Midtown Lunch

As I was walking back from lunch I happened to notice that the location of The Original Soupman on Pearl St. (btw. Wall & Hanover) that’s been papered over forever and under renovation looked open. Well, they weren’t, but that’s not the interesting part. It looks like they’re still going to be serving Soupman items, but also Ranch 1 chicken?! This seems like a weird combo to me but I’m going to wait to pass judgment until I can actually eat here. I really hope they have someone standing outside in a chicken costume! Let us know in the comments if you see them up and running for lunch.

The other day I told a couple of people that my lunch destination was Sea World on Church St. (at Lispenard) to further investigate the $6.99 buffet that popped up. They wished me luck in the way that people do when you tell them you’re taking the subway to the Bronx or going to eat a McRib. My stomach has handled worse things than fried seafood, I thought, and it’s only come back to haunt me once! When I got there and asked if the buffet was by the pound, I heard the magical words “No, it’s all you can eat.” And with that I was handed my plate and went over to see what my strategy would be for gorging on fried foods. Read more »

If you’ve ever eaten at Yushi in the World Financial Center (or in midtown) you may have noticed that they’re hellbent on making you eat healthy Asian food. I had only eaten their food once at the Taste of the World Financial Center and wasn’t overly impressed with the Peking duck pancakes I had. But then I found out they started serving “king katsu curry” for $9.95 this week and I figured it was an excellent chance to head over to Battery Park City. It also begged the question: what happens when you bake katsu? Forge ahead to see what it looks like! Read more »

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 lunch’ers Yen and Michi who are architects that sideline in food blogging on Lunch with Front Studio. They try not to play favorites with lunch destinations, or with what they will eat.

Names: Yen Ha and Michi Yanagishita

Occupation: Architects

Where you work: We have our own firm: Front Studio Architects

Age: No spring chickens – 36 and 37

Favorite Kinds of Food: Salty kinds

Least Favorite Foods: Foods that start with the letter “Q”…  Uhh joking aside, perhaps foods you need to flex your foodie machismo muscles for?  I don’t really know what that means.  Poorly cooked foods?  We don’t really like ruling things out.  You never know what you’ll end up liking (or disliking)

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Shanghai Café for their soup dumplings and rice cakes; Roast pork with rice and beans at La Nueva  Conquista come immediately to mind.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: We try not to repeat our lunch location for at least 6 weeks, so it’s kind of impossible for us to eat somewhere too often.  But probably the closest to always being in the mood for, or a no-brainer would probably be Shanghai Café. Read more »

Looks can sometimes be deceiving when looking at a food item. Take Indian food – sometimes extremely unphotogenic, yet a party in your mouth. The same rule applies with the Sunday gravy tasca from Table Tales on Water St. (nr. Beekman). I had seen a glorious picture of this item from the New Amsterdam Market and was happy to see it’s on their regular menu. I headed over to get one to go (and this may have been the fatal flaw) with visions of meatballs and tomato sauce dancing in my head. What I got surprised me. Read more »