Midtown Lunch

There are now two cheap eats spots on a grimy stretch of Canal St., with a branch of $1 pizza spot Roll And Go and the recent addition of Black Burger right next to each other at the corner of West Broadway. Both places were clogged with high school students and because Black Burger is little more than a counter with a couple of stools for eating, it doesn’t take much for the line to stretch out the door. Inside, you’ll find a simple menu of either single or double hamburgers or cheeseburgers (fresh, never frozen!), fries and shakes with a grilled cheese and calamari fries thrown in for good measure. And beware the warning on the wall: “Once you go Black, you never go back.”

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Tribeca isn’t exactly teeming with crappy Chinese takeout restaurants, although if you want a slightly alarming by-the-pound buffet experience, that can be had. A generic deli on Chambers St. (btw. Broadway & Church) with a buffet morphed into Sunny One restaurant recently and a look at their menu showed that they have a pretty sweet lunch special for $6. You not only get to choose from a wide array of Americanized Chinese dishes, but you get rice (fried or plain), and your choice of soup or a soda. Another bonus is it’s not scooped off a steam table, but made to order. I was sold. Read more »

There are always fancy/trendy restaurants opening in Tribeca and they don’t get a lot of coverage on this site because the lunch menus are usually well over the $10 Midtown Lunch price cap. It was a nice surprise to see newish restaurant Super Linda on W. Broadway (at Reade) roll out a lunch menu with not one, but three things that you could actually consider a meal for $10 or less. According to a menu released last week, you can get a trio of tacos, a chorizo sandwich or a breakfast burrito within the price range, or there are some other delicious sounding items for more than that. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that some other fancyish restaurants should get on board with the $10 or less lunch. Click through for a look at the lunch menu.

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There’s isn’t much on offer for lunch in the seedy stretch of Canal St. near the Holland Tunnel other than a Roll & Go selling pizza and hot dogs, and West Side Coffee Shop with its Latin fare in heaping portions. As I was walking by Tribeca Bagels between Broadway & Wooster the other day I noticed a sign offering beans and rice with an array of proteins, next to one advertising $1.99 cheese pizza slices. A step inside this bodega/bagel shop/deli mashup showed that that do indeed offer beans and rice, and a by-the-pound buffet with some weird variety.

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A while back, while investigating the mysterious My Belly’s Playlist delivery service, I discovered that not only did Yorganic exist, but it sells something called Bliss Bowls which are essentially rice bowls with Korean ingredients. The kicker is that everything in this place is organic, hormone-free, natural etc. With Cafe Hanover just around the corner also selling Korean food, I was curious how these yuppie rice bowls stacked up.

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If you’ve ever been jealous of those who work near Grand Central Terminal, the Plaza Food Hall or Chelsea Market, there’s news out of Tribeca Citizen that the neighborhood is getting something similar. Although it’s all written in hypotheticals, the food hall at 102 Franklin St. (btw. W. Broadway & Church) sounds like it’s a done deal and will be called All Good Things. The whole thing sounds pretty amazing and includes such foodie favorites as Blue Bottle Coffee, Dickson’s Farmstand Meats and Blue Marble Ice Cream as well as a large restaurant on the lower level. The best part is it’s only a few months out from opening, and from the list of vendors, there will likely be some affordable lunch options on tap.

Up until a couple of months ago, there was a place called Shorties Deli Cafe on Church St. (btw. Leonard & Franklin) that was a taqueria masquerading as a generic deli selling the usual bagels and sandwiches. Those in the know went there for the burritos or tacos, but if you were simply walking by it wasn’t blatantly obvious that Mexican food was available within. Thankfully, whoever owns the place figured out they were doing a disservice to the delicious food served inside and changed the name to Burro Borracho Taqueria. Now when you walk in, there is no pretense that this is anything but a place selling Mexican food.

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