Midtown Lunch

There was a time when I used to confuse Parisi Bakery with Paris Sandwich, but that was before I had eaten at both of them and learned how laughable that was. One is a venerable Italian bakery and sandwich purveyor in Nolita where you’re served by men who are efficient yet polite, while the other is a duo of Vietnamese banh mi shops in Chinatown staffed by women who are rushed yet polite.

I’ve been to most of the banh mi sellers in Chinatown except Paris Sandwich so I decided to remedy that situation and stop in the other day. I went to both the location on Mott St. (btw. Canal & Hester) and one on Grand St. (btw. Elizabeth & Mott), and both sell sandwiches supposedly made with baguettes baked every hour plus a small roster of other Vietnamese dishes and appetizers. While pork chop over rice did sound good, I instead tried a couple of different sandwiches since I wasn’t that impressed with the first one I tried and was sure they could do better.

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One of my predecessors tried to eat at Taste of Tandoor on Church St. (btw. Warren & Chambers) back in 2009 and it did not go well. There were some words exchanged, and to make a short story even shorter, it ended with a review of Pakistan Tea House instead. Well, yesterday I was in need of a hearty lunch and decided to give T of T another shot to see if it was any better or worse than Bangal Curry or any of the other steam table Indian places in the lower part of Tribeca.

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Those of you who work near City Hall may already be familiar with Blue Spoon Coffee Co. which has had a location on Chambers St. (btw. Broadway & Church) for a few years serving good coffee and sandwiches, salad and soup come lunch time. The second location opened on William St. (at Platt) two weeks ago, and just started serving lunch with the same menu as the first shop. You might want to first go there for the fancy Intelligentsia coffee they’re brewing or for the various breakfast items like Balthazar pastries, bagels and oatmeal, but you also may be interested in the sandwiches which, instead of festering in a refrigerated case, are made to order.

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Tip of the hat to ML contributor Brian who sent the above photo alerting us that there’s a cart called Swirl at Front & Pine selling frozen yogurt,  and currently giving out free samples. Based on the cart’s signage it looks like their thing is to not just throw the toppings on the frozen yogurt like they do at Red Mango or all of those pink YoGo trucks you see everywhere, but instead it’s swirled into the actual yogurt from whatever you choose at the mix-in bar. Hopefully the prices are also a little more gentle than at the chain places.

The Snap Truck first hit the NYC lunch scene two weeks ago at the Lent Space lot selling hot dogs, burgers and fries with a couple of interesting items that we haven’t seen on any of the trucks that come downtown. I was most intrigued by what they were doing with their Chicago dog and whether it was close to what you’d actually get in the Windy City, and the avocado fries were also calling my name. They’ve been parking at the food truck lot on 6th Ave. between Grand & Canal every Wednesday so I took it upon myself to go there for a late lunch last week and although they were sold out of a lot of things, they were still flush with hot dogs and fried avocado.

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You know how sometimes you wander out of the office to grab lunch without a game plan? I call these “random lunches” where I just end up getting food at a place that I’ve always wondered about but never had a reason to enter. Da Vinci Pizza is one of those places and based solely on its weathered exterior awning you know it’s either going to be a great NYC slice or a lunch you’ll later regret. After walking in on a hot and humid day, I was faced with a huge selection of slices, no line, and a trio of men waiting for me to make up my damn mind about what I wanted. After spotting a tasty looking square pie in the corner I decided an upside down slice was going to be lunch.

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My lunch plans were all kinds of screwed up last week due to the rain and trying to track down a food truck that wasn’t parked where Twitter said it was. There were a bunch of other food trucks in the area, and I spotted the bright green of Mike N Willie’s poised to save me from my low blood sugar with no line. My first visit in February after the truck launched was disappointing and not exactly cheap, but I’m all about second chances so I ordered a taco and a slider hoping for hunger’s sake that this lunch would work out.

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