Midtown Lunch

As is customary here on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a different lunch’er and get their recommendations for places to eat in Downtown NYC. This week, we have Cia who hadn’t ventured past Broadway or below Fulton for her lunches, and needs you help finding a spot to make her do it.

Name: Cia_b

Occupation: Web producer

Where you work: Barclay + Vesey

Age: Older than your ramp pickles

Favorite kinds of food: Peter Luger’s porterhouse, Sushiden sushi/sashimi, Sichuan Chinese food, a perfectly poached egg, pork belly anything, pickled anything.

Least favorite foods: White chicken breast

Favorite lunches downtown: Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches‘ classic bahn mi with extra sriracha (because I have no other closer choice, so I’ll take it); Chipotle (Multiple Locations) for cilantro-lime rice; smoked turkey and Brie sandwich at Blue Spoon Coffee on Chambers (btw. B’way & Church); Locanda Verde’s shaved porchetta sandwich; the raw bar at North End Grill; the lunch specials at Takahachi Bakery on Murray (at Church); the hangover sandwich at Petite Abeille (Multiple Locations); and Shake Shack on Murray (btw. West St. & N. End Ave.).

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It looks like Lemongrass Grill, the Thai place on William St. that closed after getting the Department of Health yellow sticker treatment back in November, has been reincarnated on Nassau St. This version’s called Lemon Leaves and is run by the chef from Lemongrass in the space that held (still holds?) Koodo Sushi. The Koodo signs are still up, but a search on Seamless shows a menu of  Lemon Leaves’ Thai items, and everything is $10 or less. I’m not going to get excited about a new, affordable Thai option because I’ve been burned by getting my hopes up in the past.

Have you ever thought, “I could really go for some momo for lunch today,” but instead had to settle for potstickers or some other substitute? If you work downtown, there really aren’t many non-Chinese or Japanese dumpling options but with Chinese Mirch’s new truck, that’s changed. The menu is pretty limited to either chicken or vegetable momo, plain ($4), over rice or in a stew called thukpa, or a trio of duck bao (all $8). Being something of a dumpling freak I opted for the vegetable momo rice bowl with spicy Manchurian sauce. The twist with the truck is it was served over basmati rice for an Indian twist and the momo and thukpa are more of Tibetan staples than Chinese. Regardless, my lunch from Chinese Mirch was so good I didn’t even apologize for stinking up my office with it.

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Old school Western omelet, courtesy of Eating in Translation.

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• A recommendation for the spicy capicola hero at Parisi. [SENY]
• The inside scoop on Urban Lobster Shack & its new truck. [FitR]