Midtown Lunch

In what seems like a new record for the shortest amount of time it takes a new lunch place to go from papered up windows to serving food, the Lenny’s sandwich shop on Water St. (btw. Coenties & Broad) was open for business yesterday when I walked by, and full of people. This joins the location on John St., and according to the Lenny’s Web site, there’s another shop coming to Battery Park City. Unless someone can tip me in the direction of an awesome sandwich to be had at Lenny’s, I’ll probably pass on eating there, but it’s clear they probably won’t be hurting for business.

Yes, we all love the Taim Mobile truck, but now we have a constant source of falafel, sabich and hummus with Taim announcing on Twitter last night that today it’s opening the doors of its second brick and mortar location on Spring St. (at Mulberry). The store has a larger menu than the truck serving three kinds of falafel, platters, a bunch of sides and salads, smoothies and desserts. Whether or not you’re a meat eater, this is good news for the area although nearby Hoomoos Asli isn’t too shabby either. It never hurts to have more than one source of good falafel.

Yet another source of coffee is coming to the upper part of the Financial District as Oren’s Daily Roast announced it will open its 12th location at William St. & Fulton. The shop won’t be caffeinating us until the end of the year, but a look at their Web site shows that they focus on the coffee and tea and it’s not really a lunch destination (unless you consider coffee lunch).

You may have eaten from the Shorty’s on Wheels truck at some point since it launched a while back (and which I realize I haven’t reviewed), as it was a regular in the Financial District for a while and now parks in the WFC food truck lot on occasion. But did you know that truck is an offshoot of two Shorty’s cheese steak shops in the Flatiron and Midtown? Well, Shorty’s announced on Twitter Friday that they’re opening a shop at 62 Pearl St. between Coenties Slip & Broad sometime around Christmas. Their cheese steaks are said to be good, although the roast pork is supposedly better. Either way, they will also have a bunch of beer on tap and whatever a whiskey wall is for your liquid lunch and happy hour needs. Photo courtesy of ultraclay.

While walking up Fulton St. yesterday I spotted signage up in the window of what was the Europan Cafe (which was open for what seemed like one month) and it dispelled the rumors that it would be the new location of H&H Bagels. Yes, there will be bagels, but from a chainlet called Long Island Bagel Cafe which apparently has nine locations scattered across Long Island. The menu posted on their Web site tells of the predictable sandwiches, wraps, salads and breakfast items, so basically it’s another generic deli with good bagels.

There are a lot of people waiting patiently for the second brick and mortar location of Taim to open in Nolita at Mulberry & Spring. The opening was planned for early summer, but it’s now late September and that’s a lot of time to wait for some of the best falafel, hummus, and sabish sandwiches in the city. Word came on Taim Mobile‘s Twitter feed yesterday that the shop is opening sometime in the second week of October so fingers crossed that it actually happens. Luckily the Taim Mobile truck has been parking downtown a couple of times a week to tide us over. We’ll let you know when more specifics are announced!

If you don’t particularly like Chipotle (or its ridiculous lunchtime lines) and can’t make it to the taco trucks, you’ll be happy to know that Sabor de Mexico‘s open on Nassau St. (btw. John & Fulton). We’ve already reviewed some of the items at the location on Trinity Place (at Thames) and while some are found wanting like the Americanized tacos, there’s more selection of items and meats than at the chain places and it’s also slightly cheaper. There will be a review of the new shop at some point this week when a hankering for some Mexican food hits.