Midtown Lunch

Have you ever been devouring a plate of lamb or chicken over rice from your favorite street meat cart and thought to yourself, “Wow, this food is really bad for me?” If the answer is yes, then I’m going to point you in the direction of Mimi’s Cafe on Church St. (at Reade) in Tribeca. It’s eye-catching with a wall of photos of the sandwiches and other vaguely healthy things found inside plastered all over the outside. It’s just a few doors down from another place also serving slightly healthier versions of street meat – Baba Ghanouge, aka, the place that stuffs french fries in its sandwiches. What drew me into this den of healthy food was the promise of an alternative form of gyro.

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If you’ve ever shopped at the Whole Foods in Tribeca you may have noticed the street cart parked out in front serving everything that the grocery store does not. That is: Meat and non-organic vegetables from questionable sources packaged in styrofoam and plastic bags. The Tribeca Halal cart, parked on the corner of Greenwich & Warren, serves the trinity of falafel, lamb and chicken but also some oddities like a fried chicken cutlet hero, Philly cheese steak, french fries and chicken teriyaki. When I spotted that last item on one of the bright yellow circles dotting the front of the cart I knew I must try it. Plus, at the low, low price of $6, if it was too terrible I could just head into Whole Foods.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve had a good street meat lunch and it just so happened that the “Gyro King” Xpress Power Lunch cart on Whitehall St. was serving something a little different. I’d spotted a picture of kofte-type kebabs hanging on the front of the cart so I decided to check them out since it was only a $5 gamble. Well, when I got there another sign was even more exciting.

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All the way back in May I stopped by the 7 Hanover Cart on Hanover Square (at Pearl) to try their chicken curry. I was crushed when told they were out already and was soothed with an improvised chicken curry. They aim to please! I decided to go back  for an earlier to lunch to snag some and see how the real thing compared to what had been thrown together. Click through to find out the verdict. Read more »

It’s been awhile since I’ve randomly eaten at one of the many nondescript street meat carts dotting the sidewalks along Broadway. The Sahara Express cart at Broadway & Warren caught my eye because the signs on the side said they supposedly served fish over rice (and hummus, but I wasn’t fooled by that one). I love street meat fish and had one of the tastiest lunches ever ordering sea creatures from a truck. I put in my order behind a guy who had obviously been sent on a lunch mission for his office, and quickly came to realize that I was going to be eating either chicken or lamb. 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 »

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 »