Midtown Lunch

Cheap Ass Food breaks the big Downtown Lunch news: a $5 banh mi cart started parking in the financial district this week (on Water & John). Obviously our Friday Downtown Lunch correspondent Daniel Krieger will check this out and report back… but more importantly, where’s our Midtown banh mi cart! Boi Sandwich (on 3rd btw. 44+45th) is fine, and the out of bounds Baoguette is really excellent, but $5 vietnamese sandwiches from a cart is another animal entirely. Waaaah! (That was me crying/whining by the way.)

Photo courtesy of Cheap Ass Food

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 (ensuring 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.)

“Boychick! Come here bubbalah! What can I get you? Oh that’s it? Come on that’s not enough for a hungry growing boy like you!”

Ahhhhhhhh I wish that’s how they greeted me when I stepped up to order my lunch at Leo’s bagels, but alas it was your typical anywhere in NYC lunch line of, “who’s next?” My granny gran was no where to be found behind the counter. I expected someone with an attitude, especially since I already had seen a menu which proclaimed Leo’s to be “Bagels with Chutzpah”.

Read more »

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 (ensuring 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.)

About a month ago I was at a party in Brooklyn (represent!) and a guest from the East Village picked up a huge bag of empanadas from the East Village location of Ruben’s Empanadas. I was skeptical at first thinking they were going to taste more like fast food empanadas (aka Hot Pockets), but figured I would give them a shot. After warming them up in the oven we added them to our impromptu dinner party and I tried two different kinds. I particularly remember the spinach and tofu one with whole wheat crust. It was a perfect blend of a crunchy/doughy crust and had a nice heavy mixture of spinach and tofu on the inside. Damn they were good.

I’m always hesitant when a restaurant claims “authentic” or “original” or “best”

I remembered all this after the Empanada Joe hooplah earlier this week and decided to head out to one of Ruben’s six downtown locations for lunch.

Read more »

No Downtown review from Daniel this week… but here are a few little tidbits that may be interesting to the Downtown Lunch’ers.

The other day the New York Post reported that in order to save money, a lot of Wall Street investment banker types were eating at McDonald’s! Guys, have you not been reading Daniel Krieger’s Friday Downtown Lunch column right here on ML? You don’t need to eat at McDonald’s… there are plenty of better cheap lunch options Downtown. Sadly, though, Mangia will not be one of those options. They are closing permanently today.

On a lighter note, Daniel did send along these awesome photos of the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck which has been spending Thursdays downtown. Although in these trying economic times it’s hard to understand why anybody who works so close to Chinatown would ever spend $6 on dumplings! (Midtown Lunch’ers, on the other hand, can be a desperate lot sometimes.)

More dumpling truck porn is after the jump…

Read more »

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 (ensuring 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.)

In celebration of the Chinese New Year which is this Monday, Jan 26th, I wanted to review what I consider one of Chinatown’s elite restaurants, Nice Green Bo. Formerly New Green Bo, the ownership changed hands last March and the “New” became “Nice”. Whatever. As long as they don’t mess up the food they can call themselves Big Dongers Chinatown Food Hut (I think that name may actually already exist).

Read more »

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 (ensuring 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.) If everybody else on the site is given the opportunity to vent, I figure Daniel is entitled too. Here’s a little story of what happened to our Downtown Lunch reporter when he bypassed his goto Pakistani lunch spot, in favor of a cheaper option down the street.

Who doesn’t get the craving for Indian food every once in awhile? Spicy, flavorful lamb mixed with vegetables I never knew existed before moving to NYC. And of course the Naan… one of my greatest third-wordly pleasures is a fresh piping piece of naan peeled off the inside of a red hot tandoor.

A few nights ago I decided to save myself a buck and eat at Taste of Tandoor on Church street, walking past my normal go-to, Pakistani Tea House. The food is similar, good cheap steam table Pakistani/Indian food. Neither place gives you what you can get in Jackson Heights, but it works.

Then things went all wrong…

Read more »

Daniel’s weekly downtown lunch review is coming in just a bit, but he checks in with these updates to the Downtown lunching scene:

1) Farewell Mr. Skewer we hardly knew ya. After about 2 months, and despite a glowing ML lunch review (which a friend told me they saw posted in the window of the 14th st location, but never in the downtown one for some reason), Mr. Skewer closed it’s doors this past week. That spot has turned over several times in the past few years… so either the space is cursed or the rent is too damn high. Don’t be too sad though, their gargatuan chorizo sandwich will still be available on 14th st, as their store is slated to stay open (probably because they’re the ones with our review posted…kidding!)

Two bits of good news are after the jump… 

Read more »