Midtown Lunch

Some days, lunchtime goes awry and the place I want to go eat at is closed or no longer exists. The latter happened to me earlier this week, so when I walked past Peep on Prince St. (btw. Thompson & Sullivan) and remembered how good and cheap their Thai food was a couple of years ago I went inside to give the place a second go. You may know Peep as the place where you get an entree and appetizer for $8 or $9 at lunch, and this time my choices contained a win and a loss.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve eaten a good deli sandwich so when the opportunity presented itself to check out M&O Market & Deli on Thompson St. (at Prince), I took it. This place is an old school bodega with a deli counter hidden in the back, and that’s where you want to head. You’ll notice a board with the usual Boar’s Head options, but you may want to see what the house roasted special of the day is. Some days they do turkey, others pork loin or meatloaf, but when I was there is was a giant hunk of rare roast beef resting in the deli case. Read more »

Normally we keep this site focused on lunch, but an event featuring $1 slices of pizza happening downtown after work cannot be ignored. Slice Out Hunger is happening on Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Church which is in Soho at Sullivan St. & W. Houston. A bunch of pizzerias donate pies, you buy tokens at the door for $1 slices, and all of the proceeds go to City Harvest. A bunch of Downtown Lunch favorites will be there like Prince St. Pizza, Da Mikele, Farinella, Ben’s of Soho and Rubirosa as well as others from pizza places all over the city. You can find all of the information on it here and maybe want to save some room at lunch tomorrow.

There are no shortage of ice cream options in this city, but Soho’s going to get another one for a day next week. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream will be driving its Street Treats Truck from Ohio to take part in the Meatopia event, and will then make stops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including in front of Dean & DeLuca at Broadway & Prince St. on Tuesday from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. The best part is they’re giving out free samples of delicious-sounding flavors like sweet corn with black raspberries. Freeloaders, you know what to do.

Anyone who’s worked in the central part of Soho long enough probably knows about Cafe Duke on Broadway (btw. Spring & Prince). I’d never been inside before but braved the hordes of shoppers to check it out and found it to be a massive space stretching from the front of the building to the back, with another entrance on Mercer St. Up front you’ll find sandwiches, some hot items, then a by-the-pound buffet that had such delights as fried chicken and some Chinese food, but you may want to head to the back to a counter merely marked “grill.” That’s where you’ll find bibimbap, a by-the-pound noodle saute station, ramen and what I was after – donburi.  Read more »

There were rumors that La Nueva Conquista on Lafayette St. (at Spring) had shuttered, but I needed to lay eyes on this tragedy myself. The Dominican cheap eats institution leaves a hole in the Soho lunch scene that’s sadly void of affordable plates of fatty pork and rice. Yes, Chinatown’s a short stroll away, and I guess Cafe Habana can take up some of the slack in the roast pork department, but it just won’t be the same as standing in line with construction workers and restaurant deliverymen at La Nueva.