Three Good Lunch Places on Cedar Street in Downtown Manhattan

Cedar Street is one of those little alleys in NYC that you'd never see or find or even notice unless you worked in the neighborhood. Blocked on one side by Pearl Street (and one of AIG's several buildings downtown--in this case the totally mis-addressed 80 Pine), and blocked on the other side by Chase Plaza (and a really ugly sculpture that's I'll feature in another post), you can easily miss this tiny streetlet.

Nonetheless, I get probably 80% of my lunches in one of the three restaurants here.

For some reasonably priced good Indian food, this place is perfect. It kind of looks like a hole in the wall, but the food is excellent. Don't go in there expecting nice decor. :)

Right next door is Oriental Express, a really cheap Chinese buffet place. Not fancy and not that easy to find, but it works for a quick lunch. Most of the clientele here are AIG employees.


Right across the street from the back entrance of the AIG building is Liberato's Pizza. It's pretty new; maybe it's been open a year at the most. But they make a mean calzone here and their pizza and pastas are exceptional.