Midtown Lunch

It’s been face-numbingly cold this week and as a result, foods that will help unfreeze said face sound really good all. I hadn’t checked back in with OBAO down on Water (at Hanover Sq.) since the Thai and Vietnamese food purveyor opened back in October. The menu has two noodle soups on it for $9 and I decided it was a good time to try the pho (the other option is a tom yum with shrimp). I’ll go into more detail after the jump, but it’s probably worth your time to walk up to Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches at Nassau & Ann for your pho fix, or order online from Chinatown. Read more »

Several months after paper went up on the windows in the former space selling “exquisite jewelry”, OBAO opened last week selling a mix of Vietnamese and Thai dishes that they mercifully didn’t fuse together. There’s a steam table with Thai standards and most of the Vietnamese fare is out of the ML price range. The prices are a bit high for a place that looks like a bit more downscale, but if you’re willing to toe the $10 line you’re probably going to be pretty satisfied with your lunch here.

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This just in…it looks like the OBAO Noodles & BBQ (or was that Rhong Tiam?) at Water & Coenties Slip opened for lunch today after signage went up a little more than a month ago. Lunch’er Deep sent in the above photo and reported that it was busy, and also that they’re cash only until Friday. It looks like the pho is less than $10 but everything else like the BBQ and “traditional dishes” hovers at that mark or above. You can expect a report in the near future, but if any of you ate there today let us know your impressions in the comments.

I’m not sure what happened between May and now but that empty jewelry shop on the corner of Water & Coenties Slip that was reportedly going to be a third location of Rhong Tiam now has a different restaurant opening in it. A walk by on Friday revealed signs saying that OBAO noodles and BBQ was “coming soon.” But wait, that’s not Rhong Tiam! Anyway…there’s a location of OBAO in midtown and they serve a mix of noodles, Vietnamese and Thai food so it’s not all bad news. Zach seemed a little confused by a certain soup they were serving back in 2009 but he did concede that it was good.