Midtown Lunch

Manhattan home to at least two food trucks serving Lebanese food. The first was Toum with its exceptional and gigantic sandwiches and potent garlic whip and the second is Bread & Olives that was spotted at Hanover Sq. (btw. Pearl & Water) on Monday and I’m told they also park there on Wednesdays. It looks like the truck parked in Midtown last year, but this is the first I’ve heard or seen of them parking downtown.

The menu features platters or sandwiches with proteins like falafel, lamb cubes, kafta or two kinds of chicken along with breakfast pies and sides. It was early and there was no line so I was sold, and ordered myself a sandwich.

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It’s been hard to track down the You Got Smoked truck since it was spotted in the Financial District back in December. They aren’t great about posting their location on Twitter and I refuse to wander the neighborhood on the off chance I’ll find a certain truck. Long story short: I happened upon them at Water and Wall streets on Friday and as it turned out, I was in need of lunch. While I was not wowed by my lunch, there were some high points. Read more »

It’s been freezing outside, and waiting in the cold for food doesn’t sound all that appealing. That was the case for me until a craving for street meat hit. I thought about where to get my fix, and decided to branch out to one of the handful of carts on the west side of Broadway at Zuccotti Park, since we’ve basically only reviewed Sam’s Falafel. I stopped at Cairo Halal to fulfill my street meat needs. The plate of food I got had some good along with some bad. Read more »

The name of the restaurant Aux Epices on Baxter St. (btw. Canal & Hester) translates from French into “with spices” and that was an accurate description of the riot of flavors in my lunch there. It moved from Tribeca where it was called Franklin Station Cafe, and there isn’t much on the lunch menu that tops $10, but you have to remember that this is Chinatown/Little Italy and that price point is expected. You don’t feel like you’re eating in the neighborhood as you step inside and black and white photos paired with cute cafe tables and French music contrast with the mostly Malaysian and Asian dishes on the menu. It’s a nicer lunch experience than you might find in surrounding establishments, and the seafood dish I had was delicious.

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Amazingly, there are still a couple of slice shops in the Financial District that have not been written up by this site. Lisa’s Pizza is one of those, partly because it’s on a really touristy stretch of Fulton St. (at Gold) and I had kind of dismissed it. After trying a couple of slices, I concluded that it’s not life-changing pizza, but good if you like a lot of dairy. Read more »

It’s a new year, it’s freezing outside and you may have made a resolution to eat healthier lunches. Taim has your back with its daily soup, which you can find at the shop in Nolita on Spring St. (at Mulberry). The truck sometimes offers soup as well, although they don’t park downtown a lot these days.

The good news is that this lunch is so much more than the usual cup of soup with a stale roll or piece of bread alongside.  Read more »

Just when I think we’ve discovered every lunch secret in the Financial District on this site, another one comes out of the woodwork. While doing some online research for another post I stumbled upon a place called Dovid’s Kosher in a building on Exchange Place (at William) that I’d never heard of. I’d reviewed two other spots on this same block and wondered how I’d never noticed a kosher deli. It turns out it’s because it’s inside a building, basically in a hallway, and you can’t really see it from the street. This called for an investigation.  Read more »