Midtown Lunch

I can’t say I’ve ever actively searched for a way to combine chorizo and ground beef into one delicious lunch, but when I saw the frita on the menu at the Bongo Brothers truck (which is at Old Slip & Water today), I knew it must be mine. This monster melds those two types of meat into a patty, and showers them with those shoestring potatoes that come in a can and sauteed onions and then adds some ketchup so you don’t have to. This all sounded marvelous, but how would it taste? Was this going to be too much meaty goodness to handle?

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Earlier this year I was doing a scouting lunch for a freelance story and ended up eating lunch at The Bailey Pub & Brasserie on William (at Pine). It’s a very Wall St. restaurant right down to the red leather banquettes, giant bull sculpture and flat-screen TVs silently tuned to financial news channels. In other words, this is not a very Downtown Lunch kind of place. The prices also aren’t very DL because unless you sit at the bar and order sliders you’re not going to get out of here for less than $12 and that’s not including tip. So why am I writing about this place? They happen to have one of the best burgers I’ve eaten in the Financial District.

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A couple of weeks ago a friend who also works in the Financial District told me they had eaten at Burger Burger on Pearl (at Stone) and had an extremely disappointing experience involving a way overdone patty and fries that were nearly cold when they got them. I’ve never eaten there and Daniel reviewed this place way back in January of 2009. He seemed impressed with his Aussie burger (which did look pretty good from the pictures) but a lot of things can go so very wrong in more than two years, so I decided it was time to do the only reasonable thing and go eat some grilled meat and fried potatoes.

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There are the fancy parts of Tribeca, and then there are the parts on both the extreme lower and upper reaches of the neighborhood that are a little dirty and contain some eating and drinking gems. Located on the corner of Lispenard and 6th Ave., Nancy Whiskey Pub is one of those places and while based on the crowd there during the noon hour on a weekday many people are here for alcohol, they also serve a menu where basically everything is less than $10. Or you can splurge and get a large pizza for $12.50.

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I’m not usually one to have a liquid lunch unless you count milkshakes, so when I kept seeing Twitter posts from Frites N Meats about their Kobe beef burger doused in Maker’s Mark I was not particularly intrigued. But then a burger craving hit, the truck was downtown, and I figured it was time to taste some high-quality meat steeped in booze while sitting on a park bench. Was this a better vehicle for a lunchtime drink than a flask? Click through to find out.

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There are a lot of lunch places that try to make you seem like a better, more healthful person by eating there and it’s rare I step into these places. However, I’m not above trying a place that proudly declares it’s organic and serves food that just might make me live an extra day if there’s some intriguing reason to. When I saw a post about the Katchkie Truck, permanently parked in the lot behind City Winery (site of this ML’s Fifth AnniversaryParty!) I was intrigued. They’re open five days a week for lunch and the menu sounded simple and tasty, with all of the food coming from an organic farm upstate that also sells at farmers markets and has a catering company in the city. Lots of greens and grains straight ahead.

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Just yesterday I counted three trucks focusing on burgers in a two-block radius, including the newish Wall St. Burgers Truck (the other two were La Cense & GO Burger). Wall St. has been around for a couple of weeks, but ironically they only park in the Financial District a couple of days a week.  Click through for a look at the menu.

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