Midtown Lunch

I can’t even tell you how many times in the last couple of years I’ve devoured every bite of my Downtown Lunch and immediately regretted that decision as the food coma crept up on me. Last Friday was one of those days. After learning that the awaited Saluggi’s Sandwich Shop – an offshoot of pizza shop Saluggi’s a couple doors away – was finally open in the old Sea World space at Church St. & Lispenard, I headed up to order myself a deli sandwich and some waffle fries.

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Some days you just need some greasy Americanized Chinese food with a heaping side of rice, am I right? This happened to me the other day and while mentally going through my catalogue of nearby places to procure some sauced meat I remembered Dumpling House, which is easy to forget since it’s in that weird one-block alley between Maiden Lane & Liberty St. I’d been there once after it replaced Win Won, and appalled at the crappy and expensive dumplings I got, although I shouldn’t have been surprised. This time I did as everyone else who goes here does and got the $8 lunch special that includes a protein, rice and soup or a drink.

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The Indian restaurant Ruchi on Cedar St. (at Greenwich) would be easy to walk past without knowing it ever existed. The outside has been obscured by scaffolding for as long as I can remember, but if you work nearby you probably know the place for its 50% off lunch special which you wouldn’t even know about unless you’ve walked by and seen one of the many signs they have outside advertising the deal. The other day I was doing some online research that involved MenuPages.com and made the random discovery that Ruchi has south Indian specialties dosa and uttapam on the menu, nd they’re all $9.95!

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Pane Panelle opened last September as a sandwich counter offshoot of the nicer Italian restaurant Stuzzicheria on Church St. (at Walker). Then the whole restaurant became a bit more casual and although the separate entrance for sandwiches remain, the day I went there you had to order yours at the bar so the restaurant and sandwich shop seem to have absorbed each other. The sandwiches were tasty enough, but the size-to-price ratio seemed to be skewed the wrong way and I haven’t been back since then. The other day I was in the area and the place I intended to eat at wasn’t open so instead I headed over to Pane Panelle to give them a second shot and see if the sandwiches had changed since that opening visit.

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A couple of weeks ago we were alerted to the presence of a cart selling Greek food on Broadway in front of Trinity Church (btw. Wall & Thames). It’s run by a nice Greek woman and offers a few lunch items like gyro and chicken sandwiches ($6) and a Greek salad ($7) along with a variety of sweets that she proudly said she makes herself and serves starting at 7 a.m. every morning. I decided to get lunch from the cart the other day and discovered it’s maybe a better destination for a breakfast or snack stop. You could also do as one woman who stopped by did and grab a “second lunch” of sweets.

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The lunchtime juggernaut that is Zigolini’s on Pearl St. (at Coenties Slip) is one of the few places that I will go to knowing that I will have to stand in a line snaking out the door because I know that the food is generally worth it. I’ve reviewed the pasta, but they also make a mean Italian sandwich and I’d heard good things about the burger. Since the basic model is exactly $10 and comes with fries, I was sold, but in the end I broke the ML Downtown budget. Why? I blame the garlic parmesan fries.

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Bad news on the Caribbean cart beat – it looks like R. Retha’s, aka the Jamaican Dutchy, is gone for good. The Jamaican cart was last seen back in April being towed away with a yellow Department of Health sticker affixed to it. When I walked by last week the spot at William & Beaver had been taken over by the New York Halal cart which seems like it might be OK, but doesn’t serve giant plates of jerk chicken. Looks like those of you who work this far down in the Financial District will have to make do with the Trinidad & Tobago cart at Whitehall & Water from now on.