Day 94: East Coast meets West Coast

On Saturday morning we checked out the local synagogue near our hotel in Nob Hill, SF. They were offering a lunch after services so we thought about staying to eat there. The meal was vegetarian and seemed to feature salads and perhaps a vege chulent. However, the table was only set for about 15 and there were a number of other visitors there, plus a couple of students and locals, so we decided to head back to our hotel where we had food we had bought in advance. We took the scenic route back and checked out some of the fanciest hotels in San Fran. When we got back, we enjoyed a meal of deli sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, and Israeli salad. We had brought the deli from NY but we ordered the rest of the food from Tel Aviv, the kosher market place in San Fran. We also ordered challah from them, and the challah was excellent. Different from the challah I normally eat in NY, but definitely doughy and soft and delicious. I used slices of the challah to make a sandwich with pastrami and salami. I added ketchup, but only on the salami side, not on the pastrami side. It was a very filling and delicious lunch.

Day 93: Sunny San Fran

Lunch on Friday was eaten outside, sitting on a small stone wall surrounding the parking lot in front of Coit tower, with views of the Bay Bridge behind me. I was carrying around some American cheese and some mini lenders bagels, so I combined the two into the kind of sandwich that I would only think to make if I was on the go. It was bright and sunny at that moment, and the sun felt great on my face as I ate the slightly smooshed and slightly melted cheese sandwich. It was the perfect mid- day meal as I explored San Francisco.

Day 92: Office Lunch and announcing a MEET UP!

A few of my coworkers and I sat and ate together in the little kitchen area on our floor today. I had brought in some leftovers that I needed to get rid of before my trip out west tonight. I ate leftover duck sauce chicken with sweet potato, leftover breaded chicken and leftover popcorn cauliflower. Joyce wanted to try the cauliflower but unfortunately got there after I ate it all. It was nice having a free home cooked meal for lunch! Shoutout to Rebecca G who made the yummy breaded chicken.

Note: I will be on vacation for the next week so may be posting irregularly.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: To celebrate some upcoming milestones of the blog, why don’t we all have lunch together? Let’s MEET UP on Day 99, Thursday Sept 10th for lunch in midtown. Details to come.

Day 91: New Restaurant Review!

I met up with my friends Emily and Tzip to check out the new NY Lunchbox on 36th street. They just opened this week, and the menu looks good so I was eager to try it. As I mentioned earlier, they have sandwich, sushi, soup, and salad options plus a hot buffet where you pay by the pound. I had to try the butternut squash sweet potato soup, so I ordered that, and then took some food from the buffet. I may have overdone it a bit and I ended up spending a little more than I would have liked, but I think that was my own fault at the buffet. The problem is that once you load up your plate and bring it over to be weighed, you aren’t going to go back and take off a spoonful of pasta if your plate was too heavy. You are kinda just stuck with it. So you really need to learn how to gauge the amounts. Anyway, my meal came with a free drink which was a nice bonus. There is a nice size seating area upstairs in the back and we had no trouble getting a nice sized table. The soup was absolutely delicious. It is more squashy tasting than sweet potato-y. The portion was huge. I couldn’t even finish it, combined with all my other food. I ate about half the soup, and then turned to my hot buffet food. I tried the penna ala vodka, which was OK but not amazing, and the fettuccine Alfredo (I think!) which was really really good. Definitely the better of the two pastas. I also tasted the sweet potato slices, which were also tasty, but nothing special. My last buffet item was the mushroom zucchini mini quiche. Emily really liked this and thought it had a lot of flavor. I thought it was OK. I prefer a cheesier quiche, but it was definitely not bad. I would definitely come back here, especially for the soup. The only problem is that they have a 25.00 minimum for delivery to my office, which means I won’t be ordering in from them once it gets too cold to walk over, which is too bad because its those days when that soup would really be perfect.

Day 90: Reader's Choice Take Three

Today's lunch choice was up to you, my loyal readers. The losing option, with under 25% of the votes, was the Chinese Lunch Special from Kosher Delight. Second place went to the Chicken Nuggets from Kosher Deluxe, with just over 25% of the vote. This choice was inspired by my friend Darren, who says the nuggets are delicious, but then did not vote in the poll. The winner, with over 50% of the votes, was the Meatball Sub, inspired by my friend and talented singer, Dov (his new album drops soon!). I wasnt sure where I could get a Kosher meatball sub in my area of midtown. I checked the online menus at Kosher Delight, Kosher Deluxe, Mendys and the Sub on Wheels truck. No meatballs subs. Mr. Broadway was out because they are still closed due to health violations. I used to see these subs on the Dougies menu, but they closed down. Two readers commented that they have eaten Meatball Subs at various Mendy's locations, so I called them up and asked if they could make me one. Even though it was not on their menu, they said they would do it for me! The sandwich was delivered to my office a short while later. It tasted pretty good. The meatballs definitely made me want spaghetti. I think I would prefer spaghetti and meatballs to a meatball sub, but the sandwich was pretty delicious. The meatballs were large and firm without being too big, too hard or too mooshy. And the sauce was tasty without being too tomato-y tasting. All in all, I would consider ordering this made it item again. Thanks Dov, for the inspiration for this new and yummy lunch!

POLL: What SHOULD Rebecca eat for lunch today?

What SHOULD Rebecca eat for lunch today?

• Chicken Nuggets from Kosher Deluxe
• Meatball Sub - not sure where to get it? Any ideas?
• Chinese Lunch Special from Kosher Delight

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Day 89: NEW: A Chickies Substitute in Midtown??

Many readers wrote in to tell me about a new place opening up on 39th street, just off of Broadway, called Schnitzel Glatt Kosher Express (thanks D, Sus, and TorahMike). It just opened last week, so today I went to check it out with my friend Emily. The menu is mostly different flavors of schnitzel, that come on baguettes or wraps (regular or whole wheat), or I think in salads. There are different sauces to go with the chicken, as well as vegetables. What I liked was that they also had different flavors of grilled chicken sandwiches, which makes for a somewhat healthier lunch option. I ordered a teriyaki grilled chicken with BBQ sauce on a whole wheat baguette with pickles and lettuce. Emily ordered the greek chicken in a whole wheat wrap with pesto sauce. They restaurant is small but has a few tables and we had no trouble getting a place to sit. We had to wait a few minutes for the food to be ready, but when it came the portion sizes were definitely substantial. From the first bite, I really liked the flavor of the chicken. It was clearly fresh and had just the right amount of sauce to give a good taste without being overpowering. The whole sandwich was really delicious. Emily enjoyed hers too. The restaurant is a bit far from my office, but they do deliver (call 212 997 7770), and I am eager to try some of the other options on the menu. Readers, if you have been - let me know what you had and if you liked it.

Heads up kids - tomorrow is a Reader's Choice Day on the blog! Check back in the AM to vote for what I should eat for lunch!

Day 88: Honey Do you Love Me? I Love You Honey But I Cant Elope!

If lunch is the meal in between breakfast and dinner, then on Sunday for lunch I had cantaloupe. We had already cut it into cubes the day before, and we stuck the leftovers in a little zip lock bag in the fridge. When I was looking for something to eat when I returned from the park before rushing out to a movie, it was the perfect grab and go “lunch”. The melon itself was not amazing. It was a bit harder than I prefer, and not so sweet. I guess melons aren’t really in season anymore, but we did have a terrific honeydew this weekend.

Day 87: BC 06 Lunch

I had a couple of college friends staying with me for the weekend, so I invited some of our other mutual friends to come over for lunch. We ate a delicious meal of breaded chicken, asparagus, popcorn cauliflower, sesame noodles, salad, and spinach kugel. I thought the sesame noodles that my friend Rebecca made were particularly delicious, though everything was really good. We ate Deena cake for dessert, along with chocolate peanut butter cookies that Michelle made, and some fruit. In the spirit of college, we spent a lot of time during lunch reading some textbooks that I had lying around. We also talked about the upcoming Komen Race For The Cure, in which many of us are participating in order to support breast cancer research, prevention and treatment. You can donate here (just search for the person you want to support). Lunch was a lot of fun and I am almost done washing dishes.

Day 86: Not even Tuna

My lunch plans for Friday got derailed by an extended meeting on Friday morning. I ended up eating breakfast at about noon, and then snacking for lunch instead of eating a real meal. I ate a couple of mini cinnamon raisin bagels that my roommate, Mor, had bought for her niece, and then given to me. Free food tastes awesome. :) I had planned on making mini tuna sandwiches, but it was just a weird food day so I never got around to it.

Day 85: Two More Kosher Lunch Options in Midtown Manhattan!

Exciting news on the NYC Kosher scene. My roommate, Tzip, tipped me off to a new lunch place called New York Lunchbox, on 36th between 7th and 8th. I went today, but they aren't open quite yet - it seems like the grand opening is in a week or two. It looks nice and the menu includes paninis, wraps, salads, sushi, a Hot Buffet (pay by the lb - includes pastas, fish, veges and a LunchBox Quiche - yum!!). They also list Creamy Butternut & Sweet Potato Soup as a DAILY option. I can't wait to try it! Since they weren't open yet, I walked a couple blocks north to the Vegetable Garden on 38th. The menu there is pretty much the same as all these other places - pizza, salads, sushi, wraps etc. I ordered a matzah ball soup and half of an egg salad wrap. The staff was VERY friendly and accommodating and made my wrap exactly like I wanted it (whole wheat, lettuce, cucumbers, pepper, no other veges). It was especially nice of them because they were stuck with the other half of my somewhat odd wrap, and had to hope someone would buy it. Maybe the staff eats those. I don't know. I went back to work and ate the soup first. It consisted of a clear liquid, with several cute looking mini matzah balls, and some tri-colored rigatoni pasta. The broth itself was pretty bland and sort of just tasted like pasta. Luckily I had salt and pepper packets at my desk to spice it up a bit. That made the soup much tastier. The matzah balls were OK but hard to cut into pieces with my plastic spoon. After I finished the soup, I ate my wrap. It tasted good and was very filling. I would definitely order a wrap from them again, but might skip the soup next time.

Have a tip about a new Kosher lunch place in Midtown Manhattan? Email me at rebeccalunch@gmail.com .

Day 84: Ask The Lunch Lady Two

Yesterday I received the following email:

Subject: I have a lunch related question
Message: Hey Rebecca, When you eat your tuna and crackers do you put anything on the tuna?Clearly I read your blog. Shoshana

Hey Shoshana,
Nope, I eat the tuna plain. If I happen to have a mayo packet around, I might use that, but I usually don't.
Rebecca the Lunch Lady

This brings me to today's lunch. One of my friends and loyal blog readers had a baby last week (Congrats Eli!), and since I was going to see her and her kids tonight, I ran over to Borders during lunch to buy some baby and kiddie gifts. I went back to my desk and turned to my trusty lunch-at-desk option: tuna and crackers. As is usual, I ate the tuna straight out of the can with no mayo, mustard or any other flavoring. It's not the most delicious thing in the world, but I don't mind it.

Day 83: Change is Bad

I met my friend Sol for lunch today and he was in the mood for dairy. We considered the mainstream local dairy options and decided to go to Rosas, on the basis of it being close to both of our offices, and it not being Circa, where I have been eating pretty frequently. 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, today 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.

Day 82: Happy and Sad

I had a serious pasta craving today which meant I would be calling Circa. I wanted to order my pasta on the website, but they still do not have all of the options that I need available online. Come on, Circa! So I called them up and asked for whole wheat pasta with vodka sauce. I sat and hungrily waited for the food to arrive. Finally the delivery guy came so I went down to meet him in the lobby. I brought the food upstairs to my desk. The bowl was full of delicious pasta. There were no tomato chunks this time, which was a good thing. As I finished the meal I felt an incredible sadness that my food was all gone.

Day 81: American Woman

When I woke up Sunday morning, everyone was lazying around the house and eating brunch. Alex was making himself a bagel, and it looked really good. This inspired me to make myself a bagel sandwich as well. I took a whole wheat bagel (as I had ordered from Deborah in the aforementioned google doc) and had Scott slice it open for me with his machete. (He had already sliced open one finger so I let him handle the giant knife.) I put three pieces of American cheese into the bagel, and then ate it. The American Cheese went well with the Independence and Perseverance flags that Mor and Sol had bought on Friday.

Day 80: Beans, Beans, They’re Good For Your Heart

I was woken midday on Saturday because people wanted to eat lunch. I joined my friends at the dining room table, with a beautiful view of the lake beyond the screened-in porch (thanks AJ!). Scott had baked delicious challah in a few varieties. I liked the kind that tasted like a cinnamon bun the best. He also made whole wheat challah with a jar of honey dumped in, and French bread challah. We then had Deborah’s Shabbos Salad, (lettuce, cucumbers, pepper, pickles, tomatoes, Hearts of Palm, craisins, and croutons) which was delicious as always. We also ate a really good chulent. Somehow, multiple people ended up buying the ingredients that we needed for the chulent, so it all got thrown in together for a random but tasty mix. There were some ingredients that no one could remember buying, so our apologies to whoever’s rooomates bag of chulent stuff we accidentally stole. Shlomo was really upset that the chulent had beans but it all tasted good in the end. We had fruit for dessert, and while we wanted Lisa’s famous pineapple drinks, we could not find the missing Pineapple Juice.

Day 79: BYOFL

I was headed out to the Poconos for the weekend, and in all of our trip planning, spreadsheeting and google doc-ing we had decided that we were going to do BYOFL – Bring Your Own Friday Lunch. My car stopped in Teaneck to pick up Chickies for dinner (YUM!) so I went down the block to Poppies to get a bagel. I ordered an egg and cheese on a whole wheat bagel for me, cream cheese on whole wheat for Mor, and a tuna melt for Sol. Mor and I both really enjoyed our lunches. Egg and cheese sandwiches are one of the best things ever invented. Especially when you eat them when they are hot and melty. Sol’s sandwich ended up thrown into the backseat of the car, where it landed upside down and all over the place so he couldn’t eat it.

Day 78: Grease on Wheels

I had a chance to go back over to my Kosher Street Food stand, Sub on Wheels. The special day was chulent and kishke (doesn’t get more Jewish cuisine-y than that), but I passed and ordered a Philly steak sandwich with lettuce and pickles, no tomatoes. A few minutes and eight dollars later, I was headed back to my office with a piping hot sandwich. I was definitely hungry at this point. At my desk, I opened up the wrapping to find meat and veges overflowing out of the bread. It was definitely a packed sandwich. And I pretty much inhaled it. It tasted OK but wasn’t amazing. The bread was soft this time, but it was soaked in grease from the meat. The whole thing was really oily. The meat was good but not super flavorful. This place seems to serve up your really basic, heimish greasemeat but I’m not sure I’ll be returning all that frequently.

Day 77: Bag o' Pasta

Joyce, Clare and I popped over to a handbag sample sale during lunch today. My friend Abie used to work at the handbag company so he gave me the scoop on the sale. (It's still going on, in case anyone is interested). We browsed for a bit but ultimately did not buy anything. We passed Circa on the way back so I stopped in to pick up lunch. I ordered the whole wheat penne ala vodka. The sauce had chunks of tomatoes in it for the first time. I don't like tomatoes so I did not appreciate this addition and had to eat around them. Otherwise, the pasta was really tasty and filling. I think that I would be remiss to mention Abie and Circa in the same post and not direct my readers to this fabulous clip wherein Abie sings a medley about his love for pizza, Circa broccoli soup and Sabrina the Teenage Witch : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Day 76: Circa-tastic

I headed over to Circa today to pick up some lunch. When I walked in, one of the managers let me know that they had a vegetable noodle soup, and to warn me that it was very spicy. It was too hot out to eat soup as my meal, so I only asked for a taste. It was pretty good. I definitely tasted the black pepper but it had a nice flavor. I noticed that they were serving the Cantaloupe soup again, but now they are calling it Chilled Cantaloupe soup. Coincidence??? I think not. I ordered a whole wheat pizza with light sauce, to go. While waiting, I chatted with the manager about adding certain options to their website and about their new menu design. When my pizza was ready, I took it out to Greeley Square where I ate and enjoyed. During lunch, I also signed up for the Komen Race for the Cure, to support breast cancer research.