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 (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.)

While standing in the long ass line last week for the ultimately wait-worthy Picnick BBQ, I met a few downtown worker bees and quizzed them to find out what their favorite lunches were in the Wall Street area. One guy said his favorite sandwich was the steak and cheese at Champs, and knowing my penchant for that particular lunch I was excited to try it out this week.

Although the address of Champs is 71 Broadway, and you can get to it through that entrance , the real entrance is on the corner of Trinity Place and Rector Street, so after circling the building from both blocks like a hunter circling his prey, I went in for the kill.

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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 (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.) Midtown has always been lucky to be graced with the presence of the Daisy May’s BBQ Cart.  Now Downtown has it’s own BBQ truck…

Not surprisingly there has been a ton of hype surrounding the opening of Picnick Smoked, Will Goldfarb’s BBQ truck in Wall Street Park. Not only do I love BBQ, but I felt like I need to bring balance back to the universe after my Vegan lunch last week. So yesterday, despite reading about torturous wait times in this horrible heat (and food running out) I did what had to be done.

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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 (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.)

Little Lad’s Basket was definitely a change of pace from my usual greasy meat laden lunches, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. There’s no storefront or sign outside this Vegan restaurant, but if you enter through 120 Broadway and make a left at the first staircase you’ll see it at the bottom of the stairs. The restaurant was quite huge and a bit daunting at first. I couldn’t figure out how to order so I asked someone. You just take a tray and then you can fill up one bowl and one plate for $4.98!

Seeing how cheap that was I was a bit hesitant about what the food was going to taste like. I kept walking around the hot and cold buffets thinking that maybe some chicken curry would appear magically for some reason because, well… I’m an idiot. It’s VEGAN yes I know I know.

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Do you work and eat lunch Downtown? We’re about to expand our Downtown coverage, and Daniel is going to need some help.  Should it be you?  If the answer is yes, email why to downtown@midtownlunch.com

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.)

Street Meat doesn’t generally peak my interest downtown. I realize you Midtowners have a great selection and crazy competition, but downtown the scene is not quite as fierce. So when I walk by a bunch of street carts I generally don’t stop for lunch, unless I see a line 20 deep- as I saw earlier this week in front of the big red cube on Broadway.

I asked a few people online why this cart was different from the other carts in the area and received answers ranging from “cause its crazy cheap” to “best chicken and rice you can get”, “I don’t know this is my first time but my friend said they have the best falafel.”

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Which one of these looks like your Grandma made it?

I have to say I was completely confused by the triangular slice of “grandma pizza” our Downtown Lunch correspondent Daniel Krieger posted about last Friday from Pizza Italia. Admittedly, I don’t know a ton about grandma pizza since my only exposure to it has been at the Jiannetto’s Pizza Truck on 47th btw. Park+Mad.  But I was under the impression that the one common quality shared by all Grandma style pizzas is that the slices are rectangular, right?  I checked in with Daniel, and he had this to say:

“Grandma slice has like a sweet/tangy sauce that I believe is slow stewed. I also just read somewhere its fresh tomatoes instead of canned but I don’t know if that’s accurate (someone said it on a board). It usually has fresh mozzarella on it and has the cheese on the bottom and then is covered with the sauce (as opposed to traditionally being vice versa). And is almost always a square baked pie like you said, not triangle. That’s why this one is a bit unique”

Wait- so what exactly makes this a grandma slice then? I decided to check in with the expert…

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