Midtown Lunch

I have never eaten a Vietnamese breakfast, but if I did I’d want it to be the egg and pork roll banh mi from the No. 1 Banh Mi Cart. We’ve eaten most of the conventional fillings from this cart but there are usually eight to 10 on offer and some (sardines in sunflower oil, roasted eel, tuna fish) are more on the edge. There was breakfast served at the cart for a time, and I’d like to think the pork roll and egg sandwich ($7) on the lunch menu is a legacy of that.  Read more »

• There’s a deli that lets you (angrily?) chop your own salad. [Tribeca Citizen]
• Chipotle’s phasing out the pork in its beans. [Grub St.]
• A roundup of sandwiches with a kick. [SENY]
• The Prince St. Pizza space’s illustrious past. [Eater NY]

It seems like just yesterday that the first New York outpost of Chicago-based Potbelly Sandwich Shop debuted on Maiden Lane to a line of frenzied fans. In fact, that was more than two years ago and now a third Financial District location has popped up on Fulton St. between Nassau and William. Apparently our hunger for sandwiches with hot pepper relish knows no bounds.

When Diso’s Sandwich Society truck debuted downtown in June and then decamped to Midtown before I got a chance to try their food, I was disappointed but assumed they would come back to the Financial District. I was mostly wrong (they have come back a couple of times although not regularly), but on Wednesday I noticed on Twitter that they would be at Varick & Charlton. This was finally my chance to stuff my face with an Italian sandwich from a truck!

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There are many delis and other eateries that I’ve walked by many times but never bothered to step inside. That’s usually OK, but sometimes you find a gem that you would never tell existed from the outside. Corte Cafe at the corner of Lafayette and Duane streets is such a place, advertising only “international foods” on its awning. A step inside shows the usual salads and sandwiches, but you can also get fried chicken, a torta or a variety of Caribbean food. It was the latter that piqued my interest since the area around City Hall is lacking in the food of the islands.

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We got word in June that Bluestone Lane Coffee would be opening on Broad St. near Exchange Place. The shop will serve coffee including Australian flat whites along with food items and snacks such as an avocado smash toast. A location of the Melbourne-influenced shop recently opened in Midtown and had a cheap coffee special for ML readers and they’re doing the same for us. You can get a $1 cup of coffee on Oct. 2 when they open the doors. See the opening food menu after the jump.  Read more »

Soma By Nature has been a standby for Korean food in the Financial District with sushi and a few other Japanese offerings pushed to the side. On Friday I noticed they have changed the name to BentOn Cafe (of which there is a location in Midtown), although the sign promoting the $6 Korean lunch specials remained outside. What has changed is a rack of grab and go bento boxes and Japanese sweets prominently featured near the Korean food station.

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