Midtown Lunch

As is customary here on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we’ll profile a different lunch’er and get their recommendations for places to eat in Downtown NYC. This week, we have Roman who works in the World Financial Center and is rightfully excited about the recent food truck love over that way.

Name:  Roman Urbanowicz

Occupation: IT project manager

Where you work: 1 World Financial Center (West & Liberty streets)

Age: 39

Favorite kinds of food: BBQ, fleur de sel caramels, sugary kid’s cereals.

Least favorite foods: Brussels sprouts, tripe, head cheese.

Favorite lunches downtown: Tajin on Greenwich (at Rector) for enchiladas mole; Taim Mobile for a falafel sandwich (loaded) & ginger mint lemonade; Fatty Snack kiosk outside the WFC for heritage pork ribs, black eye pea salad & lemongrass ginger iced tea.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: Shake Shack  on Murray St. (btw. West & N. End Ave.). Damn you double Shack burger & black and white shake.

Places downtown you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch: Downtown: The beloved arrival of the World Financial Center food truck court!

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If you’ve worked in the Financial District, chances are you’ve heard of Alfanoose on Maiden Lane (btw. Broadway & Nassau). It’s something of an institution in that it’s been there since 1999 and at some point earned recognition for having some of the best falafel in the city. I am not really into their falafel which is in a long cylinder rather than the usual orb, offing the ratio of fluffy inside to crust, and is a couple of dollars more than you’re going to pay at any street cart.

That was the only sandwich I’d eaten there, but then a couple of weeks ago Lunch’er Deep once again recommended the kafta kebab sandwich tweaked to include fried onions. Ground lamb and beef cooked over charcoal sounded pretty great, but would it redeem Alfanoose?

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Prosciutto and cheese in a handy fried ball, courtesy of Eating in Translation.

• The Mexican/Japanese food hybrid at Taka Taka is “hard to describe.” [Lunch Studio]
• A look at the prosciutto rice balls at Prince St. Pizza. [Eating in Translation]
• Joe’s Ginger does a respectable soup dumpling. [Feisty Foodie]
• In a battle of McChicken products, everybody loses. [FitR]
• In case you missed it, the Gray Lady stars Shake Shack. [NY Times]
• Rosario’s eggplant slice is “notably great.” [Serious Eats NY]

Sad news on the Caribbean chain restaurant front: The last location of Golden Krust below 14th St. has closed. When I walked past the former purveyor of meat patties and cheap lunches on Nassau St. (btw. John & Fulton), the sign above was hanging in the window informing us that the nearest remaining locations are either in midtown or near Union Square. You may remember the Tribeca location on Church St. quietly closed a year ago. Thankfully we still have non-chain sources of Caribbean food at Veronica’s Kitchen, R. Retha’s and the Trinidad & Tobago carts.

I’d been aware that Di Palo’s Fine Foods on Grand St. in Little Italy sold porchetta, but it wasn’t until I happened to stop in that I learned the exciting information that they will make it into a sandwich for you. The place primarily traffics in Italian meats and cheeses with a sideline in prepared foods, pasta and other imported goods. The day I was there they hadn’t made the porchetta because of something about a meat shipment, but I was informed by the nice guy working the counter that they would not only have it the next day but he would make me a sandwich out of it. The next day come lunch time, I was on my way there faster than you can say “pork sandwich.”

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