Can’t Afford Dinner? What About Lunch?
These days, as we punch more holes in our belts and test how tight we can make them before we get blue in the face, the pleasures of eating out are being sacrificed. We have begun to choose the cheap options — $3 PBR specials replace microbrews; Pad Thai dubs for sushi; and chocolate chip cookies satisfy our sweet tooth instead of those expensive, hand-crafted French macarons — over our favorite culinary splurges.
But the more affordable options can get tired quick — a sad truth when the recession has barely taken its toll yet. So what do you do when the affordable becomes boring, when you find yourself craving sweetbreads, when you want to wholly satisfy that epicurean craving?
You eat lunch.
That’s right — lunch. That meal that falls between breakfast and dinner, the one we tend to eat at our desks, and, if no one is looking, with our hands. The one that during the workweek we barely give thought to, and that on the weekends is replaced with its urban relative: brunch. But lunch is where it’s at these days because, during this economic downturn, that is where you find some of the best and biggest deals on your favorite gourmet haunts. Lunch has its benefits: you can enjoy the same food that you would order at dinner but for a lot less (a nod to the Spanish way of life); you can fill yourself for the rest of the day (and, thereby, substitute your evening meal with a cheaper snack); and you can try restaurants that you otherwise may not be able to afford during nighttime hours.
How to find these deals, you ask? The best thing to do is to visit websites or make a call, but, if that seems like too much work, you can choose from one of these Thrifty Gourmet picks:
Eleven Madison Park: $38 two-course lunch
Gotham Bar and Grill: $31 three-course lunch
Gramercy Tavern: $14 soup and sandwich lunch in the Tavern room
Matsugen: $24 bento box lunch
Momofuku Ssäm Bar: $28 three-course lunch
Tabla: $27 three-course lunch
As the Spanish say, buen provecho!
By Erin Patinkin on April 14, 2009 | 0
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