Midtown Lunch

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.)

Before reading the sign at the entrance of Pho So 1, the new Vietnamese restaurant located on Mott street, try to visualize a drunk Vietnamese restaurant owner shouting those words at you. Yhat’s the only way I can read that sign with a straight face. But then again it’s really funny, so why would I even want to read it with a straight face?

This end of Mott street has a few old Chinese standbys including Wo Hop and Hop Kee, the old-school-kinda-joints where you walk down a flight of stairs to get inside. Pho So 1 is also found down a flight of steep stairs at 11 Mott street, now offering good, honest priced Vietnamese food (also currently offering a 10% discount as part of their grand opening).

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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.)

Call me a Midtown Lunch infidel, but I’ve never been a huge advocate of street meat. I’ve been burned too many times eating lunch at a cart, only to have my stomach sounding like a garbage truck rumbling down the West Side Highway a few hours later.

But I’m a Midtown Luncher now (well, a Downtown version of one anyway), and so with a heavy heart (all those burgers have an effect on the arteries) I set out to find my own local street meat peddler…and boy, did I ever find one.

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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.)

Fuleen Seafood is located on Division street, in the heart of Chinatown. Upon entering you’ll usually find the place packed- people love the food here, from the locals to the adventurous tourist. I used to eat here every once in awhile because I loved the chicken curry… that and a few of the shrimp dishes. They have 70 lunch specials for $5.50. I think if the price has changed in the past few years it’s only gone up 50 cents or so.

For lunch you get an extremely generous serving of your main dish, rice, and the complimentary “house” soup. I always try to eat the soup (it’s free after all), but I just can’t get myself to like it. It has a very potent taste and a bit of rank odor if you ask me. I believe when I asked about it they said there was pork, vegetables, and a cantonese herb called Harbor? Never heard of it… and I probably misunderstood. Maybe she was just saying “herbs”??

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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.)  I don’t know what’s up with Daniel lately.  Last week he wrote about a salad (shameful) and this week he’s found an $11 burger.  You know how I feel about lunch that costs more than $10.  This better be good…

My encyclopedic girlfriend said I will lack context if I don’t mention the history of Jerry Joseph–the pioneer behind Jerry’s Cafe, a newly reopened Tribeca restaurant dealing in comfort food. I didn’t know the background story of this early Soho settler, but read all about him with a quick google search.

So I no longer lack context now… just tact, basic personal hygiene, and friends (any applicants?).

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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.)

Last week I ventured into the deep fried underbelly of the city known as Sea World. It was the food equivalent of a whorehouse, and just being there was like bathing in a pool of oil… delicious oil. In an attempt to even out my arteries, I tried something a bit healthier this week. Columbine (on West Broadway, near the corner of White St.) is where I went for my weekly cleansing. Everyday you’ll find different specials, which are quite often the best thing to go for.

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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.) Everyone knows how much I love fried food, and this week Daniel has found a fried food palace…

At the amusingly named Sea World, located on the corner of Church and Lispenard, there are only 26 items on the take out menu and the word “fried” appears 27 times. How is that possible? Well, take item #23. Order that and you get FRIED squid, FRIED shrimp, FRIED rice. That’s alotta fried.

Sounds good to me though… and after Zach was robbed of his weekly grease intake a few days ago when lunching at Empanada Joe’s, I wanted to let him live vicariously through me today.

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Every Friday we check in with Daniel Krieger for a column called “Downtown Lunch”. After all, why should we Midtowners have all the fun? Daniel’s column is a chance to make us jealous of what office workers are eating in the lower half of the island. This week, Daniel is home sick- so I’m taking over! Which works out, because this week I have jury duty… and despite reading Daniel’s column every Friday, nothing works better to create jealousy than spending two days “working” a few blocks away from Chinatown. (The photos won’t be as good, but the eatin’ was mighty fine.)

When I first posted about my jury duty, you guys came through with a ton of great recommendations near the courthouse (I was summoned to 111 Court Street.) Cheap sit down restaurants, great dim sum (my favorite), and bakeries (can’t forget the bakeries!) Some even suggested I go south, into the true heart of Downtown Lunch’ing. But naturally, the pull of Chinatown was just too much to resist, and in true Midtown Lunch fashion I shunned the close recommendations for something that required a few minutes of walking for a big time (and borderline scary) payoff. Tripe from a cart. Read more »