Midtown Lunch

As far as I know, fancy falafel chain Crisp hasn’t debuted a new sandwich in a while after throwing Asian and Mexican-hybrid sandwiches along with falafel burgers our way. The Crisp on Wheels truck has been talking about a new creation called the Casablanca on Twitter recently and since the truck only comes downtown one day a week it wasn’t likely I’d get to try it. Lo and behold, a look at the menu for the Fulton St. location shows it’s offered there too. If you like eggplant, this thing gives it to you in two forms.

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We now have three carts serving food from the Caribbean in the Financial District and until last week I’d eaten at two of them. The Trinidad & Tobago cart down on Whitehall St. served me a delicious roti and I really liked the food from R. Retha’s cart (aka the Jamaican Dutchy) on S. William. The cart I’d never tried was Veronica’s Kitchen on Front St. (at Pine) and I’m not quite sure why. There’s normally a long, imposing line for what Veronica’s cooking, but because it was a rainy and windy day and the area was deserted prior to Thanksgiving, there was one person in front of me when I stopped by last week. While there was jerk chicken on offer, it’s already been Downtown Lunch approved, so I went with another standby – brown stew chicken.

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There are a handful of places downtown that offer Thanksgiving sandwiches year-round but some of them are more than $10 (yes, really) or others I shun because they throw it all in a wrap instead of between slices of bread. Last year I found a good specimen and this year I decided to branch out and try the Thanksgiving Leftovers sandwich at ‘sNice on Sullivan St. (btw. Prince & W. Houston). The difference between this and most other turkey/cranberry/stuffing sandwiches out there is that this one’s not just vegetarian, but vegan. Read more »

Earlier this year I was doing a scouting lunch for a freelance story and ended up eating lunch at The Bailey Pub & Brasserie on William (at Pine). It’s a very Wall St. restaurant right down to the red leather banquettes, giant bull sculpture and flat-screen TVs silently tuned to financial news channels. In other words, this is not a very Downtown Lunch kind of place. The prices also aren’t very DL because unless you sit at the bar and order sliders you’re not going to get out of here for less than $12 and that’s not including tip. So why am I writing about this place? They happen to have one of the best burgers I’ve eaten in the Financial District.

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The newest location of Francois Payard Bakery opened in the Goldman Sachs building at Murray St. & N. End Ave.  (or across from Shake Shack, if that’s how you navigate) and early reports said they had two sandwiches that were only offered there and not at the mother ship on W. Houston St. Word was that they had barbeque chicken and French dip sandwiches on the menu, plus it was a  rare excuse to wander over to Battery Park City.

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I’ve eaten a lot of things that are hard to take tasty-looking pictures of – i.e. every Indian steam table lunch ever – but when I took the lid off my latest Korean meal from Cafe Hanover on Hanover Sq. (at Pearl) my heart sank a little because it looked pretty unappealing. By that I mean it looked like there was an oil spill all over some udon noodles, and that became my introduction to the dish called jja jang myun on their menu, also known as jajangmyeon.

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Most people who know of Saluggi’s in the uppermost part of Tribeca on Church St. (btw. Canal & Lispenard) know it for pizza. A look at the menu online told me this maybe wasn’t the best place for a solo diner to go. When I got there I discovered they have a special of two slices and a soda for $6.50, but I already had my heart set on one of their sandwiches – particularly the sausage and broccoli rabe variety. Read more »