Midtown Lunch

We here at Midtown Lunch like to harsh on generic delis a lot, especially if they are of the chain variety. Usually when I see that a place serves the holy trinity of paninis, create your own salads and steam table pasta I run the other way (or at least turn and walk out the door). A while back, though, I got an e-mail from lunch’er Lou asking if I’d tried Lane Cafe & Deli on Maiden Lane (btw. William & Gold). I’d walked by a thousand times and dismissed it as the weird deli that had fake hot dogs and boxes of crackers in its window, and served an interesting lunch special. Here’s his argument for the place:

Have you tried Lane Deli and Catering? Actual homemade food, usually have 3-4 meats, a few pastas, and some veggies/rices. That’s in the back. They also have a typical deli/panini counter, but the back section has the best selection in the place. I usually get flank steak over vegetables with a sweet potato. 10 bucks might be a little steep for an every day meal, but I’d rather have food made in the back of the house than the paninis shipped in from a production shop. Let me know if you get a chance to review it, interested to see what you think.

Lou also talked up the roast chicken and plantains. Wait, plantains? You can’t find that at Europa!  Read more »

I had occasion to go up by City Hall the other day and on a desolate stretch of Reade St. between Broadway & Church streets saw two Japanese restaurants essentially right next to each other. The lunch menu at Sun Cafe looked better so I went inside to eat. The place was packed and they put me at the table always reserved for the solo diner, right next to the bathroom. After looking over the lunch menu I was trying to decide between gyoza and roast pork when I spotted the house special udon soup ($8) which contained both of these items. How could anything with roast pork and gyoza be bad? Read more »

Sometimes it seems all we get down in the FiDi is crappy overpriced sandwiches or really good, but still overpriced, sandwiches. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule but the typical generic deli is not going to wow anyone with its offerings. A walk down the cobblestone streets off of South Street Seaport has led me to two good lunches at Barbarini Alimentari and Table Tales. The other day I found a third place to check out called Made Fresh Daily, on Front St. (btw. Peck Slip & Beekman). My interest was piqued when I saw a picture of a ham and cheese sandwich on a biscuit from there that made me want to lick my computer screen. That didn’t happen, but I did make it there recently for lunch and discovered they have something far more exciting than a sandwich. Read more »

We have so many great food options downtown (yes, really!) that it’s rare I have envy for whatever new options pop up in midtown or other parts of the city. Last week Kati Roll Co. in midtown debuted a new roll and it looked delicious. I wanted one, but since that wasn’t going to happen at lunch time I decided to use what I had at my disposal and head over to Liberty Plaza and get my kati roll fix from the Bombay Biryany cart. Would this fulfill my craving for an Indian burrito?  Read more »

At least two people have recommended I head up to Soho’s Rheon Cafe on Spring St. (nr. Thompson) for the roast duck sandwich. One fellow lunch’er offered no explanation what was so amazing about this sandwich that I would take a train to get it, other than saying it was “really good.”  It was featured on Serious Eats last year, and last week, profiled lunch’er Rachel recommended the sandwich. I thought it might be time to head north to see what this roast duck concoction was all about. Read more »

Nothing makes me happier than seeing an independent eatery that I was afraid wouldn’t make it thrive. That’s the case with It’s a Pizza – the sort of weird Italian place also serving Uzbek food that I first wrote about last summer. I hadn’t made it back to try anything other than pizza on the menu so I decided to rectify that situation and took a co-lunch’er along to see how they were doing. When I was there last they hadn’t been open long and were mostly focused on pizza and pasta with some other random things thrown in, including crepes. What I tried was good, but I was worried that with all of the Fulton St. Transit Center construction nearby they might not be seeing enough customers to survive. When I walked in the other day I could see that was definitely not the case.  Read more »

In the course of doing my “fieldwork” (aka, eating) for reviews I often have to dine in some pretty small and poorly-ventilated dining areas. Terrace Fish & Chip on Pearl (at Coenties Alley) takes the cake though for leaving me smelling like I ate in a place that only serves fried foods. I went there to check out the fish burrito that lunch’er Mel recommended. I don’t think the location that was shut down on Fulton St. served this, but there it was, advertised prominently on the front counter. I was a little concerned about eating a burrito from a place that specializes in frying everything, but I figured if I could take a chance on an all you can eat buffet at a similar establishment and survive, I’d be OK. Read more »