Midtown Lunch

It’s been freezing outside, and waiting in the cold for food doesn’t sound all that appealing. That was the case for me until a craving for street meat hit. I thought about where to get my fix, and decided to branch out to one of the handful of carts on the west side of Broadway at Zuccotti Park, since we’ve basically only reviewed Sam’s Falafel. I stopped at Cairo Halal to fulfill my street meat needs. The plate of food I got had some good along with some bad. Read more »

The name of the restaurant Aux Epices on Baxter St. (btw. Canal & Hester) translates from French into “with spices” and that was an accurate description of the riot of flavors in my lunch there. It moved from Tribeca where it was called Franklin Station Cafe, and there isn’t much on the lunch menu that tops $10, but you have to remember that this is Chinatown/Little Italy and that price point is expected. You don’t feel like you’re eating in the neighborhood as you step inside and black and white photos paired with cute cafe tables and French music contrast with the mostly Malaysian and Asian dishes on the menu. It’s a nicer lunch experience than you might find in surrounding establishments, and the seafood dish I had was delicious.

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No longer a source of Jamaican chicken wraps.

When it rains, it pours, and on Monday the actual rain coincided with some lunch spots shuttering in Tribeca. It was termed “Black Monday” as word came that Portobella’s Pizza on Murray St. and Blueberry Fusion Cafe on Church St. (where I once had a tasty but weird lunch experience) were no longer in operation. The third closing was a more upscale establishment that we don’t cover, but still, not good news to start the week. Hopefully some reasonably-priced spots will pick up the slack and open in these newly-vacant spaces.

Amazingly, there are still a couple of slice shops in the Financial District that have not been written up by this site. Lisa’s Pizza is one of those, partly because it’s on a really touristy stretch of Fulton St. (at Gold) and I had kind of dismissed it. After trying a couple of slices, I concluded that it’s not life-changing pizza, but good if you like a lot of dairy. Read more »

• MacarOn Cafe coming to prime spot in Tribeca. [TC]
• Denny’s really, really wants to open in the FiDi. [DNAinfo]
• The bacon cheeseburger at the Odeon is worth the price. [SENY]
• A few of the year’s top sandwiches are Downtown Lunches. [EaterNY]

It’s a new year, it’s freezing outside and you may have made a resolution to eat healthier lunches. Taim has your back with its daily soup, which you can find at the shop in Nolita on Spring St. (at Mulberry). The truck sometimes offers soup as well, although they don’t park downtown a lot these days.

The good news is that this lunch is so much more than the usual cup of soup with a stale roll or piece of bread alongside.  Read more »

Looking back through all of the lunches I consumed in 2013 made me wonder, once again, how I am not morbidly obese. There was BBQ chicken lo mein, pizza with bacon and jalapeños, cheese steaks, fancy hot dogs, and one uncooked lunch that I’ll talk about later. All in all it was a great year for lunching downtown, and we gained options like Jersey-style subs, Philly-style hoagies and Japanese curry.

While digging through all of these lunches, there were several that stood out and I whittled them down to 10. You’ll find those straight ahead, along with an honorable mention and a bonus spot for perhaps the most memorable lunch I’ve eaten in my tenure as editor of this site.  Read more »