Midtown Lunch

The mini chain of Indian steam table restaurant Diwan E Khaas (Multiple Locations) doesn’t get a lot of love on this site, as anytime it’s mentioned it seems a commenter is saying the food is mediocre at best. I used to eat at the nearest location to me, on Nassau btw. Liberty & Maiden Lane, before I realized there were much better lunch options out there, and haven’t ever returned. A while back I noticed they had a sign up for their “winter lunch special” that got you a vegetable or chicken item plus rice or naan for $5.50-$5.99 which seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Would there be anything on the steam table to recommend though? To my surprise, yes.

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I noticed that Indian steam-table standby Diwan E Khaas (Multiple Locations) has dropped its prices instead of raising them like a lot of other places are doing, perhaps in an effort to get more people in the door. You can get a vegetable or chicken dish or fish curry along with rice or naan for the low, low price of $5.99. I know many of you have a love/hate relationship with this mini-chain, but $5.99 for lunch is a pretty good deal down here. Will this get any more of you Lunch’ers to eat there?

One of the three locations of steam table Indian standby Diwan E Khaas is closed for renovations. A note on the S. William St. shop directs you to the other two locations on Nassau St. (at Maiden Lane) and Cedar St. (btw. William & Pearl). I would like to note that although Diwan E Khaas is (supposedly) only closed for renovations, a Subway across the street is permanently shuttered.

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.)

Why should Queens have all the good Indian food? Is it really that hard to get some good spots in Manhattan that aren’t on East 6th street or Murray Hill? This week I hadn’t planned on eating Indian food as I had just photographed an Indian wedding last weekend and got to eat some amazing food there. In other words my once a month Indian craving had been filled. After reading this comment on my Country kebab post, I had planned to check out Koyzina Grill to see if the kebabs there were really that great. Sadly though, the only kebabs I saw on the menu were shrimp, and cost like 14 bucks.

Funk that I said and wondered if I was supposed to check out the Koyzina Cafe, which is across the street on the corner. But the only thing I saw on that menu was a bunch of pasta dishes and regular sandwiches. When I asked, “Do you guys have kebabs?”, I got this reply: “What’s a kebab?” WHAT?! Needless to say, I left without answering him.

I walked back to the street, dizzy with hunger and disappointment, only to find a cheap looking Indian lunch spot starring me down and calling to me, with one of my favorite things in the world… the scent of fresh baked naan.

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