Midtown Lunch

When the paper came down from the windows of the new Aroma Espresso Bar at Church & Barclay, I was surprised by how nice and gigantic it looked inside. We in lower Manhattan are often subjected to tiny Starbucks locations or the superior but still tiny Financier shops. And the upper-tier, non-chain coffee shops in Tribeca are mostly tiny and have little for lunch that’s going to fill you up for $10 or less. When I looked at Aroma’s menu, I noticed that all of their sandwiches were less than $10 and even some of the salads clocked in under than amount. I’ve had their coffee at other locations and found it to be solid. Could this be a chain that this site can get behind?

I stopped by during the prime lunch hour, but they weren’t particularly busy so I was a little surprised by how spacey the cashier was. I know the store hasn’t been open for long, but when I asked for the soup and sandwich combo ($9.90) she looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language and I had to remind her I wanted the combo three more times. I finally managed to get my order straight and it was ready a short time later.

For the combo, I opted for half a Tunisian sandwich plus lentil soup. There are two other combo options available but they’re both more than $10. The Tunisian sounded really good with tuna, hard boiled egg, tomato, pickled lemons, pickles and harissa. How often do you find pickled lemon and harissa on a sandwich in this area?

What I got was tasty enough, but not as advertised. Yes, the tuna, hard boiled egg, tomato and pickles were accounted for, but where was my harissa and pickled lemon?!? Basically, I got a tuna and pickle sandwich with some egg thrown in for extra protein. Weird. I’m guessing whoever made the sandwich was having an off day?

On the upside, the lentil soup was delicious and there was plenty of it. You have to ask what soups they have as I didn’t see them posted anywhere, but this one was delicious (and a tad spicy, so if you’re not into that, beware).

In addition to having good coffee which you get with a piece of chocolate, this place is also good for those of you who don’t eat meat because the majority of sandwiches, salads and soups are vegetarian. They even have a vegan portobello mushroom sandwich. Yes, this place isn’t much cheaper than Blue Spoon on Chambers or Kaffe 1668 on Greenwich St., but there’s way more seating and it still has that new-store smell if you’re into that sort of thing.

Aroma Espresso Bar, 100 Church St. (at Barclay),