Midtown Lunch

Do not go to Shorty’s if you are on a diet. I mean, if you are trying to watch your girlish figure, a cheese steak is probably not at the top of your list of things to eat for lunch. The shop on Pearl St. (btw. Coenties Slip & Broad) has salads and some “lighter” hoagies on the menu, but for me the danger lies in knowing that Shorty’s has some really great fries to go along with your meat, cheese and bread gut-bomb. Did I mention these fries involve romano cheese?

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Sometimes a lunch that I warily buy takes a turn for the delicious. That was the case when I randomly stopped by Terri on Pearl St. (btw. Maiden Ln and Cedar) and happened to see they had a new sandwich on the menu. They now offer a vegan version of a BBQ pork sandwich ($8.05) and after a taste I was immediately reminded of an offering at a certain fast-food chain.  Read more »

I have never eaten a Vietnamese breakfast, but if I did I’d want it to be the egg and pork roll banh mi from the No. 1 Banh Mi Cart. We’ve eaten most of the conventional fillings from this cart but there are usually eight to 10 on offer and some (sardines in sunflower oil, roasted eel, tuna fish) are more on the edge. There was breakfast served at the cart for a time, and I’d like to think the pork roll and egg sandwich ($7) on the lunch menu is a legacy of that.  Read more »

When Diso’s Sandwich Society truck debuted downtown in June and then decamped to Midtown before I got a chance to try their food, I was disappointed but assumed they would come back to the Financial District. I was mostly wrong (they have come back a couple of times although not regularly), but on Wednesday I noticed on Twitter that they would be at Varick & Charlton. This was finally my chance to stuff my face with an Italian sandwich from a truck!

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Earlier this year, an unconventional veggie burger caught my eye. This city has a lot of crappy versions of them, but when Birdbath Bakery‘s earned the top nod among the city’s non-meat burgers I took notice. After all there is a location in Tribeca at Church & Thomas streets, and I can’t often get to my favorite source. The other day I stopped in to see if they had the burgers (I was told they don’t have them until close to 1 p.m.) and a pile of them greeted me behind the glass divider.

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If you are a long time reader of this blog, you might have noticed that I kind of like spicy food. A lot. When I ordered a sandwich from the Route 66 Smokehouse pop up on the Elevated Acre (above 55 Water St. btw. Old Slip & Coenties Slip) I was not expecting an assault of pepper so crazy that my nose was running the entire time I was eating. That being said, I think with a couple of tweaks we can get a little excited about the food at the forthcoming Route 66 brick and mortar.

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I was in the upper part of Tribeca recently on the hunt for lunch. When I passed by Los Americanos at Church & Walker streets (where Pane Panelle once was), I took a look at the menu and saw they had one sandwich and a few other items for $10 or less. Those other items included tacos, pupusas, empanadas and arepas. How could I pass up an arepa in Tribeca?

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