Midtown Lunch

I think we can all get behind a truck that not only brings empanadas to us, but continuously bakes them throughout lunch service so they’re not sitting around getting all soggy or stale. Nuchas first came up on the Midtown Lunch radar when they opened a kiosk in Times Square and then they quietly launched a truck which has been stopping at some of the food truck lots downtown in the last couple of weeks. The truck parked in the Financial District last week and since it didn’t involve taking the subway, I was there. Read more »

There was a quick mention from the GO Burger Truck on Twitter last week that a burger kiosk from the same people had opened outside of the BLT Bar & Grill in the W Hotel on Washington St. (at Carlisle) in that weird part of the Financial District that you often forget about until you have to walk over to Battery Park City.

I finally got a chance to go check it out and while the menu’s pretty basic, there are a few things you might be interested in. The burgers range from $5 for a basic to $7 for one with onions, pepper, pickled jalapeno and melted provolone. There’s also a falafel burger for $6. Sides include fries, sweet potato fries and onion rings for $3 to $5. A couple of hot dogs and shakes round out the menu. If you work in that area and don’t have access to Five Guys or are too lazy to walk to Shake Shack, this could serve you well.

GO Burger Kiosk, outside of 123 Washington St. on Carlisle St.

It’s not unusual to have a Japanese restaurant selling Thai food. What is uncommon is having a chef from a decent, but mostly expensive Thai restaurant like Lemongrass Grill that shuttered on William St. last November, move to another restaurant and start serving the same food for a better price. Lemon Leaves is that reincarnation, opening in the Koodo Sushi on Nassau St. (btw. Maiden Lane & Liberty). When I called in my order the other day, the addition of the Thai menu was so new that the woman on the phone had to figure out what I was trying to order. It all worked out though, and I ended up with a great lunch.

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It’s been nearly a year since we checked in with the Nixtamalito kiosk over by 1 Centre St. at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, but I was happy I did the other day. I was there to finally check out the tamales which have eluded me every other time I’ve been there. The menu for the kiosk has stayed the same, but I’m happy to report there’s now a cart next to it selling paletas from La NewYorkina! The details on that and the word on the tamales (spoiler: they’re really good) after the jump.

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The string of Vietnamese restaurants on Baxter St. between Bayard St. and Walker are among my favorite places to eat in Chinatown and although I’ve tried the pho at Nha Trang, I’d never eaten at Thai Son . Since it was a sweltering summer day, I bypassed the pho section of the menu and instead went for some bun with a mix of Vietnamese spring rolls and grilled pork on top. The generic “grilled pork” on the menu sounds pretty basic, and it is, but calling it pork candy may be more accurate.

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Once the temperatures hit 80 degrees or higher, my lunchtime thoughts turn from lamb over rice to what I can eat that won’t make me feel even hotter and disgusting. I guess eating ice cream for lunch everyday isn’t a feasible option, but a sandwich with cold ingredients is. Zucker’s Bagels on Chambers St. (btw. W. Broadway & Greenwich) is one of those places that’s  little off the radar come lunch time, but wouldn’t you know they have a lot of sandwich options involving smoked fish, and some of them are less than $10. When the heat got to me late last week I headed over for some gravlax eaten between bagel halves. Read more »

I thought this city had reached a threshold for the number of grilled cheese trucks it could support, but I was wrong. Morris Grilled Cheese truck’s been on the streets for a while, but only recently became familiar to Downtown Lunch’ers by making weekly stops in the Financial District on Mondays and the World Financial Center food truck lot Fridays. (The truck happens to be at the Lent Space lot today). They have some interesting concoctions involving cheese, meat and fancy things like ramp butter along with housemade sodas and cold brew coffee. This is probably the most hipster of the grilled cheese trucks.

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