Midtown Lunch

A while ago one of my friends persuaded me to eat at Dim Sum Go Go on E. Broadway (at Chatham Sq.), and it wasn’t bad. No, you don’t get the charm of the carts going by, but if you’re looking for a somewhat quick dim sum lunch near City Hall and the government buildings and courthouses it’s a good option. While there I noticed they had a 10-piece dim sum platter on the lunch menu for precisely $10 and decided to go back and see if it was worth bypassing the cheaper options in Chinatown.

Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, one of our Profiled Lunch’ers mentioned her love of a falafel plate (with extra white sauce) from Adel’s Halal cart at Maiden Lane & Front St. Lo and behold, we’ve never written about the cart’s falafel, only gave it a shout out in a review of their lamb/chicken over rice. There’s always a line in front of the cart which isn’t too common at halal carts in the Financial District unless you’re Sam’s Falafel or Alan’s Falafel – both of which put out great food, so it would make sense that if there’s also a line at Adel’s there must be a reason. Read more »

I have a bunch of places on a literal “to eat” list and Greek restaurant Snack on Thompson (btw. Spring & Prince) is near the top of that list, as it’s been on there almost since the beginning of my taking over as editor of ML Downtown. More than one Profiled Lunch’er has mentioned how delicious their lamb sandwich is, but its $10 price tag and the fact that there was always some new food truck spawning kept making me forget about it. Well, you’ll be happy to know that I finally made it up to Soho to review this sandwich, and due to my procrastination it’s now out of the ML price range.

Read more »

With warm weather making guest appearances off and on lately, I’ve had lobster rolls on the brain and we are lucky to have more than one option for those in the Financial District. A few weeks ago I attended the Village Voice’s Choice Eats event and eating shrimp rolls from Luke’s Lobster and Red Hook Lobster Pound reminded me that these things are delicious and also, why have I not written about the one from Luke’s on this on the site yet? Also a fact: Luke’s Lobster’s shrimp roll is the only non-soup item on the menu for less than $10. Read more »

Last week the Cinnamon Snail truck started selling its vegan food in New York City five days a week after essentially being forced out of parking across the river in Hoboken and Jersey City. They were supposed to be in the Financial District on Thursday but were unable to find parking and instead made a surprise appearance on Monday on Wall St. I headed over for a late lunch and was impressed with how quickly the short line moved and the time it took for me to get my food despite only one guy handling the food. There are only approximations of meat served at this truck (along with a whole lot of delicious-looking vegan baked goods), and I ordered one to see what they were doing with seitan.

Read more »

One of my favorite trucks or mobile vending options in the Financial District is the $5 $5.50 Lunch Truck which dispenses street meat, curries, stews and a damn fine plate of fish on the corner of Ann & Nassau. Trouble is, since it’s out of the way, I often forget about it but the other day I remembered I’d been meaning to try their goat curry and headed over. Not that that curry wasn’t tasty, but if you click through I’ll tell you why I probably wouldn’t order this again.

Read more »

I’m sure you all think I eat things like cheese steaks on a regular basis, but up until Phil’s Steaks launched its truck and started parking down here, our only options in the Financial District for this marriage of meat, cheese and bread was Carl’s Steaks (which isn’t even in the FiDi) or one of the varieties from street meat carts and delis that I’d just rather not chance. The only other time I’ve had one of these was in Philadelphia and it was so unmemorable that I can’t even remember where I got it from.

When the truck first launched, I had no time to stand in the long lines, and instead we got a take from some dedicated lunch’ers who did. One day last week I walked by and saw that the line seemed to be moving quickly, so I jumped in to see what all of the fuss on Twitter about these sandwiches is about.

Read more »