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 Serena who is a finalist for the sixth season of “The Next Food Network Star” and also has an online cooking show called “Cooking In Manhattan.” She lists a pricey ingredient among her disliked foods.

Name: Serena Palumbo

Occupation: Attorney by day and cook by night

Where you work: on Wall Street

Age: 31, with good genes and good doctors

Favorite Kinds of Food: Italian, Sushi, Spanish tapas, South American. I was brought up with Italian food, and the best comfort food is a slice of eggplant parmigiana with some crunchy bread, or in the winter some ossobuco with gremolada and saffron risotto. Sushi is not really an acquired taste for me because I was brought up in Southern Italy with a great fish market so I have always loved raw fish.  Same applies for South American food, because ceviche and tiradito are really delicious. I also have a lot of South American friends and whenever I travel to their countries I try to have the full blown local experience like Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations! I love to go back to NY and bring the inspiration from those recipes with me!

Least Favorite Food: Caviar

Favorite Lunches Downtown: Ulysses (Pearl St. nr. Hanover Square) for the carving station and specials. I love their mac and cheese. Adrienne’s Pizza Bar on Stone St. (nr. Hanover Square) because the pizza and salad are great to share with my colleagues. I cheat on Keste when I can get a big group of co-workers to go with me. Financier (Multiple Locations) for their little financiers – the delightful little almond mini-muffins they give you with coffee.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: The Golden Chopstick (Pearl St. nr. Hanover Square) – best Chinese takeout! They have the most amazing cashew nut chicken.

Place you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: I need to check out the Web site more often! Read more »

This wall makes me feel lame, courtesy of Attack

• An ad agency downtown, Wieden+Kennedy, has put up an awesome Wall of Restaurant Worship at their office. It puts to shame my list scrawled in Sharpie/pile of restaurant take-out menus. [Attack]
• Ed’s Lobster Cart, an offshoot of waaaay out of Midtown Lunch-range Ed’s Lobster Bar, is opening its cart this weekend behind the World Financial Center at Vesey & N. End Ave. This is about the only time I will spend $15 on a sandwich. [Blondie & Brownie]
• The mortadella sandwich at Parisi Bakery on Mott St. is “oh-so-slightly funky.” [Serious Eats NY]
• Eddie Huang will be previewing the food for his upcoming Lower East Side restaurant Xiao Ye this weekend. I’m still sad he had to change the name from Crackhaus.  [Grub Street]

Here’s some big news before a long weekend – the Street Vendor Project (the organization behind the Vendy Awards) is putting together a Pushcart Market on Park Place btw. B’way+Church Streets Friday, June 11th from 10am to 6pm. The event will bring together vendors from all over the city in a way that’s never been done before (no tube socks at this street fair!) The cross-borough food line up is mind boggling (if you wanted to, you could easily get breakfast, lunch and dinner there!) and it includes Vendy nominees and a Midtown street food legend.

Check out the temporary list of vendors, after the jump…

Read more »

South Street Seaport is turning into a food truck food court!  First Wafels and Dinges puts a permanent cart on Fulton and Front.  Then Cupcake Stop announces that they’ve launched a second truck which will be permanently parked on Pier 17. And now this!  Starting tomorrow the Go Burger Truck will also be permanently parked at Pier 17, seven days a week, from 11am to 6pm.  The truck, which launched in April and is owned by the BLT Restaurant Group, had been operating mostly on the weekends.

And as an added bonus, because tomorrow (Friday) is National Burger Day they’ll be christening their new spot with a lunch special. From 12noon – 4pm: a classic burger, fries and milkshake will be $10. And for those Go Burger fans who don’t work Downtown, the truck will travel to other locations 4 times a month… follow them on Twitter to keep track.

It’s a rare day that I venture into any mainstream fast food restaurant in the city, because why eat a Big Mac when I can have free reign over the fixin’s bar at Maoz or a banh mi from Baoguette? After passing by the Checkers on Chambers St. (btw. Broadway & Church) one too many times, I finally decided to get lunch from there and eat in the nearby City Hall Park. I stuck with the basics at this somewhat shiny new place, and I was not disappointed. Industrial beef patties after the jump!  Read more »

Some days when I’m deciding on what to eat for lunch it comes down to one variable: spice. You see, I’m a spice fiend and am always trying to find new and different vehicles for making myself sweat during lunch, without exercising. That is part of the reason I ended up at Malaysian chainlet Nyonya’s location on Grand St. (btw. Mulberry & Mott streets). I had tried to eat there once before but was greeted with a long wait, and was reminded of it again by a mention on Lunch With Front Studio. All it took was a 10 minute subway ride up to Canal St. and I had a delicious $6.50 lunch special on the table in front of me. Read more »