Midtown Lunch

When it comes to pasta, the two options at lunch time are either hitting up a sit-down place, or settling for what comes off a steam table at many pizza shops. Zigolini’s does a good made-to-order pasta, but they remain closed after hurricane Sandy. Another option that some of you have recommended is Koyzina Kafe – an otherwise generic deli on William St. (at Cedar) that has a make-your-own pasta bar where you can watch your lunch being cooked in front of you. After a taste, I thought their pasta definitely has a leg up on what comes from a steam table.

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A while ago Lunch’er Deep wrote in with a tip that The Grotto, an underground pizza shop on New St. (btw. Beaver & Broadway), had “good bread” but couldn’t really elaborate on which of the kinds of sandwiches on offer were served on these top notch carbs. With regular heros, ciabatta and focaccia sandwich on the menu, I took a gamble when I ordered a sandwich and I think I won. A look at some great sandwich bread is straight ahead.

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Around the corner from Sole di Capri (aka, Capri Caffe), there is another source of cheap lunchtime pasta called Tre Sorelle. Based on the number of people I saw coming and going at prime lunch time, this place is popular with office workers and people such as myself taking their food to go for a little desk dining. This could be because of the extensive lunch menu that includes personal size brick oven pizzas, pastas and platters of Italian standbys for $10 or less. Perhaps the best deal on the menu is the pasta of which you can choose from five varieties for $6.95 which is a good price for this area.

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It’s not often I go into a pizza place and everything looks so good that I seriously can’t make up my mind which slices to get. This was the problem I had while at Rosella’s Pizza on William St. (btw. Beekman & Ann) last week. It’s off the beaten path, although I’m sure they get a lot of business from the NY Downtown Hospital across the street and from Pace University students – and from office workers in the know. The only reason I knew about it was because of two recent recommendations for both Rosella’s pizza and pasta from Profiled Lunch’ers. No matter what kind of pizza you like, you’ll find some variety of it here.

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After an unsuccessful sandwich experience last week I decided it was time to hunt down a more substantial sandwich for lunch that wouldn’t leave me hungry two hours later. Two things normally come to mind when I need a filling sandwich: A parm from some deli/pizza shop or a banh mi. Luckily we have several options for both of these sandwich types in the Financial District, but I’d remembered seeing that Jiannetto’s was parked at its spot on Front St. & Wall that day and decided that if they’d been regularly parking there for so long, maybe their parm sandwiches had some fans. Could a truck that primarily serves grandma slices turn out a good sandwich, or was it just a secondary item to diversify the menu?

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Everyone knows how cheap pasta is, and how much it costs to throw some sauce on it. That’s why I often have a problem paying $10 for a takeout plate of pasta which I could have made myself for about $2. That being said, there is a somewhat budget-friendly carbo-loading spot in the Financial District, and that would be Pranzo on Water St. (btw. Coenties Slip & Broad). My friend has been telling me that she and her co-workers are always going there for the pasta and since it’s far down in the nether regions of the FiDi it’s easy to forget about. On a day when it wasn’t as hot as the Sahara, I headed over to see if cheap pasta could compete with some of the more expensive options.

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You know how sometimes you wander out of the office to grab lunch without a game plan? I call these “random lunches” where I just end up getting food at a place that I’ve always wondered about but never had a reason to enter. Da Vinci Pizza is one of those places and based solely on its weathered exterior awning you know it’s either going to be a great NYC slice or a lunch you’ll later regret. After walking in on a hot and humid day, I was faced with a huge selection of slices, no line, and a trio of men waiting for me to make up my damn mind about what I wanted. After spotting a tasty looking square pie in the corner I decided an upside down slice was going to be lunch.

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