Midtown Lunch

This site has already checked out some of the more traditional lunch options at Tribeca’s Takahachi Bakery on Murray St. (at Church). There was the Japanese pizza and fried cream gravy sandwich (aka, croquettes), and then the ginger beef sandwich. The one thing we hadn’t really tried was the large variety of savory and sweet buns offered on a daily basis. With fillings like ham and cheese, red bean and curry beef, clearly these had to be sampled.

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One of the constants in the food truck scene of the Financial District during the past year or two has been the Ambizza Cafe Truck which came blazing in with claims of the city’s best kofta kebabs. That wasn’t necessarily true, but as that was the only dish I’d tried it was time for a return visit.

The truck has been parking at Old Slip & Water every day, even after hurricane Sandy left all of you Lunch’ers down by Bowling Green with few dining options and many trucks abandoned us termporarily due to a lack of parking spots.

Anyway, the short story is I finally did a repeat visit to Ambizza and am happy to report they do a nice plate of chicken over rice for only a couple of dollars more than the street meat carts.  Read more »

If you work in Battery Park City (or the far edge of Tribeca) you may have gotten lunch at some point from Battery Place Market which has two locations in that neighborhood. I decided to visit the larger of those locations at Battery Place and 3rd Pl. after an online perusal of their sandwich selection showed some promising options.

It turned out many of the more interesting sandwiches are more than $10, and that’s all you get. I wanted to eat you, Singapore roast beef sandwich, but I would not pay $11.95 for you.

That was how I ended up order the half rotisserie chicken and two sides. While this was a lunch made from better-quality ingredients than you’re going to find at the generic deli down the street , be prepared for a little sticker shock when you hit the cash register.  Read more »

The faded red awning of China Red Gourmet is still intact on Chambers St. (btw. Church & W. Broadway), and the inside of the place is exactly the same as it was about three years ago when I checked out their awesome by-the-pound buffet.

You can still look at yourself eating in mirrors that line the wall, and you’re still not allowed to bring in outside food. What has changed are the prices which are a bit higher than when I was last here, with the buffet now $4.75 per pound. This time I ignored that buffet in favor of one of their lunch specials, and I think the former is the way to go here.

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There are times where online delivery sites like Seamless come in handy…mostly when I am looking for a new place to try and see somewhere I never knew existed. This happened last week when I spotted something called Wrap Star that had the same address as Texas Rotisserie & Grill on Fulton St. (btw. William & Gold).

A look at the menu showed more than 50 wrap options including vegetarian varieties, one with crab cakes and a few featuring barbequed meats. I had my eye on a wrap featuring all of the ingredients of a fried chicken dinner. See how this turned out, straight ahead!

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I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve walked by Pasha’s street meat cart in front of the Chase Manhattan Building on William St. (btw. Liberty & Cedar). In addition to the street meat, they also sell hamburgers and almost always have a special of curry chicken over rice on tap.

When a hankering for some street meat hit, I decided to finally fulfill my curiosity about how theirs stacks up, and find an interesting cooking method at play at Pasha’s. Let’s just say if you really like white sauce, this is your cart.

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We don’t have much in the way of Vietnamese specialties in the Financial District other than a couple of banh mi sources that also offer serviceable bowls of pho and bun.

Seemingly overnight, Eight Dumpling House morphed into A La Saigon much to the confusion of at least three customers I overheard trying to order their fix of General Tso’s chicken.

What I can report is the $8 lunch special I tried was pretty good, and a welcome counter to all that Americanized Chinese food of fried chicken in gloppy sauces.

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