Midtown Lunch

Among the fast food establishment and tourist shops on the stretch of Broadway between Canal and Chambers streets, shiny new Siring Asian Grill (at Worth) stands out. It’s essentially a Chipotle of Asian food, allowing you to build a wrap or bowl of rice noodles, rice or salad as a base. We’ve seen this type of “build you own lunch” restaurant before but this one’s probably welcome in an area that’s fairly grim with lunch options that aren’t McDonald’s or dollar pizza slices.

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It’s true this site has a bias against the many generic delis dotting the downtown landscape. It’s also true that some of them serve at least one thing that differentiates them from the others, whether it’s roast pork, rare roast beef or Korean food. A while back, someone tipped us off that Variety Cafe on Broadway had a mongolian grill where you pick your fixings and they cook it for you. After an investigation, it seems that you need to employ some sort of strategy to keep your lunch here under $10.

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It seems like just yesterday that a tip came that the old Backyard Chicken space at John St. & Pearl was turning into another Mooncake Foods which already exists downtown in Soho. Then just like that, the doors were open for business yesterday at lunch. And I’d have to say – especially with similar places like OBAO and nearby BonChon on John temporarily down for the count due to the hurricane and a fire respectively, this is a welcome addition to the lunch scene in the Financial District. Read more »

I feel like the closer the proximity to all of the touristy sites along Broadway in the Financial District, the more generic the generic deli. Cafe Tomato on Fulton St. (btw. B’way & Nassau) has bucked that trend for awhile by offering noodle soups and a smattering of Korean food, but until last week I was unaware that they have a whole separate counter clear in the back devoted to these foods.

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Sometimes it’s a Chinese noodle soup kind of day – as yesterday with it’s clouds and rain was – and it gave me an excuse to check out one of the impressive roster of noodle soups at Ho Yip on Liberty St. (at Trinity Pl.). Yip’s seems to get all of the cheap Chinese noodle soup glory in the Financial District with its two locations, but Ho Yip’s selection blows theirs out of the water. I haven’t sampled the noodle soups from every Chinese hole-in-the-wall in the FiDi, but Ho Yip served me a version with some fabulous wontons.

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It’s easy to forget about Niko Niko on Wall (at Pearl) which has been a mainstay of cheap Japanese comfort food for years in the Financial District and is the closest thing we have to something like a Sunrise Mart. When Yushi opened a couple of blocks up Pearl St. I wondered how the two would compare, but I think Niko Niko has the edge on most things in the price department although I did really like Yushi’s rice bowls that have perhaps more inventive vegetable and protein options. Still, sometimes when the weather is super hot as it has been lately the thought of eating a big hot bowl of rice and meat sounds about as appealing as doing my taxes so that’s when either sushi or zaru soba comes in and I stopped by Niko Niko to check out their version of the latter.

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It’s not unusual to have a Japanese restaurant selling Thai food. What is uncommon is having a chef from a decent, but mostly expensive Thai restaurant like Lemongrass Grill that shuttered on William St. last November, move to another restaurant and start serving the same food for a better price. Lemon Leaves is that reincarnation, opening in the Koodo Sushi on Nassau St. (btw. Maiden Lane & Liberty). When I called in my order the other day, the addition of the Thai menu was so new that the woman on the phone had to figure out what I was trying to order. It all worked out though, and I ended up with a great lunch.

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