Midtown Lunch

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)  But now he’s starting to make me mad.  Super cheap Chinatown food?  Fine.  Vietnamese?  Ok… a little angry, but I can take it.  Mexican corn?  Urgh… but Korean fried chicken??!?!?!  Now I’m super pissed.  You’d think with Koreatown being part of Midtown Lunch, we wouldn’t have any trouble finding the stuff.  There are a few options in and around 32nd street but none of them are open for lunch (bastards!)  Oh… but Downtown?  They’ve got one.  (Cue the steam exiting ears.)

Bon Bon Chicken doesn’t look super inviting on the inside. I felt more like I was in a train station or a waiting area. I never thought about eating there until Zach screamed at me one day, “dude do you realize there’s a place downtown where you can get Korean fried chicken for lunch?!” Relax guy… “it’s just chicken,” I said.

Read more »

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.) 

It looks like Mosco street is undergoing an renaissance. On my way back to having another satisfying cheap lunch at Yee Eng Home Cooking, I found another interesting development just before the steps of my newfound cheap Thai paradise. At the top of Mosco street two guys took over a bubble gum stand and are now selling skewered meat; but not just any skewers, they have Mongolian lamb! The meat is tender, plentiful, and a bit spicy (if you ask for it.) All in all, a pretty amazing deal for $1.25. You can also get chicken teriyaki which has a nice sweetness to the nuggets of meat.

Read more »

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.) 

Mosco street is one of the coolest blocks in NYC. It’s basically one big ramp, starting at Mott and sliding down to Mulberry. On it you can find one of the best Thai grocery stores in the city, a funeral parlor for all your otherworldly needs, and a dumpling shack (it’s inferior to Tasty D around the corner though). And now it’s home to Yee Eng Home Cooking, the newest Mosco street addition…   Read more »

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.) 

Capri Caffe is a real “Midtown Lunch” Downtown gem of a spot (does that even make sense?) located on 165 Church street between Chambers and Reade. It was recommended by a random guy I met early this week who lives in the area and swears by it. He eats there “once, sometimes twice a day.”  Not sure if he was exaggerating a bit but I had to check this place out.

When I first walked in I got the immediate feeling the dishes were going to be a bit too pricey to fall within the rigorous Midtown Lunch guidelines. Luckily everything seemed to fall under the $10 price cap, like the oh so attractive to me manicotti, which was $8.50.  Toss in the fact that the pasta for that particular dish was made fresh in-house and I was pretty stoked.  I may have even exclaimed “Mama Mia!” but if questioned I’ll deny it.  (It just doesn’t sound that authentic coming out of my New York Jew mouth.) The owners who seem just as authentic as the food will greet you with smiles, wearing their Italian bicycle hats with the fronts turned up. If you ask what’s the best thing to order, you’ll get a confident albeit not surprising “everything is good!”   Read more »

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food). This week we continue to chip away at Daniel’s fear of eating at dirty places as he hits up Darlene Restaurant- a spanich food place in Tribeca… 

Let’s get one thing straight off the bat, the food at Darlene Restaurant along Church street in Tribeca is not phenomenal but they do have a few hits here and there. I was riding my bicycle by the other day, planning to just pass by it when I was struck by a sloppily written sign that indicated free iced coffee with your lunch. “Iced coffee for free?” I said out loud, which elicited a passerby to say, “Nuttins free in this city anymore kid” “He’s wrong” I thought! If only I had a Midtown Lunch business card with me so I could have directed to him to Zach, the king of free food. I suppose he was right in this instance though, because you have to buy lunch to get that “free” coffee.   Read more »

Making Downtown office workers jealous is something this blog has been doing for awhile now. To even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food). This week he covers something I still have not found a good version of in Midtown: Vietnamese

When I did my time in Nam I ate some amazing food, and naturally when I returned from the trenches I had the taste for it, so I wanted to find the best place in the city where I could relive my culinary experiences (always a tough thing to do). Granted I was vacationing in Vietnam (not fighting in Nam), but finding good Vietnamese food in this city is almost as futile as fighting in some awful war that never should have been fought. (See how I did that? Apologies to everyone for interjecting a terrible political analogy into a food blog.)

While there, one of my favorite dishes was the fried spring roll, which bases itself on the premise that pretty much anything fried is really good. I’ve had them in a few places here in New York but my favorite so far has to be New Pasteur Restaurant on Baxter street. The delicate thumb size rolls are fried to perfection and should be wrapped in accompanying lettuce leaf and dipped in the mild vinegar based broth they give you in a small dish. Other standouts include the Bun Ga Cary – curry chicken with rice vermicelli in a spicy curry broth.   Read more »

Making Downtown office workers jealous is something this blog has been doing for awhile now. To even the score, we’ll post a Downtown Lunch every Friday for those folks working in the lower half of New York City.  Admittedly, this column has been a little Chinatown heavy, but what can you do. If I worked Downtown, I’d eat in Chinatown every single day…

Our Downtown Lunch correspondent Daniel Krieger has taken the week off, so you’ll have to make due with this “Guide to Soup Noodles in Manhattan’s Chinatown” posted on the newly launched Serious Eats: New York (which I am now editing and writing for part time.  Fat man cannot survive on lunch in Midtown alone…)  

It’s a pretty comprehensive guide, and should be used as a checklist by every one of you.  Hell, you should already have a head start, since I know you all ran out and ate at Hong Kong Station after Daniel’s post a few weeks ago.

Guide to Soup Noodles in Manhattan’s Chinatown [Serious Eats: New York]

Related Posts
Daniel Krieger’s Previous Downtown Lunch Posts
Luncher Grace Reports: The Ultimate Midtown Soup List