Today's Lunch Break: Swedish Meatballs & More
Reasonably priced Indian food in Midtown, Scandinavian food to make Ikea blush, and not your momma's pork chops. By Yvo Sin.
Also See: Thursday's Best Sample Sales
Minar
5 W. 31st Street
New York, NY 10016
(212) 684-2199
138 W. 46th Street
New York, NY 10036
(212) 398-4600
minarny.com/
At first glance, Minar is like many other lunchtime Indian restaurants; steam tables, red trays, point at what you want and be served quickly. Once you go in, however, you realize that there is a menu from which you can order, the food will be made fresh and served with a smile. Platters come with your choice of naan or rice, but you'd be wise to get rice and add fluffy naan to your order for $1 to sop up all the extra sauce they give you with each order. Saag is a customer favorite here, but the lamb korma (pictured: with rice, and naan added) is flavorful and stands up on its own, with tender chunks of lamb strewn throughout the dish that have the faintest whisper of gaminess. If you go around 1, expect a bit of a madhouse and to take your food back with you: Minar's popularity extends to those of all races, and seating is tough to find in the small space. But it's a small price to pay for Indian food of this quality in this price range.
Smorgas Chef
53 Stone Street
New York, NY 10004
(212) 422-3500
smorgas.com/index_wallstreet.htm
283 W. 12th Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 243-7073
smorgas.com/index_westvillage.htm
58 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
(212) 847-9745
smorgas.com/index_scandinaviahouse.htm
With three locations from which to choose, Smorgas Chef makes it easy for you to get your fill of Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce at any time, without the trip to Ikea. Of course, if you limit your exposure to Scandinavian food simply to Ikea's offerings, you do yourself, and the cuisine, a great disservice - try the house-cured gravlaks club, a towering sandwich on eight grain bread with avocado, romaine, tomato, bacon, spicy tartar sauce, and of course, the house-cured gravlaks. Gravlaks is salmon that has been cured in salt, sugar and dill. Or you can stick to the Swedish meatballs, which you can have three ways: as an appetizer, served with lingonberry sauce over mashed potatoes; in a sandwich with lingonberries and mashed potatoes; or entree-sized, with lingonberry sauce over mashed potatoes. Whatever your choice, you can't go wrong: the meatballs are tender, and complemented wonderfully by the lingonberry sauce... and float atop a cloud of great mashed potatoes in either the appetizer or the entree order.
Wah Mei Fast Food
190 Hester Street
New York, NY 10013
(212) 925-6428
At Wah Mei, when you order the pork chop over rice (pictured), the marinated pork chop is placed in a deep fryer to cook. A big scoop of rice is pressed into the bottom of a plastic container, a ladle from the giant vat of pork sauce constantly cooking away is poured over the top, along with some pickled mustard greens, cooked Napa cabbage, and before you know it, the pork chop has been removed from the hot oil, crammed on top of the rice and sauce, then a lid unceremoniously jammed on top of all of that. You hand over your $4.50, or, if you were smart, $4.95 because you asked for a tea egg to be added to the platter, and you walk out, inhaling the wonderful aroma of a marinated, deep fried pork chop. When you finally open the container, hands shaking a little from excitement and hunger, the smell hits you and you dig into this pork chop, with crisp edges, salty everywhere, mixing bits of the tea egg with the rice. You marvel at how addicting the brown pork sauce is, and realize you could eat a bowl of fluffy white rice with just that topping it - but why would you want to? That crisp, juicy pork chop has just changed your life, the way you see pork chops, and nothing will ever be the same again.
