Archive for June 2008

Downtown Lunch: Classic Coffee Shop

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 (insuring 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). This week Daniel is in the Lower East Side at the Classic Coffee Shop… 

Downtown Lunch: Classic Coffee Shop

When you want the kind of sandwich you can make at home, but you’re not home and you don’t want to go home to cook, try the Classic Coffee Shop located at 56 Hester street. Only open weekdays, this thin slice of a store has been owned and operated for the past 32 years by Carmine Morales. The food here is as basic as you can get- think turkey sandwich, ham and cheese, tuna melt, or pb&j. The food is good, but the quaintness, sentimental value, and prices are enough reason to go in here and grab a quick lunch.   Read more »

Downtown Lunch Fave Rosario's Closes After 25 Years

Downtown Lunch
Friday was the last day for Rosario’s Downtown

Got some terrible news emailed to me late on Friday afternoon about Rosario’s (Pearl btw. Broad & Whitehall), one of the Downtown Lunch places our man Daniel Krieger wrote about a month ago:

I’m a new reader, but I have some real devastating news. I just made my trip from midtown to Rosario’s, since it is friday and I wanted a good lunch. The woman who made my sandwich (#7, the Italian) told me I better enjoy it….since it is the last one I’ll ever have! I was like WTF??? What did I do to you??? Then she explained how they lost their lease!!!! This sucks so bad!!!!!!! I had only been there 3 times! And I found it b/c of Midtown Lunch!!!!! A sad sad day…..First, my favorite Greek place downtown, the Delphi, gets demod, now Rosarios!!!! I am starting to hate how this City is transforming!!!!!!

And I had just gloated about how they hung up Daniel’s review in the store!  Such a bummer… It turns out Rosario’s didn’t lose their lease, but the entire building was sold and will be demolished.  Friday was their last day, but they’re hoping to open up in another location Downtown.  Until then their sandwiches will be missed…

Downtown Lunch: Darlene Restaurant

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 (insuring 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). This week we continue to chip away at Daniel’s fear of eating at dirty places as he hits up Darlene Restaurant- a spanich food place in Tribeca… 

Downtown Lunch: Darlene's Restaurant

Let’s get one thing straight off the bat, the food at Darlene Restaurant along Church street in Tribeca is not phenomenal but they do have a few hits here and there. I was riding my bicycle by the other day, planning to just pass by it when I was struck by a sloppily written sign that indicated free iced coffee with your lunch. “Iced coffee for free?” I said out loud, which elicited a passerby to say, “Nuttins free in this city anymore kid” “He’s wrong” I thought! If only I had a Midtown Lunch business card with me so I could have directed to him to Zach, the king of free food. I suppose he was right in this instance though, because you have to buy lunch to get that “free” coffee.   Read more »

Downtown Lunch: 5 Star Dining Truck

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 (insuring 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). This week Daniel unveils his dirty little secret… he’s scared of eating at “dirty” food carts.  But for the sake of Downtown Lunch’ers he check one out, and reports back… 

Downtown Lunch: 5 Star Dining Truck

What’s my problem that I won’t eat street meat like Zach does? Is there something wrong with me….Or is it the fact that I don’t enjoy eating food made by men standing next to hot stoves who look like they’ve been hit over the head with a giant water balloon? Does the tinny taste of the “meat” turn me off, or the fact that if you’re on the far west side of midtown Manhattan at day break you can walk by the cart guys garages and see giant bags of marinating meat just laying on the filthy city payment (in bags but still). No it’s none of these things, it’s mostly the feeling I get after eating street meat that makes me opposed to it. That is really the #1 reason I try to never touch the stuff.

Zach on the other hand is a man of the street-meat and so I felt it was my duty to find one of the best carts downtown and do some investigating. I got a hot tip about a relatively new lunch cart called, “5 star dining” located on the corner of Greenwich and Warren.   Read more »

Downtown Lunch: Vietnamese on the Baxter Strip

Making Downtown office workers jealous is something this blog has been doing for awhile now. 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 (insuring 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). This week he covers something I still have not found a good version of in Midtown: Vietnamese

Downtown Lunch

When I did my time in Nam I ate some amazing food, and naturally when I returned from the trenches I had the taste for it, so I wanted to find the best place in the city where I could relive my culinary experiences (always a tough thing to do). Granted I was vacationing in Vietnam (not fighting in Nam), but finding good Vietnamese food in this city is almost as futile as fighting in some awful war that never should have been fought. (See how I did that? Apologies to everyone for interjecting a terrible political analogy into a food blog.)

While there, one of my favorite dishes was the fried spring roll, which bases itself on the premise that pretty much anything fried is really good. I’ve had them in a few places here in New York but my favorite so far has to be New Pasteur Restaurant on Baxter street. The delicate thumb size rolls are fried to perfection and should be wrapped in accompanying lettuce leaf and dipped in the mild vinegar based broth they give you in a small dish. Other standouts include the Bun Ga Cary – curry chicken with rice vermicelli in a spicy curry broth.   Read more »