Midtown Lunch

There are a lot of good cart options for falafel in the Financial District, but there’s always room for one more, right? After noticing a new cart called Don Halal right next to the No. 1 Bahn Mi cart at the corner of Hanover Sq. & Pearl, I chatted with the woman manning the window and after I didn’t order anything, she called me “sweetie” and invited me to come back. There are some interesting things on the menu like a falafel platter with Indian marinated vegetables, and chicken curry so I decided to go see if they could compete with the superb falafel across Water St. at Alan’s Halal.

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The novelty of grilled cheese from a mobile unit isn’t relegated to one truck, but now there are three of these things roaming the streets. Gorilla Cheese hit downtown back in May, drawing both lines and outrage at how much their small sandwiches cost. A while ago, Milk Truck started parking at Wall and William streets on Tuesdays and Fridays and in Soho one day a week. There’s also the Morris Grilled Cheese truck which parks in Brooklyn and other parts of Manhattan. If you’re not tired of reading about the multiple kinds of fancy grilled cheese yet, click through for a look at the sandwich I tried that involves the words “champagne pickled” and “Wisconsin gruyere.”

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Having eaten everything else on the short menu of Taiwanese dumplings and Chinese spaghetti at A-Pou’s Taste cart on Liberty (at Broadway), I decided on a rainy day that it was time to try their soups. There’s hot and sour and corn chowder on offer for the low, low price of $2 for a small and $3 for a large. Even if the soup ended up not being amazing, I figured at least I wouldn’t be spending a lot of money to find that out. Read more »

As far as I know, fancy falafel chain Crisp hasn’t debuted a new sandwich in a while after throwing Asian and Mexican-hybrid sandwiches along with falafel burgers our way. The Crisp on Wheels truck has been talking about a new creation called the Casablanca on Twitter recently and since the truck only comes downtown one day a week it wasn’t likely I’d get to try it. Lo and behold, a look at the menu for the Fulton St. location shows it’s offered there too. If you like eggplant, this thing gives it to you in two forms.

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There are a handful of places downtown that offer Thanksgiving sandwiches year-round but some of them are more than $10 (yes, really) or others I shun because they throw it all in a wrap instead of between slices of bread. Last year I found a good specimen and this year I decided to branch out and try the Thanksgiving Leftovers sandwich at ’sNice on Sullivan St. (btw. Prince & W. Houston). The difference between this and most other turkey/cranberry/stuffing sandwiches out there is that this one’s not just vegetarian, but vegan. Read more »

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 »

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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