Pulled pork sandwich from Mooncake

Midtown South sucks! There I said it. Its not really Midtown and its not Chelsea, what is it then?! I go on Menupages a lot always looking for lunch spots. Midtown South has its advantages its close enough to Chelsea and Ktown. When you click, in menupages, the link to Chelsea/Midtown South most of the food spots are in Chelsea. Sometimes, actually most of the time, I don’t feel like walking 10 blocks for lunch and sometimes I’m too lazy to walk over to Ktown. There are tons of food blog coverage for Chelsea and Midtown, like Midtown Lunch but what about Midtown South? Hm..? So here is my list of food places to try if you’re in the area. AND if you have any other places that I should try please let me know! Thanks!
Click to continue for the food porn

When my sister was living in NYC a few summers ago we had lunch at Cafe Spice on University place. I don’t remember much about the meal except that we got the naan sampler along with the food, and it was a ton of bread for two people to eat.

And so when I found myself in the vicinity, looking for lunch, I thought of Cafe Spice. Their lunch menu is pretty extensive, and for $10 I got the South Indian special platter: dosas, vegetarian uttapam, and idli. The idli may have been my favorite — delicate little steamed cakes, made with rice flour and lentil flour. I have been really digging lentil-based breads lately; their slightly sour flavor really lends something special to the food. I know there are better, more authentic Indian restaurants throughout the city, but Cafe Spice is a pretty good spot for a huge lunch.

Cafe Spice — 72 University Place

photo by ah ming

So I have started to ask my friend to take photos of her lunch at her work cafeteria. Is that a little insane? Hmm….nah not when the first time my friend told me that her work caferteria was serving crab cake sandwiches for lunch. She also seem to love the cafeteria a lot. I would if the cafeteria grills the chicken for the chicken caesar salad(photo above) right in front of you!! Oh how I wish my work place has a cafeteria…..stupid…work…place. My friend also told me that all her coworkers go crazy over this caesar salad.

I used to live in the area and never once did I think to myself, “oh I want to try this place”. From what you can see just by passing by it was just another deli. You know? There was no reason for me to go in and expect anything more. Of course I was totally wrong, like most times. I think I was chatting with a friend about cheap Mexican food and she told me how good and wonderful Fast and Fresh Deli is. “They also have an outdoor patio area!” she said it with much enthusiasm, my friend loves that kind of stuff. Of course right after that I did a quick search on this place and found bunch of reviews all positive. One reviewer wrote about how good their tortas are and that just made me super excited to go, I love tortas!!! It’s obvious I’m going to compare this to Tacos Nuevos Mexico over in the Slopes.
My friend and I walked in and put in our orders. The place was pretty empty besides 2 people out in the patio area. The cook looked busy as he was preparing a big order. My friend got a chicken burrito with jalapenos and I went for the carnitas torta which comes with lettuce, tomato, mayo, beans, avocado, jalapeno, onions and cheese oh my. While I patiently waited for my tortas I looked at the menu more closely and noticed a Pastor torta. Pastor is a grilled spicy pork with pineapple, I definitely am interested just to see how it taste like. Finally we got our food and took it outside to the back patio area. It was such a nice day to be outside with food and be lazy. The torta was cut in half so I opened it up and saw the strings of cheese…ooohhhhh. I took a big bite and quickly felt in love with this sandwich and this tiny deli. It was sooooo good (I’m craving for one right now as I type this). The big question is, is this version better than the version at Tacos Nuevos Mexico? It’s very hard to decide as both are amazing sandwiches. The torta bread at Tacos Nuevos is definitely the winner, it’s fluffy and reminded me of potato buns which I LOVE. The bread at Fast and Fresh is slightly toasted to give the sandwich a nice crispy texture. The torta at Tacos Nuevos was perfectly constructed meaning there was no sandwich slippage. It was so perfectly put together I was able to eat it with one hand. As for the torta at Fast and Fresh it looked like it was homemade. Chunks of avocado, carnitas, tomatoes etc kept falling out of the sandwich. Not saying it’s a bad thing it just felt more personal, if that makes sense. Anyways, both are incredible sandwiches, both places are no where near where I currently live, Fast and Fresh closes at 6pm and has a backyard patio, Tacos Nuevos Mexico is near bars that I like on 5th Ave and is open super late. Go try both!

*note their awning and menu say Fast & Fresh Burrito Deli while the sign inside their store says Fast & Fresh Deli.

- Fast and Fresh Burrito Deli 84 Hoyt St, Boerum Hill Brooklyn

Soy sauce eggs at Lu’s Garden

Took a quick trip back home to LA last Friday. This was definitely a food trip, I mean it was nice to hang out with my family and my adorable niece but food was in my mind. Sadly I didn’t get to eat an In-N-Out burger nor the 7 course beef, next time I guess.

Click to continue the adventure…

Cafe Zaiya is a one-stop place for many Japanese goodies, especially the one in Midtown (there’s also one in the East Village) because you can also find Beard Papa there. I don’t go there as often as I want to because it’s a bit of a walk from work. During lunch time the place is packed and chaotic! No matter where you stand you’ll be in someone’s way and standing you will. There are just so many choices so many decisions to make about what to eat you will be standing there quite a while. Everything looks so good I just want to eat the entire store every time I go there but must always save room for beard papa!! I love bread, rice, bento boxes, sweets and Cafe Zaiya has all of them and more.

The most recent trip I got a jumbo chicken sandwich(wasn’t that jumbo compare to the other chicken sandwiches), curry pan(curry sauce stuffed inside bread then deep fried), and a cream puff. Bad thing about getting a sandwich with a piece of deep fried chicken, the once crispy outside is now soggy. Besides that the sandwich was quite delicious, the bread nice and chewy. Jumbo it was, I was pretty full after that but on to the next. The curry pan was quite oily and a bit of trouble to eat it without getting oily fingers and little bits of stuff all over the desk. I had been craving for curry so this really hit the spot, unlike the bland curry katsu I got at a Korean place. What can I say about the cream puff??? It was gooooooooood and probably a bad idea to not had digested the other food first.

Yeah I plan to go back and try the rest of the sandwiches then move onto the bento boxes. So much stuff to try….*sigh

- Cafe Zaiya – 18 E. 41st St

- Posted by Donny