4:00pm Eclairs with John

Nothing nicer than a visit from John bearing sweets and coffee in the last hours before closing up the office for the long weekend.
Cafe Angelique, 68 Bleecker Street btwn Crosby and Broadway

Soho Park

Neither fast nor cheap, at least Soho Park was conveniently on the way back to the office from the garage. Which, given the nothing specialness of the food, is just about the bare minimum requirement being met this lunch day before the holiday weekend. The picture reminds me of this one, but clearly today's setting does not compare with this.
Soho Park, 62 Prince Street at Lafayette

4:00pm Vanilla-Lemon Cupcake

Well worth the frustrating service at Dean & Deluca, the cupcakes made by Sage American Kitchen are consistently delicious. From today's vanilla-lemon with a dash of spring green to the red velvet we picked up in May, every bite is a yummy one. Today's is particularly fresh and fluffy. If we lived in Long Island City, we wouldn't be able to stay away.

Dean & Deluca, 560 Broadway at Prince
Sage American Kitchen, 26-21 Jackson Avenue in LIC

Nyonya, last lunch with Thu

The dark photo does no justice to our last lunch of the summer with Thu before she heads back to school. When will September stop reminding us of freshly sharpened pencils and new notebooks?
Nyonya is perfect for family style ordering, we can all have a bit of our favorite dishes: puff shrimp balls wrapped in bacon, the house special crab and crispy golden fried squids.
Nyonya, 194 Grand Street btwn Mulberry and Mott

4:00pm Shortbread Cookie

For no particular reason, shortbread cookies are not high on our list of dessert choices. Accordingly, these from the local source down the street were just ok. Definitely made better with an espresso from Francis! Francis!
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Aroma Espresso Bar, with K. Cooper and Maggie

Aroma is a nice place to go for your straight-up basic sandwich or salad lunch. The soft and squishy bread is above average, the salads are just fine. It's also a good place to go when you're meeting a new friend, like K. Cooper of Hoping for Happy Accidents fame, or running into old acquaintances, like Thu's editor David, or last minute arranging to meet a longtime friend like Maggie.
Aroma Espresso Bar, 160 Wooster Street on Houston

4:00pm Plum Galette

Run out and pick up a plum galette from Balthazar before summer is over and we're back to apple tarts and pumpkin pies.
Balthazar, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Rice, with Thu

Rice must be doing something right. With 4 locations and a constant flow of diners, the new Elizabeth Street location is just north of Nolita. We've always found the pan-asian menu to be fairly unremarkable, decent for lunch, but nothing special. Like Cafe Colonial, the appeal lies elsewhere than the food itself. For Rice it could be the ability to choose from diverse entree options coupled with half a dozen rice choices. Everyone gets what they want.
Rice, 292 Elizabeth Street above Houston

4:00pm Madeleines

Two love birds nestled in a rice bowl, overlooking Spring, the madeleines await eating.
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Cafe Colonial, with Toshi

One of the unexpectedly fun aspects of lunch blogging is that we have an excuse to call people out of the blue for a meal together. Toshi is a classmate from school working on this great project around the corner from us. He showed us the lobby, where all manner of trades are busily building to meet the December opening. Afterwards we wandered over to Cafe Colonial to catch up with an old friend, in a relaxed atmosphere, over unremarkable cafe food.
Cafe Colonial, 276 Elizabeth Street at Houston

4:00pm Mini Lemon Bundt Cake

First daily lunches, then daily desserts and now Daily News.
Cucina & Co., 30 Rockefeller Plaza at the Concourse Level

Parisi Bakery, with Thu

It's been awhile since sandwiches in the park, a favorite FS summer pastime. Thu came to meet us so we could all share in the monster hoagies from Parisi Bakery. While we haven't tried everything, the mortadella, roasted red peppers and mozzarella combination is one of the best. Especially today since their bread was super fresh. Next up for sandwiches, Melampo (now Aliodoro). According to some readers, the best sandwiches in the city.
Parisi Bakery, 198 Mott Street bwtn Spring and Kenmare

4:00pm Cookies

Two days in a row for Hampton Chutney cookies, I think we have a new addiction. We replaced yesterday's chocolate chip with oatmeal raisin and are feeling pretty happy about the selection.
Hampton Chutney, 68 Prince Street btwn Crosby and Lafayette

Ed's Lobster Bar, with Iridesco 5.5

The real reason we met at Ed's Lobster Bar for lunch today is the lemonade, recently ranked #2 by NY Mag. It's impossible for us to ignore a descriptor like "perfectly balanced".
The secondary but no less important reason was to share a meal with our lunch mates, the Iridesco boys and the lovely lady of 5-1/2. We've already tried the lobster roll and bibb salad (delicious!) so we moved on to the caesar salad while Judy tested the clam chowder and house smoked trout salad. So far we have been extremely pleased with everything we've eaten here, including the lemonade.

P.S. Thank you Danny for saving lunch with photos from iphone!
Ed's Lobster Bar, 222 Lafayette Street btwn Spring and Kenmare

4:00pm Cookies

What fortunate timing this late afternoon. Someone at Hampton Chutney must have just brought out a fresh batch of cookies because the chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies we are munching on this very moment are REALLY GOOD today.
Hampton Chutney, 68 Prince Street btwn Crosby and Lafayette

Hiroko's Place, with Ray, Thu and Kim

We had a full crowd at lunch today, but nothing Hiroko's Place can't handle. Gray days often provoke yearnings for the comfort of rice, there must be something about comfort food on dreary days that is reassuring. Ray opted for curry with rice, Thu and Kim chose omuraisu (omelet of rice and ketchup) while we picked the hamburg, served with rice, a green salad, potato salad and a fried egg. Definitely good bang for the buck.
Hiroko's Place, 75 Thompson Street btwn Spring and Broome

4:00pm Plum Tart

Plum desserts are unusual enough that this luscious tart easily caught our eye earlier today. It's more like fruit with a side of pie shell, but still a cheery afternoon treat.
Once Upon a Tart, 135 Sullivan Street btwn Prince and Houston

Once Upon a Tart

It's pretty ridiculous to go clear across the neighborhood on a cold rainy afternoon for a sandwich, but when it's the loin of pork sandwich with rosemary aioli from Once Upon a Tart, it's worth the walk. The damp day is no deterrent for the intrepid pursuer of deliciousness, and happily their pork sandwich just gets better with every eating.
Once Upon a Tart, 135 Sullivan Street btwn Prince and Houston

4:00pm Chocolate Chip Cookie

Unfortunately 1.5 days in a bag from The Model Bakery in St. Helena, CA to our office in New York City resulted in a chewy (nice!) but slightly stale (not so nice) chocolate chip cookie.
The Model Bakery, 1357 Main Street in St. Helena, CA

Menkui-tei

Inspired both by a friend's link to Time Out's ramen primer and by the chilly gray weather, we ventured 4 minutes beyond our normal 10 minute walking range to Menkui-tei. It's the closest source for ramen to the office that we know of and 4 minutes seems like a small sacrifice to make for a piping hot bowl of ramen.
Menkui-tei, 63 Cooper Square near Astor Place

4:00pm Chocholate Chip and Walnut Cookie

We indulged in the pre-packaged smaller version of this cookie last week. Perhaps it's the freshness, the larger version surpasses in flavor. The walnut more walnutty, the chocolate more bitter and dense.

Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Banh Mi So 1

Yet another afternoon where a quick and tasty lunch was a necessity.

The sandwiches are very reliable here. The #4 pork roll sandwich is a lighter tasting alternative to the popular #1.

Banh Mi So, Kenmare btwn Mott and Elizabeth

4:00pm Doughnut Plant

Today's dessert comes courtesy of my morning meeting. Bottled water is always supplied, but this morning one of the reps from Boston brought the project team a little treat.
This one looks to have bits of walnuts - the glaze has a slight burnt sugar taste. The only downside to their doughnuts; they need to be eaten so fresh, or else they are nowhere as good.

Doughnut Plant, 379 Grand Street near Essex Street

Balthazar

A quickie lunch today from an old standby, Balthazar, but with a new twist for us. Danny suggested the curry chicken and since we always take his suggestions seriously, we tried it out. And... it's good! As promised by Danny and confirmed by us.
Balthazar, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

4:00pm Korean Donut

Ever since we had the glutinous donuts from Paris Bakery, we've been craving another taste. You would think all things Korean could be found in Koreatown but neither magazines nor glutinous donuts were to be had today. Instead we had a so-so twist donut with a dusting of some unknown substance (rice powder? flour? flake something?) from Koryodang Bakery.
Koryodang Bakery, 31 West 32nd Street near Broadway

Gahm Mi Oak

If you do a google search for "Sul Long Tang", Korea's nonpareil beef brisket, rice and noodle soup, Gahm Mi Oak shows up 9 times on the first page. It's one of our menu items of choice at this K-town restaurant. Our search for a Korean magazine in Koreatown was futile but the trip was not a complete waste since the search ended in kimchi. With an ending like that, no one could remain dissatisfied for long.
Gahm Mi Oak, 43 West 32nd Street near Broadway

4:00pm Donuts

In gambling a useful rule of thumb is baseball's 3 strikes you're out rule. If you lose three hands in a row, it's a good time to get up from the table. Same goes for food, we'll try something 3 times before giving up entirely. The past 2 times we picked up donuts from Jimmy's Coffee Shop on the ground floor of the Lincoln Building we were bitterly disappointed. But today salvation! I guess it means we'll have to keep looking for excuses to go up to Grand Central.
Jimmy's Coffee Shop, 60 East 42nd Street

Thai Angel

Thai Angel has a kind of fancy website for such an unassuming place. It's perpetually on our list of fast, easy and relatively inexpensive lunch options when there is no time for leisure. Both the pad thai and massaman curry are unremarkable but nicely edible.
Thai Angel, 141 Grand Street near Lafayette

4:00pm Donut

Deelicious! A perennial New York City donut lovers choice, the Donut Pub has been around for far longer than this current rash of Dunkin Donuts. On our way to Harlem this morning we swung by to arm ourselves adequately for the long day ahead. Little did we know they would last until well into the afternoon, almost as good as when the day began.
Donut Pub, 203 West 14th Street at 7th Avenue

sandwiches in Harlem, lunch with Cameron

We're on a photoshoot in Harlem today, so this will be our first remote blog post. We're taking a break from what will be a day long event for an entirely satisfying lunch of sandwiches from Margot Cafe, courtesy of our client. Our photographer, Cameron, is new to NYC but not to us, which makes spending the day together a pleasurable thing.

4:00pm Black and White Chocolate Cake

A little known source for our afternoon desserts is Miro Cafe, one of those customizable salad and sandwich places popular with the working crowd. They have two locations but the one above Prince has the better selection of sweets.
Miro Cafe, 594 Broadway btwn Prince and Houston

Eastanah

The operating word today is LAZINESS. The weather is yucky, cold and wet so what better meal than comfort food in the form of piping hot wanton soup and chinese sausage fried rice? For that we turn to the reliability of Eastanah's lunch specials. $6 buys you enough food for lunch today and leftovers tomorrow.
Eastanah, 212 Lafayette Street at Kenmare

4:00pm Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie

I don't know if we've ever mentioned how nice these chocolate chip walnut cookies are from Balthazar Bakery. They're small and can be eaten in a couple bites. The chocolate is dark and intense, livened by the crunch of walnuts. A good afternoon snack.
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Cafe el Portal

We left the office looking for the newly relocated Rice but ehem forgot to bring the address. Which wasn't a bad thing since Cafe el Portal is a great lunch spot on summer days, especially for the cucumber juice. Tried the tacos for the first time, and found them pretty good! Similar to Calexico if you need a point of reference.
Cafe El Portal, 174 Elizabeth Street below Spring

4:00pm Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie

It's a good thing there are so many worthy dessert options nearby, what with the crazy transit delays today we could have been subject to a dessert-free afternoon!
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring Street near Crosby

Les Halles, lunch with Liz and Peter

Since we were celebrating Liz making partner in her firm, it was only appropriate she got to pick the venue. It's not surprising then that she picked the reliably tasty Brasserie Les Halles across the street from her office. Occasionally we met Liz and Peter over a proper sit down lunch where we exchange gossip, trade secrets and funny stories about life as architects. Les Halles is a good setting for us - escargots, confit de canard and boudin aux pommes accompanying the hilarity.
Brasserie Les Halles, 411 Park Avenue South btwn 28th & 29th

4:00pm Chocolate Cupcake

Wow, surprise delicious-ness from the East Village today. Pinisi Bakery is a tiny little bakery with a sign proclaiming "All Baking Done on Premises", a sign that cannot be ignored. The mini chocolate cupcake looked normal, nothing special, but one bite into it and we knew. Delicious. The cake is moist dark chocolate with a butter cream frosting and a tiny hint of contrasting saltiness.
Pinisi Bakery, 128 East 4th Street near 1st Avenue

Thịt Bò Kho, lunch in the office

As incongruous as it sounds, a well known technique for staying cool in tropical climates like Vietnam is to eat the hottest, spicy food possible. This ensures a good healthy sweat which in turn evaporates, cooling down your body. Although Thịt Bò Kho (Vietnamese beef stew) is more of a winter dish, the lemongrass and star anise coupled with green chilies is enough to work up a mild sweat. Traditionally served with Vietnamese baguettes for breakfast, it can also be eaten with steamed rice to the same effect.

4:00pm Peanut Butter cookie

The cookies from Dean & Deluca are reliably good so we were happily surprised today when the peanut butter cookie turned out better than reliably good.
Dean & Deluca, 560 Broadway at Prince

Bread, lunch with Greg

It's harder than it seems to coordinate lunch with a long time friend who only works three blocks away. Greg had a meeting at 12:30 but then we had something at 1:15 so with a little rearranging, a lot of suggestions on where to go, we finally managed to find ourselves in the same place at the same time. If you go to Bread early enough, you can avoid the crowd and get yourself some of the yummy tomato soup with a pretty decent half panini.
Bread, 20 Spring Street near Mott

4:00pm Financier

And finally, a last image for the week. Given the choice between blueberry, blackberry and raspberry, the girl at Ceci Cela unequivocally chooses blueberry. In her opinion it was the lack of seeds that made all the difference.
Ceci-Cela Patisserie, 55 Spring Street near Lafayette