Midtown Lunch

I’m going to preface this post with the fact that no, I didn’t grow up in Austin, Texas, or anywhere in California, and therefore am not an expert by any means when it comes to “authentic” Mexican food or even Tex-Mex. I’ve eaten some delicious tacos in New York from both street vendors and brick and mortar places and mostly liked what I got. Also, I grew up eating bastardized Mexican food in the Midwest, where your plate automatically came with rice, shredded lettuce and refried beans, and flour tortillas are the default. When I stepped into The Bigger Place on Warren St. (at W. Broadway), the interior reminded me of those restaurants I grew up eating in. The place was packed at lunch, though, which is always a good sign. Read more »

If you remember, at the beginning of June the C&H Halal on the corner of W. Broadway and Chambers St. was in a public beef with Plein Sud, the fancy French restaurant on that same corner. To recap: Plein Sud wanted the cart to move because it was there 24 hours a day and creating garbage on the sidewalk. In response, those working at the cart covered one side of it with neon poster board calling the restaurant “gangsters” and saying they weren’t moving. Well, it’s more than a month later and both the restaurant and cart are still there. I decided to stop by not only to get an update on the situation but also to do a little multi-tasking and check out a chicken and lamb over rice combo. Is the food worth the fight? Find out after the jump. Read more »

Just when I thought I was at least aware of most of the delicious food finds in the FiDi and Tribeca, I found another one thanks to a couple of downtown lunch’ers. That place is Downtown Deli on Church St. (at Park Pl.), which from the outside basically looks like any other so-called “deli”, selling cigarettes and crappy Boar’s Head sandwiches. But when you step inside, you notice the difference because there’s a sea of people, and two counters: one for cold sandwiches and one for hot, and really nothing else but a rack with bags of chips. Oh yeah, now we’re talking! Thankfully, both of the sandwich suggestions I got were on the hot side because the cold sandwich line was insane. Lunch’er Paul suggested I should check out the pastrami Reuben there, and lunch’er dkriese likes the beef brisket on a roll with gravy. Clearly, with two endorsements for this deli, it was worth checking out. 

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There are just some restaurants that scream “Midtown Lunch” at me when I see them, and New China Red on Chambers St. (btw. Church & W. Broadway) is definitely one of those establishments. Sure, it has a red awning jutting out onto the sidewalk like a fancy hotel, but it’s kind of worn and there are giant signs in the window on neon poster board proclaiming the cheapness of its lunch buffet, and the fact that no outside food is allowed. It was my first time trying a buffet at a Chinese restaurant downtown, and hey, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it on the cheap. What sort of delicious things awaited me inside? Would my stomach survive? Answers to these burning questions after the jump. Read more »

Well, I guess it’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned cart vs. restaurant battle downtown. I stumbled upon the above (apparently, great minds think alike) on the side of the C&H Halal cart at the corner of Chambers St. and W. Broadway. The cart serving standard street meat parks in front of what is now Plein Sud, a French restaurant in the Smyth Hotel. My first thought was that these places are not exactly in competition with each other for customers. A representative from the restaurant agreed, and said the problems lie mostly in trash from the cart. Read more »

Midtown Lunch’er dkriese tipped me off that a new Japanese bakery was opening on Murray St. (at Church). I did a walk by, and there is indeed a place called Takahachi Bakery going in on the ground floor of a new condo building called Tribeca Space. The sign on the window doesn’t say when it’s opening, and the bakery’s unofficial Web site (aka, a Facebook page) says they still can’t announce an opening date, after an initial May 17 date was delayed by at least a week due to the Building Department. If the photos they have up are any indication, there will be breads and pastries, and hot dogs will be involved.

If there’s one thing downtown is lacking in, it is gross (and I mean that in the best possible way) mash ups in sandwich form. The last place I expected to find such a thing was at Baba Ghanouge on Church St. (btw. Chambers & Reade), where their tagline is “Eat Healthy Live Longer.” Even the healthiest people like to put crappy food in their bodies sometimes, and for that purpose there is the chicken beiruti sandwich. It contains a secret ingredient that elevates this sandwich a few notches and almost makes you forget you’re eating in a place that’s trying to make you healthy. Read more »