Midtown Lunch

I don’t know if there’s a vent outside my window from McDonald’s or from the generic deli on the ground floor of the office building I work in, but the smell of cooking hamburgers is constantly wafting in to my desk. I guess it’s better than rotting garbage, but it’s annoying getting hungry at about 11 a.m. every day.

Most of the time I can ignore the meaty smell, but one day I just really wanted a greasy burger and fries for lunch. I thought about checking out the newish Go Burger Truck at the South St. Seaport (anybody checked this thing out?) but reviews have not been promising. So instead I went to the forums and saw that lunch’er boomshanka had listed a cheeseburger from the Blarney Stone on Trinity Place (btw. Exchange Pl. & Morris ) as one of his go-to lunches. I was doubly intrigued because while another Blarney Stone on Fulton St. recently closed, this one was featured a couple of months ago as the recipient of a make-over by some new reality show called “Construction Intervention” on the Discovery Channel.

And that was how I ended up at a newly classy bar at noon on a Monday with a burger on my mind. Read more »

Looks like the new Eddie’s Pizza Truck is coming downtown today after making its debut last week up north (aka midtown). They serve thin-crust bar pies and initial reviews seem promising, although they’ve been plagued by long lines from people ordering for their offices. You can get a pie with one topping, a side and a drink for $10, or they have a chicken cutlet with hot cherry peppers as a special this week. Check them out on Twitter to see the exact location. Update: Looks like they are at Broad & Water streets.

When I woke up on Friday it looked like it would be a beautiful day for the first ever vendor-organized pushcart market downtown. People from the Street Vendor Project told me the day before that they had no idea what carts would show up or even how many.It was a pilot project, and if successful enough they hope to do it once again, Marisa Jahn from the SVP said before the event. A subcommittee made up of vendors chose the food carts that would be at the market.

By the time I headed over to Park Place (btw. Broadway & Church) shortly after noon in my stretch pants (really) and with an empty stomach the weather was cool and looked rainy. The Biriyani Cart from midtown and a Jamaican cart from the Bronx were supposed to be there, but I saw no sign of them. There were about 10 other food vendors there, including a transplant from the Red Hook Ballfield vendors in Brooklyn, a new Taiwanese cart,  and a lady selling pastelillos or what you could call Puerto Rican empanadas. Also on hand was a truck called the Cinnamon Snail selling vegan and organic food, some people selling fruit, two or three halal vendors and a guy selling a fried rice with ribs and a chicken wing for $7. That one seemed popular with construction workers.

So, what did my $10 buy me at this vendor mash up? Plenty of food porn after the jump.

Read more »

Anyone working the Soho area is probably aware of Despana, the Spanish food shop on the edge of Chinatown/Little Italy. Those of us downtown are sadly out of luck unless you have time for a subway lunch, which I found is totally doable from the Financial District if you have a full hour on your hands. It’s not exactly a cheap lunch option, but you can get out of there for less than $10 if you are a light eater, or you can go a little overboard. Lunch options include mostly sandwiches and tapas with some desserts to choose from to. If you really wanted to you could get one of the tapas and a dessert and come out at around $10 for a light lunch. I went the sandwich route and was not disappointed. Find out what I chose to put in between two pieces of bread after the jump. Read more »

When I walked by 22 Thai Cuisine on Maiden Lane (btw. Nassau & Broadway) last night it was empty, and by today was open and packed for lunch. They move quickly! It replaces another Asian place Sushi a la Kawa that closed and merged with Oka Sushi a couple of doors down. My Spidey sense tells me the Thai spot is owned by the same people, but hey, maybe I’m wrong. A look at the lunch menu shows it’s pretty standard Thai fried rice/curry/noodle dishes for $8 or $9, but there were a couple of other interesting things on the other portion of the menu, like Thai pork chops.I’m already bracing myself for disappoint, but I hope that 22 Thai proves me wrong. Plus, a new truck serving Cuban food was spotted downtown, after the jump. Read more »

There are some days where you may want to eat a $15 lobster roll or $1 pork and chive dumplings for lunch. But other times it’s good to just graze your way through lunch, and what better way to do that than at an outdoor market?

Every Wednesday from noon to 6 p.m. the Fulton Stall Market holds court on South Street (btw. Beekman & Fulton St. at the old Fulton Fish Market). There were only a handful of vendors on hand when I got there for a late lunch, but more are expected to be added in coming weeks. I wandered over to see if I could construct a reasonable lunch for $10 or under from the vendors. Buttery, flakylunch goodness after the jump. Read more »