Lunch Break: Thai Food, All-You-Can-Eat Meat And Tacos

Thai lunch menus, all you can eat meat that can't be beat, and an Upper East Side taco place that'll make you smile: it's all in today's New York Lunch Break. By Yvo Sin.

Red Basil Thai Kitchen

3247 Steinway St
Astoria, NY 11103
(718) 278-3333

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Sitting right above the Steinway stop on the R/M subway line is Red Basil Thai Kitchen, which attracts a good number of locals for lunch - for good reason. Boasting a lunch menu that includes an appetizer and an entree for just $6.95, value and delicious food are offered together one on menu. Choose from chicken satay, Thai salad, soup, for appetizers, and pad Thai, pad see ew, and various curries for your main course, and be rewarded with a plate of balanced Thai food. Chicken satay and pad Thai (pictured) comes with a small dish of pickled cucumber and carrot pieces, along with the peanut sauce. Yum!

Picnic Garden

147-42 Northern Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 358-5959

Picture it: a quiet, nearly empty restaurant, open for lunch as a courtesy, but really reliant on dinner for its customers. Tray after tray of raw marinated meats; kalbi, bulgogi, and every kind in between; banchans piled high in trays nearby, yours for the taking. Load a plate with kalbi (marinated beef short ribs), bring it back to your table where the grill that is sunken in the center has been heating while you chose your wares, and enjoy the sizzle as the meat hits the hot grill. Inhale the amazing aroma of grilling meat; you live in NYC and you probably don't have your own grill or your own backyard to do these things. At Picnic Garden, not only can you do those things, someone else will clean up after you! Sounds too good to be true? The price will put you over the edge: less than $20 after tax and tip gets you access to all that. Feast, friend.

Cascabel Taqueria

1538 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10028
(212) 717-8226
nyctacos.com/

See Also: New York City's 8 Best Tacos | NYC's Best Tapas

The decor at Cascabel features luchadors adorning the walls, their masked faces watching you as you eat the plentiful tacos. Imbibing during lunch may be frowned upon, but it'll be hard to pass up ordering the very tart and refreshing margaritas of varying flavors served on the rocks in small Mason jars. Another don't miss would be the housemade chorizo (pictured) served with piquillo pepper aioli; spicy, topped with cooling cilantro and onion, along with the creamy, slightly sweet aioli, perfect on its own shoveled into one's mouth, but also great as one of the protein choices for your tacos.

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Yvo Sin is the founder and head writer of The Feisty Foodie.