Midtown Lunch

I was wandering way down in the FiDi yesterday and spotted a truck called Cook House parked on Hanover at Water. A guy out front was handing out samples of (wait for it) vegan empanadas. Oh yeah, did I mention they serve “Latin Vegan food”?  Check out the menu after the jump. Read more »

Grocery store/lunch favorite for tons of downtown office works Zeytuna has had what they call a Mediterranean snack cart set up outside on John St. (at Nassau) for a little while now, and I have been meaning to try it. I didn’t so much want to eat there because it was new, but because they seemed to have a pretty random assortment of food. We’re talking something called a maffle, some sort of sandwich called a dove, crepes and “corn in the cup.” Oh, and samosas! After asking what corn in the cup was, I was told they don’t have it anymore and will be replacing it with ravioli. Random! Since the cart will probably only be there as long as the weather is nice, and I really wanted to know what the hell a maffle was, this finally became my lunch destination. Read more »

If there is one thing you lunch’ers should know about me, it is that I love me some seafood. I can’t even think of one kind that I don’t like, and I feel like I don’t take advantage of eating it for lunch enough especially since many of the carts downtown serve some sort of fish or shrimp. Awhile back, Chris tried out the beef stew from what he called the $5 Lunch Truck (you may remember it as the one in which the commenters questioned whether it was Eritrean food or not), and a couple of people including Lunch’er Tom had said the fish ($5.50) from this place was really good. That endorsement and the price made it a done deal in my book. Did I find the fish of my dreams? Click through to find out. Read more »

A few weeks ago I thought I had found a pretty good deal in Chinatown with a Sichuan lunch including soup, appetizer, rice and entree for $5.50. I know there are cheaper meals to be had in Chinatown, but it’s pretty daunting finding them. Well, after the post was up the ML Twitter account got this little message from @Gordoneats:

Downtown deal of the century? How about $3.50 for roast pork on rice (with bean sprouts and soup, takeout) at New Kim Tuong?

According to Zach, Gordon used to work for Serious Eats and is an authoritative source on all things tasty in Chinatown. The next time the urge hit me to head up there, it was with this mythical, cheap roast pork meal in mind. After all, it’s time I branched out from my five-for-$1 dumpling meals. Read more »

Walking into the newish Takahachi Bakery on Murray St. (at Church) is a little bit like sensory overload at lunchtime. You could compose whatever kind of lunch you want, basically, even if it’s just buying a bunch of cookies and baked goods. I had already sampled some sweets from there when they opened back in June, but I hadn’t gone for an actual lunch. This time I was after a sandwich and something sweet but as I am not immune to the impulse buy, ended up with something of a three-course lunch which was OK because I still came in under the ML $10 limit. Read more »

I haven’t been back to check out the Biryani House cart after eating both their biryani and kati rolls the first week they opened. They were both good, but I also had my eye on the chicken tikka masala and some of the seafood over rice options. I headed over to see if the chicken tikka was any good and if they’d changed their menu at all. Basically, I was just looking for an excuse to eat street meat. Read more »

I am hardly ever in the area where the Open Air Cafe is, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and next to the gigantic 1 Centre St. building. Two of the four kiosks that make up the cafe had opened a while back, and I ate a delicious sandwich at The Pantry. Choza Taqueria was not yet open when I went over there (and neither was the now-open Sauced that serves pastas and pizza), which totally bummed me out since I really wanted tacos that day. Well, I am happy to report they’re open serving tacos, burritos, salads and a few side items (there’s also another location opening in the Flatiron soon) Let’s take a look at what was nestled in the corn tortillas, shall we? Read more »