Midtown Lunch

There are times when you want a greasy New York-style slice and others when something more refined sounds good. Since we are lacking in fancy, affordable Neopolitan-style spots in the general downtown area, I decided to go check out the newish Piazza Seventeen on Cleveland Place (at Lafayette), purveyor of square Roman slices. When they first opened the gimmick was that you could buy slices of pizza and pay by the pound so I was curious as to how much pizza I could get for my $10 budget. My dreams were dashed when I stepped inside the small shop, heeding the call of the “Eat Pizza Here!” sign out front.  Read more »

The Financial District now has two food trucks (here’s the other one) with patriotic themes, as I’ve seen the USA Halal truck parked in the same spot on Maiden Lane (btw. William & Pearl) two days in a row. The menu seems pretty by-the-book with lamb/chicken in pita or over rice, along with falafel and fish. I had already eaten so I didn’t actually try the food but you can’t miss the insane American flag decals enveloping the entire truck (or the string of lights on one side). Somehow this is still less showy than Gyro House’s gigantic scrolling electronic sign.

We are somewhat lacking in quality ramen soup options in the Financial District, or rather I should say, quality options for $10 or less. Most of our ramen comes from glorified delis or places like Niko Niko. When I saw that Koodo Sushi on Nassau (at Liberty) had a new ramen soup special I decided it was worth a shot since a real restaurant had a better shot at giving us the good stuff than a deli sidelining in Asian food.

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Several months after paper went up on the windows in the former space selling “exquisite jewelry”, OBAO opened last week selling a mix of Vietnamese and Thai dishes that they mercifully didn’t fuse together. There’s a steam table with Thai standards and most of the Vietnamese fare is out of the ML price range. The prices are a bit high for a place that looks like a bit more downscale, but if you’re willing to toe the $10 line you’re probably going to be pretty satisfied with your lunch here.

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On the upper stretch of Church St. there are a bunch of higher-end restaurants and watering holes and among them sits Shorties Deli Cafe which from the outside appears to be another generic deli. If you look at the windows closely enough or step inside you’re bound to realize that most people probably don’t order sandwiches or wraps here but instead are walking out with a torta or some tacos, perhaps paired with a Mexican Coke in a bottle.

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A couple of weeks ago The Pump chain changed its name to Dig Inn and changed its menu after bringing a winner of Iron Chef America on board as its new chef. I had mentioned that I would go check out the new version if you lunchers wanted me to and after a couple of endorsements I decided to head over to the store on Pine (at Pearl) to see if healthy, protein-filled food could also be a Downtown Lunch.

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Sometimes one too many lunches of greasy meat + starch leaves me actually craving vegetables or just anything that won’t leave me feeling gross come 1 p.m. I’d always meant to hit up Grandaisy Bakery, of which there are two locations in the downtown area, and that was what I immediately thought of towards the end of last week after I’d eaten this and this during the previous week. I headed to the shop on W. Broadway (at 6th Ave.) to try a sandwich since I already knew their Roman-style pizza was awesome.

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