Midtown Lunch

You may have eaten from the Shorty’s on Wheels truck at some point since it launched a while back (and which I realize I haven’t reviewed), as it was a regular in the Financial District for a while and now parks in the WFC food truck lot on occasion. But did you know that truck is an offshoot of two Shorty’s cheese steak shops in the Flatiron and Midtown? Well, Shorty’s announced on Twitter Friday that they’re opening a shop at 62 Pearl St. between Coenties Slip & Broad sometime around Christmas. Their cheese steaks are said to be good, although the roast pork is supposedly better. Either way, they will also have a bunch of beer on tap and whatever a whiskey wall is for your liquid lunch and happy hour needs. Photo courtesy of ultraclay.

It’s been a while since we checked out a street meat cart that hasn’t already been written about on this site, so earlier this week I took walk over to the Wall St. Food Cart that’s always sitting in the middle of food trucks at the corner of Front St. & Wall. The cart has a few oddities on its menu (a ham & cheese sandwich, a BLT, spaghetti!) meaning it’s not exactly a halal cart, although I’m not sure whether they actually serve these things. I was here for the chicken and lamb over rice combo ($6) and while one of the meats was a disappointment they’re doing a lot of things right.

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It had been a while since making a visit to Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches on Nassau St. (btw. Fulton & Ann) and I was pleasantly surprised to see the small space was jam-packed with people ordering and consuming banh mi and pho. Scenes like this make me happy that not everyone chooses to stand in line at the nearest chain for lunch, but I digress. I’m here to talk about the third lunch-worthy item on the menu at Nicky’s which is the pork chop, chicken or tofu over rice or rice vermicelli. Yes, at $8.50 it’s more expensive than most places in Chinatown but as I discovered, if you want Vietnamese food and aren’t in the mood for a sandwich, Nicky’s will still fix you up right.

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It’s not often I go into a pizza place and everything looks so good that I seriously can’t make up my mind which slices to get. This was the problem I had while at Rosella’s Pizza on William St. (btw. Beekman & Ann) last week. It’s off the beaten path, although I’m sure they get a lot of business from the NY Downtown Hospital across the street and from Pace University students – and from office workers in the know. The only reason I knew about it was because of two recent recommendations for both Rosella’s pizza and pasta from Profiled Lunch’ers. No matter what kind of pizza you like, you’ll find some variety of it here.

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We lunch’ers in the Financial District aren’t exactly hurting for Caribbean food options. It used to be there were only a couple of choices – Veronica’s Kitchen or Trinidad & Tobago carts – and the one you frequented depended on where you worked. Then there was something of a surge in options recently with Nio’s Trinidad Roti Truck resurfacing at Water & Pine and R. Retha’s cart parking at William & Beaver until it got shuttered by the Department of Health. Another truck that was somewhat slippery to catch was Sunrise Grill which I’d sometimes seen at Water & Broad, but they weren’t there every day. But yesterday was my lucky day, and Sunrise Grill was there, there wasn’t much of a line, and hunger was setting in. Jerk chicken and a beef patty seemed to be in order. Read more »

Sometimes it’s a Chinese noodle soup kind of day – as yesterday with it’s clouds and rain was – and it gave me an excuse to check out one of the impressive roster of noodle soups at Ho Yip on Liberty St. (at Trinity Pl.). Yip’s seems to get all of the cheap Chinese noodle soup glory in the Financial District with its two locations, but Ho Yip’s selection blows theirs out of the water. I haven’t sampled the noodle soups from every Chinese hole-in-the-wall in the FiDi, but Ho Yip served me a version with some fabulous wontons.

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If you don’t particularly like Chipotle (or its ridiculous lunchtime lines) and can’t make it to the taco trucks, you’ll be happy to know that Sabor de Mexico‘s open on Nassau St. (btw. John & Fulton). We’ve already reviewed some of the items at the location on Trinity Place (at Thames) and while some are found wanting like the Americanized tacos, there’s more selection of items and meats than at the chain places and it’s also slightly cheaper. There will be a review of the new shop at some point this week when a hankering for some Mexican food hits.