4:00pm turkish delight

I'm guessing you did not expect my weekend leftovers to contain something so foreign. No doubt it's a bit strange to bring Turkish delights to a Lunar New Year party but sweets are sweets are sweet.

pork and shrimp noodle stir fry

We had so many leftovers from a Lunar New Year party this past weekend that I'm practically in tears, begging people to please take some. I've now had this stir fry noodle dish for lunch on Saturday, dinner on Sunday and lunch again today. Good thing it's such a straightforward, sustenance giving kind of dish.

4:00pm donut

Friday mornings a box of Balthazar Bakery breakfast pastries can often be found on the kitchen table, welcoming everyone to the end of the week. What's rare is that a sugar donut will last until dessert time. Lucky me one survived, and I snagged it before anyone else could.
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St, NY, NY 10012 (near Crosby)

Salumeria Rosi

I guess the price for saying "make me something wonderful" is whatever price they tell you. So even though my lunch was quite yummy, Salumeria Rosi charged a hefty $12.52 for this light and perfectly-made something wonderful. I can't quite decide if it was worth it or not, the meal left me happily satiated but my wallet a little bereft.
Salmueria Rosi, 283 Amsterdam Ave, NY, NY 10023 (btwn 73rd and 74th)

4:00pm lemon pound cake

I love that no matter how long Ceci-Cela has been around and no matter how beloved they are by the neighborhood, they continue to change and experiment with their selection of pastries. Lately mini pound cakes have been added to the display cases, and so we venture into the lemon today. Not bad although a bit too sweet and not enough tart lemon for our personal preferences.  
Ceci Cela Patisserie, 55 Spring St, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Lafayette and Mulberry)

Lovely Day

Every time we go to Lovely Day we fully expect a long lunch, and every time they completely surpass our expectations by making it an even longer lunch than we could have possibly imagined. Still, we return. The atmosphere is cozy and we're in love with the ginger fried chicken. I was shocked when M. daringly tried the curry noodles today, sadly she was not overly impressed.
Lovely Day, 196 Elizabeth St., New York, NY 10012 btwn Prince & Spring

4:00pm apple cake

I had a handful of apples getting too soft from my basis fruit delivery and rather than throw them out I thought I would whip up this German apple cake, or versunkener apfelkuchen, that I had once (rather successfully so I thought) made for Rosh Hashanah. But oops I only had 1 stick of butter and 5 apples, not quite the full amount required by the recipe. No matter, I halved everything and threw it in a round cake pan instead of a bundt pan and presto! Actually I wasn't really sure it would be that good, but it turned out surprisingly nice.

Jup She

We're not lacking much here in terms of lunch options, one of the reasons we carry on so, but the one nationality of which we have a definite dearth is Korean. It's also why we end up at Jup She so often. We can't always be jaunting up to Ktown and when the weather is slushy, wet and gross, it's easier to walk two blocks for a steamy hot meal, even if it's not the best in town. If there was even one other Korean option nearby our world of happiness might nearly be complete. Ok, and  a good ramen joint less than 15 minutes walking would be cool too. 
Jup She, 171 Grand St, NY, NY 10013 (at Baxter)

4:00pm birthday cupcakes

Today instead of the usual office birthday cake, Kristina was kind enough to bake the lactose intolerant birthday girl some amazing vegan birthday cupcakes.  We were all in awe of how delicious and how un-vegan the cupcakes were.  In front you see the Churro Cupcakes: (donut cupcake, filled with chocolate pudding, topped with vanilla cinnamon frosting) and behind the Toasted Coconut Cupcakes: (chocolate coconut cupcake with coconut frosting and toasted coconut).  Both mighty tasty, though if we had to choose, we both agreed on preferring the coconut ones.  But this is purely a matter of personal preference.  Happy Birthday Karen!!!

Noodle Village

We are on a roll! Another happiness inducing lunch, thanks to Bionic Bites and her Noodle Village recommendation. It's hard to parse through all the myriad of Chinatown options so when a trusted source makes a recommendation, we listen. We had two bowls of the duet noodle soup so we could try the shrimp wonton, the shrimp dumplings, the fish cake and the fish ball. We both preferred the dumplings to wonton and fish cake to ball, but only marginally so. The broth is light and the egg noodles perfectly cooked. If I had a complaint, it would be only that the amount of broth is a bit skimpy. I clearly didn't read Bionic Bites' review to the end or we would have tried the deep fried fish skin too.
Noodle Village, 13 Mott St, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Mosco St and Chatham Sq)

4:00pm donut

It seems inconceivable that an afternoon donut from Bouchon Bakery isn't fresh, I mean can you imagine TK allowing donuts to sit over night? So even if it were made fresh in the morning, by the early afternoon the distinctive homemade taste of not-fresh oil had sank into each bite. Alas for us.
Bouchon Bakery, 10 Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10019 (in the Time Warner Center)

La Nueva Conquista

If you had been at La Nueva Conquista a little before 1pm this afternoon, you would have seen M. and I doing our happy dance. We went for the usual and delicious roast pork over rice but fell instantly in love with a tray of stuffed peppers. We were amply rewarded for the change in routine. These stuffed peppers were quite possible the most you could hope for in a stuffed pepper. Perfect in every way, including the $8 price tag for an enormous container of food. Considering we often split oversize meals like this, that's $4 each that we paid today for an incredible amount of soul satisfying happiness.
La Nueva Conquista, 236 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10012 (above Spring)

4:00pm snickerdoodles

Billy's Bakery is no slouch in the dessert baking arena but they're simply not our style, too much saccharine style sugar for our daily consumption.  I did think long and hard about something we might enjoy there since I walk by often enough on my way back from job site meetings and I think I have succeeded in the form of these snicker doodle cookies.
Billy's Bakery, 75 Franklin St, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Chambers & Broadway)

Food Gallery 32, with Gordon and BB

We met Gordon at the new Koreatown food court, Food Gallery 32, where we ran into another fellow food blogger, Bionic Bites. As with all food blogging lunches, we spend at least the first half hour discussing recent memorable meals, dishes or restaurants. Strange ordering system aside, I think we enjoyed our lunches just enough for a food court. The variety is tremendous and overwhelming, we would have to go back alot to begin to even remotely understand what's good there. All in all nothing spectacular but the company more than made up for that today.
Food Gallery 32, 11 West 32nd St, NY, NY (btwn 5th and 6th Ave)

4:00pm chocolate chip and coconut cookie

Too hilariously, and waaaay too late, I just realized I did very wrong, very basic math. Our Lunch Manifesto was published on the GOOD site yesterday with a little tagline that we have been doing this for 3 years. Only today I realized we started in 2007, so that's been 4 years. Yes. Too funny. And now you know why we write about food and not mathematics.
The Village Tart may be no more but at least we can occasionally make our way up to Pichet Ong's dessert bar, Spot, for some of his delicious ability to combine uncommonly paired ingredients like chocolate chip and coconut.
Spot, 13 St. Marks Pl, NY, NY 10003 (closer to 3rd Ave)

Parisi Bakery

 One of the things I love about the world is that Torrisi and Parisi can peacefully and (hopefully) profitably co-exist in the same moment. Torrisi is more of the artisan newcomer, making classic Italian-American hoagies with thoughtful panache. But ah old school Parisi is mom and pop at its best. The same family has been making generously sized heros for over a century, they know everyone and say hi to all. And judging from the wait today, Parisi is as busy as it ever was. I walked out with a dopey grin, thinking how pleased I was that we live in a world that so strongly supports both change and tradition.
Parisi Bakery, 198 Mott St, NY NY 10012 (btwn Spring & Broome)

The Stage

128 Second Ave, NY, NY 10003

Rating: 1 - Wonderful
Visit #: 7
In brief: This narrow little Ukranian diner is the greatest source of comfort and happiness. We die for the meatloaf platter, the pierogi, the kielbasa, chicken soup and the same friendly faces behind the counter.


Everything about The Stage is warm and comforting, not just the food but the atmosphere, the two guys and one waitress behind the counter. We haven't been in ages but they still remember us enough to say hi haven't seen you in ages. I was practically drooling in anticipation as we walked over, and once there, we immediately ordered our usual: 2 cups of chicken noodle soup, 1 plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and mushroom gravy to share. After yesterday's meal, we're on a roll of two divinely inspirational lunches in a row. Where to tomorrow? The pressure's on!
Stage Restaurant, 128 Second Ave, NY, NY 10003 (btwn 7th and 8th Sts)

affogato and more

We were so busy yesterday finalizing our Lunch Manifesto that I didn't get a chance to post up a dessert photo from Maialino. Probably not meant to be shared by 4 people, the small affogato serving was, as Serious Eats asserts - well proportioned between velvety sweet gelato and dark espresso. The tartufo, on the other hand, was enormous and should only be shared. I also include a photo of the Spaghetti alle Vongole (spaghetti and clams) for your food porn pleasure.
Maialino, 2 Lexington Ave, NY, NY 10010 (at 21st St)

A Lunch Manifesto

And now for a little divergence.

We're nearing our 3 4 year anniversary of LUNCH - that's almost 2000 posts, over 330 different lunch spots and more than 2 dozen different food ethnicities eagerly consumed. When Nicole Twilley, the new Food Editor at GOOD, asked us to contribute to this week of thoughts on food writing, Food for Thinkers, we thought there could be no better time to explain why we, two architects, decided to chronicle our every lunch and dessert. We’ll call it the Lunch Manifesto.

A drained brain needs nourishment.
It begins with a physical remove from the workday surroundings. A recent New York Times article suggests that the brain is better able to retain information when the context in which you learn is varied. Changes in the physical environment enrich the brain's ability to make associations with new pieces of information. As sitting at a desk facing a computer drains the brain, leaving the office everyday for lunch gives the mind a break while recharging its capacity for retention.

Not only does removing the physical self from the office for lunch encourage the brain to switch modes, it also provides a break for the body. Getting up from a desk, walking outside and breathing fresh air may be the only opportunity in a typical work day to engage in mild physical activity. Don’t underestimate the mental and physical benefits a brisk 10 minute walk or a longer stroll can bring.

In a work day that is filled with routine, taking a break for lunch might provide the only moment of creative divergence. Sometimes it doesn’t matter where you go or what you eat, only that you leave the office to do so.

Lunch is a great opportunity to meet new people or for the exchange of ideas. It provides fodder for conversation, when the senses are fully engaged in the food before you, it frees the mind. There is a reason people naturally congregate around kitchens at parties.

Eating lunch is a right we should all demand.
Ultimately refueling the body and intellect are just side benefits for the true raison d’etre of having lunch every day. The real reason we have lunch every day boils down to the fact that we love the physical act of eating. Eating is a visceral experience. Enjoying food need not be an intellectual activity; it can be an instinctual act with pleasure to be found in the cheapest of street carts to the most refined restaurants. Devouring, contemplating, ruminating and purely enjoying what you eat is an undertaking that should be freely and daily exercised. It is not necessary to restrict lunches to the same lame salad from the corner deli. A mindless lunch means you are not feeding your mind enough inspiration.

Enjoying local flavor is the mark of a responsible citizen.
Globalization is making our world a smaller place, everything can be found anywhere and if you can’t find it there, it can be found over the internet. Food remains one of the few lingering things that possess a mark of a place. Whether its local ingredients, the hardness of the water, the history of its inhabitants or their cultural preferences evolving over time, making food is very much tied to the place where it is being created. Spaghetti with tomato sauce in Ethiopia can never be replicated anywhere. The preparation of a meal is still local, its enjoyment very much localized. That experience and satisfaction cannot be duplicated.

Lunch = good.
Leaving the office to have lunch every day will not only increase productivity in the work place, it can bring unfettered happiness to your day. It’s possible that in a day filled with the typical automations of work, experiencing a satisfying lunch might be the only moment of pleasure.

The mindfulness of eating food.
Prior to blogging, we had always taken the time out for lunch, but now we’re sharing our meals with the public. We’ve always believed, and continue to believe, that lunch is an essential part of our work day, and we want to encourage everyone to feel this way too. It’s possible that everyone making more concerted efforts to leave their desks for lunch would leave to a more productive world, and one with a better competitive edge. At the very least, it would lead to a happier world. Taking that break between morning and afternoon nurtures our entire selves, and not just the part that goes to work every day.

At the end of it all, we're actually not writing about food or even critiquing it, we're sharing the virtues of the mindfulness of eating, the enjoyment of food. There is a much larger picture to this as well. Being conscientious about food leads to a more informed, curious and hungry consumer. Options increase along with a growing awareness of food politics. Where does what we eat come from, who is it prepared by, why is it made this way and what effect does our consumption have on the environment – these are all questions that may result from finding an interest in and caring about the food we consume.

The medium makes the message.
The internet is a wonderful thing in that it allows us an easy and quick medium for disseminating information. Without it, we would still be relishing in our every lunch. With it, we hope you too will find inspiration in the simple act of leaving the office to eat lunch. At the very least, we hope it encourages you to contemplate a little about what it means to eat.

Maialino, with Liz and Peter

We had wanted to try Maialino for awhile now but never made it, so it was with great eagerness we met Liz and Peter there today. It was universally agreed that every single item we ordered was well composed, well appointed and pretty damn tasty to boot. We each had different pastas, there was not a single morsel left on any one's plate. It's a fancy lunch but a supremely good one and anytime you're looking to be treated to a nice meal in a sublimely civilized setting, have your companion take you here.
Maialino, 2 Lexington Ave, NY, NY 10010 (at 21st St)

4:00pm salty caramel apple pie

Yesterday we received this email from our former office mate, Saha: "I'm bringing in a good one tomorrow around 4pm, don't buy anything!" Accordingly, Saha showed up for afternoon dessert bearing this most incredible apple pie from Four & Twenty Blackbirds. We particularly loved the salty portion of the pie, little bits of crunchy saltiness periodically show up in bites of crust and caramelized apples. Divine. We eagerly await another Saha visit.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds, 439 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (at 8th St)

Balboosta

M. was a bit jealous I had ordered the shakshouka, she's such a sucker for lunch dishes with eggs. But the real star of our lunch was the plate of hummus and pita bread. Balboosta's hummus is refined and elegant, a bit like the restaurant itself. We had to order an additional piece of pita to keep munching away at it, but it was well worth the extra buck fifty.
Balaboosta, 214 Mulberry St, NY, NY 10012 (above Spring)

4:00pm chocolate gingersnaps

Whimsy & Spice and everything nice makes these yummy chocolate gingersnaps that we picked up from the Nolita Mart earlier this afternoon. I liked the subtle chocolate aftertaste while M. wished for a little more bite to the ginger portion of the gingersnap, but we both found them a lovely addition to afternoon coffee.
Nolita Mart, 156 Mott St, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Broome and Grand)

Cong Ly

We regularly pop over to Cong Ly for a version of one of my favorite soups of all time, Hủ Tiếu Mỹ Tho (dai). Cong Ly's version has the following ingredients: chewy tapioca noodles, shrimp, thinly sliced pork, 2 pieces of liver, ground pork meat, 1 quail egg, scallions, peanuts and celery. I know! All in one soup! It's amazing that all those individual pieces work together in one coherent soup but they do. And wonderfully so.
Công Lý, 124 Hester St, NY, NY 10002 (btwn Broome & Chrystie)

4:00pm carrot cake

Despite how utterly simple, bordering on boring, this piece of carrot cake looks, it's surprisingly wonderful.  Moist and tasty, all things we adore in carrot cake. It is also quite large so plan on sharing.
McNally Jackson Cafe, 52 Prince St, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Lafayette and Mulberry)

Bar Bossa, with J

It's been ages since we caught up with old school chum, J, but I was reminded of his presence recently in one of those small world moments. Brian, whom I had never met before, invited me to Philly to participate in a design review for his graduate class at U Penn. Afterward, we were talking and he said he knew a guy, who worked at this firm and I thought well I know a guy who works at that 100-person firm too but it couldn't be the same guy. And of course it was. J wanted to come north towards us so we had a cozy Brazilian lunch at the ever chill Bar Bossa.
Bar Bossa, 232 Elizabeth St, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Prince and Houston)

4:00pm nilla wafers

I didn't even know there were such things as dud packages of Nilla Wafers, although it's not entirely unsurprising that things gather dust in the drugstores of our fair city. In 2009, the last time we had Nilla Wafers, we got a bad batch but this time... perfecto!

Wah Kee

You would think a ginormous piece of Chinese style fried chicken over a bed of rice for $4.95 couldn't possibly be all that bad, but sadly my friends, it was. Wah Kee, another one of those generic Chinatown fast food joints, was surprisingly bustling for all it's shabby neon lit interior. We're down with cheap and fast but there are standards to be met and Wah Kee does not satisfy. Our lunch was an outdated concept of what Chinese people think American people think of Chinese food, that is to say waaaay too sweet with no real flavor. Oh well, c'est la vie.
Wah Kee, 150 Centre St, NY, NY 10013 (below Canal)

4:00pm pound cake

It's difficult to make desserts from new recipes, especially when you're the type of person who likes not overly sweet sweets, as we are. Even Cook's Illustrated recipes, that most illustrious of sources, tends to produce desserts just this side of too sweet for us. And this after M. reduced the sugar from 1.5 cups to 1.25 cups! Everything else, though, was pretty perfect.

Office Potluck

Our monthly potlucks are a carefully balanced division of Teams A and B so that no one person would feel the month creeping up on them too quickly. The trouble with smaller groups of contributors, of course, is that when one person unexpectedly cannot make it, the table starts to look a little sparse. It's a good thing it's a go with the flow sort of crowd round here. This sort of infinitely adaptable attitude allows us to quickly assess, adapt and call Nyonya for some stir fry noodle back up. Another successful potluck!

4:00pm gingerbread man cookie

With fears of dropping and breaking Mr. Gingerbread Man, which went unrealized, we trudged carefully on the slippery snow dusted sidewalks of Manhattan this afternoon.
Y thought there was something pasty and weird in the residue texture, I thought it was perfectly tasty. A bit egg-y for a gingerbread cookie, but I'll never complain of too much egg flavor in a sweet.
Ceci Cela Patisserie, 55 Spring St, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Lafayette and Mulberry)

Pulino's, with Harvest

Patrick says Pulino's doesn't normally serve their brunch pizzas with egg for lunch but when you order 10 pizzas at a time maybe they don't mind cracking a few eggs? Earlier today the snow was coming down thick and fast and it was altogether too easy to say yes in response to the question "want to join us for lunch because we are ordering in and not going out into the wet snow"? Everyone agreed the pizza with egg, sausage and potato tasted precisely like breakfast, albeit in the form of a pizza. Success then I would say.
Pulino's, 282 Bowery, NY, NY 10012 (at Houston)

Central Buffet

Sometimes you get a winner at Central Buffet. Many of their dishes are on rotation, so you never really know what they'll that day, or how fresh it will be. As you may have guessed, I happened upon a winner today; everything tasted pretty fresh and i spotted meatballs that weren't covered in the usual cornstarch goop, which turned out to be rather tasty, almost like a carnivorous falafel, in fact. The fried egg was also not too cooked so the yolk while cooked through still had a nice soft-ish texture. I call this a good use of your $4.
Central Buffet, 195 Centre Street, NY, NY 10013 (btwn Howard and Hester)

4:00pm candies

Too lazy to step outside today, and why would I when there's a bunch of candies staring at me from the kitchen table? Lollipops from Puerto Rico and chocolates (a cherry cordial a truffle format Junior Mint) from who knows where.

Congee Bowery

Congee is all around good food anytime, but especially when you are feeling out of sorts, under the weather, and low on the appetite. Comforting, and just salty enough, it somehow goes down no matter what. For those of you who have never tried it, go - go get it now. I won't forget to mention that at $3.95, it doesn't break the bank either.
Congee Bowery, 207 Bowery, NY, NY 10012 (btwn Rivington & Spring)

4:00pm chocolate banana pudding

Just a few doors down (or west) of today's lunch is Spot, a dessert restaurant which pastry chef Pichet Ong is behind. Since the closing of our beloved Village Tart, we no longer enjoy chef Ong's creations in any frequency. While not being a chocolate lover, something made me reach for the chocolate banana pudding (perhaps this article). While some may swoon over this, I'm kind of kicking myself for not getting the Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu instead.
Spot Dessert Bar, 13 St. Marks Place, NY, NY 10003 (btwn 3rd & 2nd Ave)

Baoguette Cafe

Errands leave me near St. Marks Place, and wanting to find a quick lunch I spot Baoguette Cafe. Surprisingly enough, I haven't tried any locations of this chain, nor the somewhat hyped spicy catfish sandwich. It was a nice sandwich, where all the ingredients (tumeric roasted vietnamese catfish, cucumber relish, pickled red onions, honey mustard aioli and jalapeño) were distinctly noted and came together very well. One big compaint, which could have been my fault for not being able to eat it immediately was the bit too soggy bread.
Baoguette Cafe, 37 St. Marks Place, NY, NY 10003 (btwn 3rd & 2nd Ave)

4:00pm fruit turnover

My only rational for choosing the fruit turnover over the rather delicious looking carrot cake and cream cheese frosting at Grandaisy was the anticipation of reheating it in our toaster oven back at the office. An anticipation well met.
Grandaisy, 250 West Broadway, NY, NY 10013 (at Beach St)

Salume

Sometimes it really does take us a long time to cycle back, even with the best intentions, it's taken us a full 6 months to head back to Salume. Shameless I know, especially when we're such fans of their carefully crafted panini. We are happy to note the change in bread length/width ratio has brought about a better alignment of size to price. And while it's still not a cheap lunch, it's become a much better valued one. Irrespective of conversations about size and value, the truth remains that the panini at Salume are simply delicious, putting all other claims of "panini" to shame.
Salume, 330 West Broadway, NY, NY 10013 (south of Grand St)