the very fast food-like facade of Planet Gyro on Rector Street is not terribly enticing, but I’ll leave no stone unturned for you hungry Lunch’ers.

Yelpers seem to hate Planet Gyro with a fiery passion. I try not to put too much stake in Yelp ratings as a general rule, but in this case, I totally don’t understand where those folks were coming from.

As with Express BBQ, there were some red flags beyond the entrance, most notably a number of “creative” gyros on the menu, but there was also a spit loaded up with some very juicy-looking lamb. I took the plunge, ordered my gyro, and was quite pleased.  What’s the story, Yelpers?

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Alfanoose, located at 8 Maiden Lane between Broadway and Nassau, has been on the Downtown Lunch radar for awhile now. A quick search of the website has showed it popping up every year for the last few years. Lunch’er Lara recommended it to profiled Lunch’er “Tam” back in 2007. It was mentioned in the comments of the 2008 Readers’ Poll for Best Falafel. And most recently, Daniel was honing in on the place after visiting the Country Kebab. Seems to me it’s high time we made this puppy an official Downtown Lunch.

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Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (ensuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)

Country Kebab is doing what many men do in a cart, but with seats and gelato! I’ve had this spot on my foodar for awhile now so I was excited to see what kind of Turkish food they were throwing down. Initially I was a bit put off by the fact that they were carrying gelato and ice cream, as I barely eat that stuff as it is, and if I do I don’t want to mix it with greasy chicken doner… ya dig?

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