Midtown Lunch

The Luckyim Thai cart had a rough past couple of weeks. They, along with at least four other carts, were ousted from their spot on Liberty St. at Broadway by the installation of a Citi Bike rack. After a day or two, three of the carts moved around the corner to Nassau St. (btw. Liberty & Cedar), and I decided to go try another dish from Luckyim Thai.

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Aroy Dee Thai Kitchen opened in a hurry, bringing us a mix of steam table thai and some made to order dishes. The restaurant took over the space on John St. formerly occupied by It’s A Pizza, and we’ve gotten a solid thumbs up for the food. The prices are pretty on par with other Thai spots in the Financial District that offer express options - Bennie’s Thai Cafe, Cafe Sage – but they don’t offer table service. Instead, you can sit at one of the counters along the walls or take your food to go. I opted for the latter and ordered up some pork panang curry ($8).

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Earlier this week, temporary signage was strung up over the old It’s A Pizza’s sign on John St. announcing the arrival of Aroy Dee Thai Kitchen. It ended up opening on Tuesday, and lunch’er Eric wrote in to give his impressions of what he ate. Express lunch thoughts, straight ahead!

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There haven’t been many new interesting additions to the cart scene at Broadway between Liberty and Cedar streets lately. Last week Lunch’er Jeff wrote in to say that a new option serving Thai food had appeared next to the A-Pou’s Taste cart. A Thai food cart?! I’m on board with any cart offering food that’s more exciting than halal street meat.

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Some days, lunchtime goes awry and the place I want to go eat at is closed or no longer exists. The latter happened to me earlier this week, so when I walked past Peep on Prince St. (btw. Thompson & Sullivan) and remembered how good and cheap their Thai food was a couple of years ago I went inside to give the place a second go. You may know Peep as the place where you get an entree and appetizer for $8 or $9 at lunch, and this time my choices contained a win and a loss.

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It’s not unusual to have a Japanese restaurant selling Thai food. What is uncommon is having a chef from a decent, but mostly expensive Thai restaurant like Lemongrass Grill that shuttered on William St. last November, move to another restaurant and start serving the same food for a better price. Lemon Leaves is that reincarnation, opening in the Koodo Sushi on Nassau St. (btw. Maiden Lane & Liberty). When I called in my order the other day, the addition of the Thai menu was so new that the woman on the phone had to figure out what I was trying to order. It all worked out though, and I ended up with a great lunch.

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It’s always frustrating when a craving for Thai food hits me because as most of you know our options for that cuisine are mediocre in the Financial District. Bennie’s Thai Cafe is the best of the few options we have, although there was one I had yet to try because it’s off the beaten path and I tend to forget about it. That would be Budtharasa (also known as Bunrasa) on Washington St. (btw. Carlisle & Rector) over in the weird area of Irish bars, tourists and fancy hotels below the World Trade Center site.

Chris had christened it his go-to Thai spot in the FiDi after he had the chicken curry back in 2009. Since then, the scaffolding covering the front has come down and they have a lunch box for $8 that I thought was my ticket to checking this place out.

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