• 3.5,  celebrity chef,  cheap eats,  mexican,  murray hill,  restaurant reviews

    April Bloomfield’s Salvation Taco

    Having eaten a whole suckling pig at Chef April Bloomfield’s The Breslin a couple of years ago, I was excited to see what she could do with one of my comfort foods: tacos. What made Salvation Taco even more appealing to me is that it’s on 39th Street, just south of my boyfriend’s apartment, in this part of the Murray Hill neighborhood that’s mostly filled with highrises and Irish pubs meant to attract the after-work crowd. (It was ridiculously dark in the restaurant, so please excuse my heavily-lightened pictures.) 5 Island Rum, coconut horchata, cold-brewed coffee, Fernet Vallet, cinnamon and vanilla I’ve secretly loved the totally-Americanized horchatas I’ve had with…

  • 4.5,  cheap eats,  murray hill,  restaurant reviews,  sandwiches,  union square,  vegetarian-friendly

    Num Pang is the New Banh Mi

    When you look up “banh mi” in the Midtown East MenuPages listings, you find Num Pang, a tiny Cambodian sandwich shop started by two friends that’s distinctly not-banh-mi yet nonetheless satisfies every spicy sandwich desire I have. The menu is about fifteen sandwiches long and four side dishes deep (plus a bunch of soups and salads that I barely notice the existence of due to their health benefits), and my boyfriend and I haven’t tried anything yet that hasn’t left us wishing for one more sandwich to eat and one more side to hold onto like a little family pet that we bathe and take on a walk from time…