Midtown Lunch

Daniel’s review will be up shortly, but if you’re downtown and looking for a good lunch today, somebody just emailed me this: “There’s an Indian street festival featuring a variety of Indian foods in the Financial District” from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m on Maiden Lane/South St.  What stop on the subway is that?  I wonder if I could make it down there and back to Midtown in an hour…

Serious Eats New York posted a thing I just wrote about this amazing sandwich I ate at Alidoro, a tiny pretty well known shop in Soho that I really wish was in Midtown.  [Bonus Reveal: I’m having a kid. I know… it’s frightening. Thankfully my wife has good genes.]

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food). This week Daniel is in the Lower East Side at the Classic Coffee Shop… 

When you want the kind of sandwich you can make at home, but you’re not home and you don’t want to go home to cook, try the Classic Coffee Shop located at 56 Hester street. Only open weekdays, this thin slice of a store has been owned and operated for the past 32 years by Carmine Morales. The food here is as basic as you can get- think turkey sandwich, ham and cheese, tuna melt, or pb&j. The food is good, but the quaintness, sentimental value, and prices are enough reason to go in here and grab a quick lunch.   Read more »

Friday was the last day for Rosario’s Downtown

Got some terrible news emailed to me late on Friday afternoon about Rosario’s (Pearl btw. Broad & Whitehall), one of the Downtown Lunch places our man Daniel Krieger wrote about a month ago:

I’m a new reader, but I have some real devastating news. I just made my trip from midtown to Rosario’s, since it is friday and I wanted a good lunch. The woman who made my sandwich (#7, the Italian) told me I better enjoy it….since it is the last one I’ll ever have! I was like WTF??? What did I do to you??? Then she explained how they lost their lease!!!! This sucks so bad!!!!!!! I had only been there 3 times! And I found it b/c of Midtown Lunch!!!!! A sad sad day…..First, my favorite Greek place downtown, the Delphi, gets demod, now Rosarios!!!! I am starting to hate how this City is transforming!!!!!!

And I had just gloated about how they hung up Daniel’s review in the store!  Such a bummer… It turns out Rosario’s didn’t lose their lease, but the entire building was sold and will be demolished.  Friday was their last day, but they’re hoping to open up in another location Downtown.  Until then their sandwiches will be missed…

Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food). This week Daniel unveils his dirty little secret… he’s scared of eating at “dirty” food carts.  But for the sake of Downtown Lunch’ers he check one out, and reports back… 

What’s my problem that I won’t eat street meat like Zach does? Is there something wrong with me….Or is it the fact that I don’t enjoy eating food made by men standing next to hot stoves who look like they’ve been hit over the head with a giant water balloon? Does the tinny taste of the “meat” turn me off, or the fact that if you’re on the far west side of midtown Manhattan at day break you can walk by the cart guys garages and see giant bags of marinating meat just laying on the filthy city payment (in bags but still). No it’s none of these things, it’s mostly the feeling I get after eating street meat that makes me opposed to it. That is really the #1 reason I try to never touch the stuff.

Zach on the other hand is a man of the street-meat and so I felt it was my duty to find one of the best carts downtown and do some investigating. I got a hot tip about a relatively new lunch cart called, “5 star dining” located on the corner of Greenwich and Warren.   Read more »

Making Downtown office workers jealous is something this blog has been doing for awhile now. To even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food). This week he leaves the comforts of Chinatown, for a great sandwich shop a little farther south…

From a bang-for-your-buck perspective, it’s going to be tough to beat last week’s dirk diggler sized hot dog for a dollar, which remains so far- one of the best deals I’ve seen downtown. Not surprisingly as you move farther downtown from Chinatown, you move a bit higher in price- but for one of the best sandwiches below canal, you’ve gotta bite the bullet and go to Rosario’s.   Read more »

NYCNosh posted a review of Table Tales, a “worthy lunch destination [to add] to the expanding list of eateries in and around the old South Street Seaport”. On Water St. btw. Fulton & Peck, all of the sandwiches- priced between $8 and $9, look pretty delicious, although if I had to choose, I think I would probably go with the buttermilk fried chicken one ($8.50).