Midtown Lunch

The week of the 2011 Vendy Awards coming up on Saturday on Governor’s Island continues today with another treat. Have you ever wondered what kind of work goes into your falafel from Sam’s or those stix from the Souvlaki GR truck? Now’s your chance to watch the vendors talk about their food and also give a little background into their operations. Get your appetite going for lunch and check out the videos from the two downtown finalists (and all the rest) after the jump.

Read more »

The finalists for the Vendy Cup at this Saturday’s 2011 Vendy Awards were announced this morning, and it turns out that two of the seven nominated are downtown lunches. Souvlaki GR, which has become a mainstay at Old Slip, and Sam’s Falafel, home of a gigantic and dirt cheap vegetarian platter, are both nominated for the award that will be handed out on Governor’s Island. Stop by for lunch today and congratulate them, and maybe get a little food while you’re there.

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.)

Downtown at Liberty park you can find a pretty nice selection of fancy food for lunch these days. Meridith’s Bread has a stand where you can buy a $7 quiche.  Red Jacket Orchards and Migliorelli’s Farm both have plenty of good looking food as well. But when you want your lunch to be less than a gallon of gas (who would have thought we’d ever say that?) try Sam’s falafel. When I checked it out earlier this week the line was about 8 people deep. Everyone on line who had eaten there before said it was the best they’d had downtown, so I knew I had to wait it out. The line went surprisingly fast thanks to owner Yasser’s 3 man assembly line (although his name isn’t Sam he says people call him that and he likes it.)  Read more »