kosher mid town Manhattan for lunch

I just had a really bad experience at Rosas with personal pies. The guy was not very friendly about making the pizza the way I like it. The thing with Rosas is that a lot of there food looks good, but there is never anything I want to order. They have lots of specialty pizza slices which look kind of appealing and kind of odd. For example, one day this week, they had ceasar salad pizza. Anyway, they were advertising individual brick oven pizzas so I figured I could get a personal pie the way I like it, whole wheat, no veges with light sauce. When I asked the pizza man for it to be done that way, with regular mozarella and not fresh mozarella, he was not very pleased by my request. After the pizza was baked, he added fresh basil which is apparently standard for brick oven pizza. But I don't like basil so I started picking it off. The pizza man saw this, and in an unfriendly voice, asked me why I bothered to order his pizza if I wasn't going to eat it the way it was made. I told him that I had never asked for basil. He said that its just the way the pizza comes. I told him that at Circa, they make me pizza the way I like it. He said that if I liked Circa so much I should just eat there. I told him I would be sure to do so in the future. I took my pizza to my seat and ate it. The crust was thin and burnt and not doughy at all. The pizza had a weird flavor. I either don't like brick oven pizza or just don't like the attitude with which it was made, but I did not enjoy my lunch and I will be returning to my regular Circa routine. Find out more about Circa and Rosas here: http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

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Best Kosher Deli in NYC

I definitely prefer Mendys to Mr Broadway. My non-kosher eating coworkers HATE Mr Broadway and LOVE Mendys. Recently, I went out to eat with a few coworkers. They asked me to choose the restaurant, since I needed a Kosher locale. I always feel a lot of pressure in this situation, because I am spending other people’s money and forcing them to eat certain foods (and NOT eat certain foods). So I try and choose a nice enough restaurant with modest enough prices to keep everyone happy on both counts. This time, I opted for Mendys. The Seinfeld angle (NOT the soup Nazi) gives this place a bit more stature than your typical no-name Kosher restaurant. In that honor, I ordered a soup and half-a-sandwich. I chose the chicken noodle soup (no matzah ball) and pastrami on rye. The soup wasn’t bad, but I wish I had requested no carrots. Why does everyone put so many carrots in chicken soup? I much prefer zucchini, parsnip and other veges. My pastrami sandwich was really good – the pastrami was soft and delicious. I also had a half sour pickle to finish off the meal. More thoughts at http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-27-does-soup-count-as-meal.html

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Clubhouse Cafe revisited

I love the atmosphere there. Its a place you can go to without it feeling overwhelmingly like a Kosher restaurant. Food is pretty good too. I love the sangria!

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NYC STEAK

My favorite steak in the city is the rib eye teriyaki at Abigaels.

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NYC Jerusalem (J2) Broadway Pizza

I think a bit over ten dollars with tax.

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NYC Jerusalem (J2) Broadway Pizza

Thank you! You can read more of my insights on other Kosher lunches at http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

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NYC Jerusalem (J2) Broadway Pizza

Today I had lunch with my cartoonist friend, Steinberg. We went to check out the recently improved J2. J2 used to be a standard pizza store but is now billing itself as a "Gourmet Marketplace". In addition to the regular pizza / salad options, they now have fresh fruit in the front and a buffet- like set up in the back, where you can take different dishes and then pay by the pound. This is awesome for indecisive people like me or commitment phobic people like Steinberg (just kidding). It is also great because it lets you pick exactly what you want to eat. For example, they had mixed roasted vegetables, which I usually avoid since I don't like roasted peppers or eggplant. In this situation though, I was able to pick out JUST the squash and zucchini and eat only that. I also was able to take the cheesiest part of the baked ziti, the exact size of grilled fish fillet that I wanted, exactly 3 pieces of cauliflower tempura, a scoop of grilled sweet potato and one perfect looking strawberry. This came out to about 1.2 lbs. Everything was really good, in a somewhat greasy cafeteria style food kind of way, but it was waaay too much food. Not that I didn't eat it all. Hours later, I am still stuffed. I will definitely be back.
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-34-something-for-everyone.html

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Baguette Express

I was really in the mood for something meat or chicken-y for lunch the other day so I made plans to meet my friend Emily. We decided to check out Baguette Express, a relatively new sandwich place on 37th between 5th and 6th. The place is a tiny hole in the wall with no seating. You walk in and there is a counter in front of you with a brief and basic menu hanging above it. They do sandwiches. That's it. You pick your meat (or schnitzel or falafel), you pick your bread (looked like baguettes, whole wheat baguettes, and pita), you pick some salad toppings (of the Israeli variety - including grilled eggplant, fried onions, Israeli salad, olives, Israeli pickles etc) and some sauces / dressings, and then you take your sandwich and go. Emily ordered falafel in a pita. I had schnitzel on a whole wheat baguette (like that makes it healthy) with hummus, pickles, fried onions and BBQ sauce. We took our lunches out to Broadway and sat on the benches on the new pedestrian walkway. My sandwich was tasty. The BBQ sauce added a particularly good flavor. Of course, this was no Chickies (in Teanec), but for a local lunchtime chicken sandwich, pretty good. I would go back. http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/08/day-61-another-new-ish-option-for.html

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Penn Station Kosher Update

Update: They seem to no longer be carrying Yummy Sandwiches. Now they are carrying Circa Sandwiches! Mostly tuna, cheeses and salads I think. Read more about this at: http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-41-kosher-switch-up-in-penn-station.html

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kosher mid town Manhattan for lunch

I think the slices look good at Rosas but I like that I can make my own personal pie at Circa - with less sauce.

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Kosher "Sub on Wheels" NYC

I had heard about a Kosher sandwich truck in midtown and was excited by the prospect of Chickies like sandwiches in my neighborhood. So I walked over to 9th Avenue where the Sub on Wheels truck is parked between 32nd and 33rd. There it was, an actual food truck, with a Glatt Kosher Certification from a Rabbi in Monsey who my friend Ariela says is legit. Their menu consists of all different kinds of sandwiches, including Philly steak, deli, and chicken as well as salads, hot dogs, and soups. They were advertising their daily special which was soup and half a schnitzel sandwich for $5.00. FIVE DOLLARS! I couldn’t pass that up so I ordered it with Zucchini soup. I walked over to the Post Office on 8th and sat on the steps to eat (very Gossip Girl, I know). The soup was thick and creamy with chunks of zucchini in it. It was very good. The sandwich itself was a little disappointing – I guess I was expecting some kind of sauce, but it was just a piece of schnitzel on a club roll, with some veges. I am eager to go back and try some of the other options.

They are open Mon - Thurs from 11:30 - 4. See more at http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

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kosher mid town Manhattan for lunch

Circa Dairy on 33rd between 5th and 6th just opened up a falafel stand in the front window. I havent checked it out yet but the lines indicate that people are loving it! I usually go for the pasta or pizza. On ee xperience I had at Circa: I ordered a whole wheat pizza from Circa. This is a good lunch because the personal pie is quite big, so even if I don't eat the whole thing I know I will be full. It's also a good lunch on days when I don't know what on earth I am going to eat for dinner, since I can probably get away with a lighter dinner later in the evening. I also like Circa's pizza because I can specify light sauce, which is great since I hate very saucy pizza.
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com

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Good Kosher lunch in midtown

I like to order from Kosher Delight, on 38th and Broadway. I went on to seamlessweb.com to order the KD lunch and discovered that the Dougies BBQ in midtown has closed! All of my saved favorite orders from there are grayed out and pathetic looking on my screen. Sadness. They made really good sweet potato chips. Anyway, I always order my burger exactly the way I want it (yes pickles, no tomatoes, ketchup on the side) but I usually order my soup without any special instructions. I decided to get more specific this time, so I asked for lots of chicken and noodles and wrote that I do not like carrots. The delivery from KD arrived in about 20 minutes which was really impressive (good job KD!). I was eager to see how they had prepared my soup, and shockingly, there were NO carrots, a nice amount of noodles, and seemingly an entire chicken in the container. The big chicken chunks were hard to eat with a plastic spoon, but I appreciated that they had listened to my preferences. Despite this, the soup itself was kind of bland. I dumped in some of the accompanying Chow Mein noodles which added some much needed saltiness to the soup, and then found it fairly decent tasting. It was also really filling due to all the extra chicken inside. I then turned to my burger (yes pickles, no tomatoes, ketchup on the side), put the ketchup on the burger (2 packets, on top), ate and enjoyed. Now I am stuffed.
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

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Shabbos In California.

Anything in San Fran? I will be there for a Shabbat this summer.

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Penn Station Kosher Update

Thanks for the tip, but some days I just dont have time to go that far from the office!

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Penn Station Kosher Update

Everytime I go into Primo Cappucino I tell them to keep carrying Kosher sandwiches! It really is so helpful (especially since my office is right there). They do have other sandwiches. Yesterday, I ate lunch with a bunch of coworkers in the office cafeteria. Since I needed a Kosher food option, I went to Primo Cappucino to look at the Yummy Sandwich selection. The first Primo location’s options were only OK, but at the second one I found a chicken Caesar salad wrap, with croutons and Caesar dressing. I bought it and went back up to my office to join my friends. The wrap was really good, with a solid proportion of chicken to croutons to dressing. I would definitely buy it again. There were also tuna sandwiches, some kind of chicken curry wraps and some salads.
Rebecca
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-20-famous-lunches.html

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Kosher food on a cruise

I cruised on Holland America to Alaska and they were really accomodating. The food was definitely a step up from airline food. They also gave us fresh fruit and veges and were willing to double wrap and cook potatos and fish for us. Just call and ask but most cruiselines are really good about Kosher food.

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Penn Station Kosher Update

Another rainy day had me looking for a no travel option for lunch. I decided to check out the sandwiches in my “basement” aka Penn Station. There are usually a random assortment of kosher tuna /egg salad type “Roux” brand sandwiches in the Primo Cappucino stores. When I looked today I could not find ANY Roux sandwiches! A woman working in the store asked me if I needed help and I told her that I was looking for a kosher sandwich. She directed me to their brand new kosher offering – Yummy Sandwiches! This is exciting because of the nostalgia factor (we ate these in college) but also because Yummy Sandwiches are in fact, yummy. There were not too many options so I decided to try the Black Pepper Crusted Turkey Sandwich with Lemon Caper Aioli. This was a pretty big decision for me, because I am very wary of trying new foods, especially ones with names that I don’t understand. I had a lot of trouble getting the container open but once I got past that, the sandwich was very good. I don’t really love pepper crusted turkey; I can do without the spicy kick at the end of each piece. I also removed the roasted pepper from the sandwich. But overall, the sandwich tasted fresh, the turkey was not dry, and whatever aioli is added a nice flavor.
Rebecca
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com

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Best thin pizza where I dont have to wait in a loooong line?

I decided to order in today, primarily because it is gross and rainy out. I realized this morning that I don't really have appropriate footwear to wear in the rain. I suppose I could buy those ugly plastic polka dotted rainboots, but they are so bulky. Let's say it's raining in the morning but the rain has stopped when it's time to leave work. Then I need to walk around looking dumb in rainboots, because they are too big to carry in my bag to take home. Anyway, I ordered a whole wheat pizza from Circa. This is a good lunch because the personal pie is quite big, so even if I don't eat the whole thing I know I will be full. It's also a good lunch on days when I don't know what on earth I am going to eat for dinner, since I can probably get away with a lighter dinner later in the evening. I also like Circa's pizza because I can specify light sauce, which is great since I hate very saucy pizza.
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

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Teaneck's best?

Today’s lunch was the kind of lunch that inspires people to blog about lunches. There is one food that makes most other foods seem not worth eating. Of course, I am referring to the Chickies Sandwich. For lunch today I ate a Cap’n Munch Chicken sandwich (breaded in crushed pretzels and cereal) from my favorite Teaneck eatery, drenched in Kumbaslow sauce. I also had some rice with craisins and mushrooms but that is really irrelevant. Chickies chicken is always moist, and the sauces intermingle with the chicken flavor perfectly. My love for Chickies runs deep, and it has given me a new understanding of the classic episode of FRIENDS, in which Ross freaks out at his boss for eating his amazing MoistMaker Turkey sandwich. I never understood how Ross could care so much about a sandwich, until I ate Chickies. Now, I can more than relate. Check out Ross and his sandwich love (You Threw My Sandwich Away at 2:50) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQrW-dOGWc.
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-10-deliciousness-in-sandwich.html

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Rosa's pizza - Empire State Bldg.

Today I met my friend Emily for lunch. Usually we have our lunch dates at Circa (on 33rd and 5th), but we decided to try Rosa’s Kosher Pizza and Pasta, the pizza store in the Empire State Building that became Kosher a few months ago. The menu was pretty similar to Circa’s. I ordered some sort of beany vegetable soup. It was a bit bland at first but I added salt and that helped make it more flavorful. The soup came with half of a roll, which was kind of doughy in the middle and really delicious. Overall, I was satisfied with my lunch, but not amazed. I liked that the restaurant itself was less crowded than Circa usually is, and it seems that you are less likely to run into people you know .
Rebecca
http://whatrebeccaateforlunchtoday.blogspot.com/

rebeccaLunch in Kosher