lafu lunch

brooklyn jay handed me the assignment of reviewing 67 burger (67 lafayette @ fulton, next to corcoran), since it is currently only open till 4pm, and he works a day job, whereas i lead the leisurely life of a stay-at-home-mom. so we headed over around noon today, and were greeted by this:

boo! but we were also greeted by the very nice manager whose name i can't remember (ed? sorry!), who explained the follwoing to us: the noon–4pm hours had been their soft opening, and they had found a few things that they wanted to tweak before they opened for real. they are very happy with the quality of the food, but less pleased with how service was flowing. they're paying special attention to this aspect since they know that there has been some talk lately about the low quality of service in local restaurants (ahem!). so they are switching over from waitstaff service to counter service only, which i agree makes a lot more sense for the kind of place that 67 burger seems to be. they should be open again tomorrow or friday at the latest, and we will return....

but in the meantime we had to eat lunch, and i was determined to review something, dammit, so we hoofed up the street to la bagel delight (73 lafayette, next to mullane's). and all in all, it was...really good. the moms split a grilled chicken with broccoli rabe and fresh mozarella on focaccia:

the chicken was passably moist, the broccoli rabe wasn't overcooked, and the foccacia was great, flakey yet dense. very happy. the kids split wild rice with grilled vegetables....

...and pasta salad with mozarella and tomatoes...

...which was a little too vinegar-y, but i'd rather have too much vinegar than too much oil.

but what pushed this place from "mediocre" to "really good" was the guys behind the counter who, while mindful of the fact that most people in there are on their lunch break and need to get in and out quickly, are just plain sweet. smiling, joking, genuinely nice. they even gave us free cookies for the kids (but don't tell the kids that, since they never saw one little crumb of them, no sugar high before nap, thanks).

and look—if you get a bunch of bagels to take home, they give you a handy carrying case that you can reuse the next time you need to take your cat to the vet!

my only complaint? lack of a restroom. i know it's mostly a to-go kind of joint, but if you're gonna have tables, you should have a rest room.