Midtown Lunch

The Ravioli Fair cart outside One Chase Plaza got no love in the forums, and I know Daniel was not a big fan, but I think the place is getting a bad rap. I remembered having some great food there in the past… not only their Italian heroes, but also their pasta dishes. I decided to try it out once again.

Admittedly the results were mixed. You guys were right about the sandwiches, which are pretty underwhelming. Decent, just not anything I think I couldn’t get from one of the half-million pizzerias down here. The pasta, however, was even better than I remembered- and more than justifies this cart’s presence on downtown’s crowded streets.

The lasagna alone should put this place on the map, and even if you’re in the market for a hero, you could do a lot worse than Ravioli Fare.

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My first time writing for Zach, I faced the complicated dilemma of who to write about, or, as I so gracefully put it, who to shank? Continuing my prison yard analogy, I’d like to introduce my next victim, one of the options I referred to in that fateful first post, the one I’m going to take down to let people know I’m not backing down. Yes, if you want a burrito, you can go to Chipotle or even Gloria’s Pushcart (on a quick side note, I’m pretty sure she’s Puerto Rican), but what if they just aren’t cutting it? An even better question, what if you want to get beyond the everyday standard of a burrito? The answer to these questions (and more!) can be found at Tajin Restaurant at 85 Greenwich St., just south of Rector St.

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What is bourbon chicken anyway? Not any kind of authentic Cajun food, that seems to be certain. It’s much more like American Chinese food, pretty similar in a lot of ways to teriyaki, which I realize is Japanese rather than Chinese, but that’s beside the point as the predominating influence here is clearly American. If you’ve got a craving for bourbon chicken and want to make it at home you can go to my new favorite website bourbonchickenspices.com whose secret sauces and techniques will allow you to make bourbon chicken “the same or even better than the malls.”

That has got to be the most questionable endorsement of a food product I’ve ever seen, but I’ve had bourbon chicken at malls, airports, and a few other places, and given the context, it’s pretty damn good. Nothing to chase to the ends of the earth, but a safe bet when you’re trapped in a culinary wasteland like an airport or the financial district.

And the bourbon chicken at Cajun Maggies on John St. between Broadway and Nassau is no exception and may be — dare I say? — “even better than the malls.”

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Café Water on the corner of Water and Pine looks like a run-of-the-mill deli in almost every way — hot bar, salad bar, Wall of a Thousand Beverages, etc. — but tucked away in the back corner is a Lunch’er’s dream: A made-to-order ramen soup bar. For $5.95 you get a steaming quart of ramen-y goodness that you think you won’t be able to finish.

Oh, but you’ll finish it. And an hour later you’ll find yourself slumped over your keyboard, comatose but happy. Good ramen from a deli? Believe it.

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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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Months ago, one of my coworkers would not stop yapping about this street meat cart. It went missing for a few weeks and he maintained a strict schedule of lamentation every time lunch rolled around. “Oh how I wish the curry chicken cart was still here!” he’d moan. I found the prospect of a curry chicken cart rather dubious and told him as much. Maybe there was a cart that served chicken in something other than jerk or standard halal form up in Midtown, but certainly nothing like this existed in the Financial District. Did this keep him from his daily bitching? Hell no. I put up with that garbage for a month straight, and after that it was more a testament to my resolve not to seek out this curry cart (which had returned), just to spite him. Well, yesterday I broke down from my silent protest. I tracked down this curry cart to see if it was really worth all the anguish.

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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 (insuring 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.)

First off thanks to Chris for covering my shift last week. I love lamb, and that cart looked pretty damn good. Anyway, on this week’s post… during a meeting with two recently engaged people to discuss their wedding, we started talking about one of my favorite topics, food. The groom-to-be told me he worked downtown so I asked what his favorite cart was. “Definitely the Halal truck right across from Men’s Warehouse on Broadway, they have the best chicken and rice downtown.” I had to check it out, so yesterday I headed to what I’ll name The “Frito Lay” Truck since they have no name or menu but several large Frito Lay stickers slapped around the truck. If the chicken was better than Musthafas Halal cart (aka Zak’s), which is about 20 feet away, I’d be a very happy camper.

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