Midtown Lunch

“Every weekday, in broad daylight, a tahini-splattered falafel war is waged in Liberty Plaza Park, Wall Street’s great outdoors lunchroom.”

This kind of battle, described so eloquently by Rob and Robin in New York Magazine, is one that this otherwise peacenik Lunch’er can definitely get behind.

The other partisan in this fried chickpea conflict is, of course, Sam’s Falafel, which Daniel gave a thumbs up to back in 2008. I would have raved even more about Sam’s food that he did, but as much as I love Sam’s, I had to give the competition a try.

So who has the best falafel in the plaza? Whose fried chickpeas reign supreme? The winner is…

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Remember when I told you there would be a surprise the first time we ventured into Chinatown since the launch? Well, here it is.  We’ve realized that there is a problem that afflicts tens of thousands of New Yorkers every year.  “Where do I eat while on jury duty?”  This segment of Midtown Lunch hopes to address that question exactly.  Good for Uptowners, Midtowners, and Downtowners alike, Jury Duty Lunch explores the area around Foley Square looking for what Midtown Lunch is all about: cheap, greasy, delicious food.  Just click on the Jury Duty Lunch category to see where we’ve been.

During my childhood, I had a strong affinity for dumplings, gyoza, potstickers, whatever you wanna call ’em.  It was one of my absolute favorite things to eat and always a treat when Mom would get that giant plastic bag we’d gotten at the grocery store and fried up a couple plates worth.  My disappointment always clocked in when I realized the meal wouldn’t consist solely of dumplings.  I dreamed of the day when I would be a grown up who could fry his own damn dumplings and consume nothing but.  Well, that day has come.  (To be perfectly frank, it’s not the first time in my adult life that day has come, but let’s set that aside for the time being.)  I took a little trip to Chinatown to see just how many fried dumplings and pork buns I could get for my 5 bucks at Fried Dumpling on Mosco Street.
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Back before us Downtowners hit it big and got our own Midtown Lunch website, we used to crave Fridays when that little corner Zach’s masterpiece would open up the boundaries a little bit and Daniel Krieger would give us the scoop on Midtown Lunches Downtown. One those posts I remember the most is Daniel’s trip to Champs Deli because I used to swing by that spot for anything from an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese to a cheeseburger deluxe.  For those of you with especially good memories, you may remember the image above as the one that opened Daniel’s Champs post. Well, consider this a sequel of said post, a bit of an homage to Daniel with the work he did, and an expansion on the glory that is Champs Deli.
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As those of you who read my post on the stew at Country Cafe might know, I’m not a big fan of soup.  It’s a dish that’s almost always dependent on a complementary item like a sandwich or massive amounts of bread in order to constitute a filling meal.  On top of that, I just haven’t had many earth-shattering soups.  I know they exist, otherwise Seinfeld wouldn’t have dedicated so much time to the Soup Nazi.  I just haven’t really experienced them.  Well, that has now changed and all thanks to a little place I like to call “The Hot Soup Cart.” Read more »

After placing 2nd in Street Meat Palooza and 5th in Street Meat Palooza 2, the Xpress Power Lunch at 48th and Park got plenty of love from the Midtown Lunch community, and then subsequently some confusion about just who was running which cart.

I can’t speak to the current XPL situation in Midtown, but the Xpress Power Lunch cart on the southeast corner of Wall and Pearl definitely serves up street meat that could win top honors at a downtown palooza. I stopped by on Monday on the recommendation of Lunch’er Maatthias, who said it was just as much of a gem as Adel’s. After just one visit, I have to agree.

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Zach decided to give the Midtown branch of Sushi! by Bento Nouveau a pass after this post on Food in Mouth, and I can’t blame him. Had I seen that picture before I went, I think I’d have given it a wide berth as well. But SbBN (as I’ll call it from here on in to save time and to avoid typing that stupid exclamation point) actually came recommended to me after my post about Tokyo Kitchen by Lunch’er John D., who said it was his go-to place for udon.

I always prefer following up on recommendations to just trying places blindly, particularly because I have a sense of what to try when I go. I think that served me especially well at SbBN, where I really enjoyed my udon and my sushi, while avoiding the curry and rice dishes that have received pretty negative reviews elsewhere. SbBN didn’t blow me away, but its food is better than solid, and the prices much more reasonable than I would have guessed.

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One of the many marvels of New York is that a plain slice bought from almost any of the hundreds of pizzerias in town will be decent. I don’t know if every hole-in-the-wall pizza joint just gets their dough and sauce from the same supplier or what, but I’ll buy a slice from almost anywhere and feel confident that it’ll probably be alright. Every once in a long while, I am proven terribly, terribly wrong, but that’s really not very often.

With so many pizza places in the city, however, it’s a lot of work to tell the good places from the nearly decent. We had no idea that The Grotto was better than average until Chris went there himself, and pretty much the only way to separate the tasty wheat from the merely passable chaff is trial and error.

That, or starting a blog and having readers email you tips. Former Midtown Lunch’er and current Downtown Lunch’er Matthew tipped us off to Friendly Pizzeria on the corner of Nassau and Maiden Lane, and I for one am grateful. After walking by this place for years, I finally stopped in and found a better-than-average slice and plenty of the eponymous friendliness.

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