Midtown Lunch

Tip of the hat to Lunch’er Mike who sent in the above photo of the second downtown location of Roll & Go. The chain is bringing its $1 pizza to Canal & W. Broadway after opening a location in the lunch-barren area of Broadway & Franklin back in May, much to the glee of cheap lunch seekers and office workers. Their slices aren’t terrible and the price is right ($1, no tax!) so its a welcome addition to the area.

There are a lot of bars and pubs that serve food in the Financial District but most are out of ML price range. That’s mostly the case with the Irish American which just opened in John St. between Broadway & Nassau, but one item on the menu caught my eye. They’re serving a Juicy Lucy, aka, the burger that originated in Minnesota and involves the cheese being cooked inside the patty rather than put on top. It’s $13, but most of the other burgers on the menu are also more than $10 so if you like molten cheese wrapped in meat this might be worth a shot.

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.

Those of you who were fans of Win Won , the DOH-shuttered Chinese greasy-spoon on Liberty Place (btw. Liberty St. & Maiden Lane) take note – it’s reopened as the fancy-fonted Dumpling House. The menu isn’t all that different or exciting although the good news is they have four different kinds of dumplings. The bad news is that they’re six for $6 – kind of lame for a place with dumpling in its name. Otherwise there is roast pork and duck listed under the appetizer section, and the usual standbys lumped into a lunch special with white or brown rice and a drink or soup for $8. I guess it’s too much to ask for a 5 for $1 dumpling place in the Financial District?

It’s always a little sketchy when a place tries to cook three different cuisines in one place, but that’s what Empire Asian on Murray St. (btw. Broadway & Church) is doing. It’s a little hidden behind scaffolding, sandwiched between the Copper Barrel bar and a Muscle Maker Grill. A signboard out front alerts you that they have Chinese, Japanese AND Thai food, and lunch specials starting at $6.95, although it looked like some of the sushi was more in the $10 area. Otherwise they have your standard katsu, pad thai, maki roll trifecta. They should really think about cross-pollination, like general tso’s sushi.

As pointed out in the forums and on various blogs yesterday, Caravelli’s Pizzeria has finally opened at 3 World Financial Center. It sounds like the pizza is OK but nothing you can’t find at other pizza places downtown, while only some of the sandwiches are worth spending money on. Full report coming soon, but if you’ve eaten there feel free to give your impressions in the comments.