(5 out of 5 hot dogs)

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Thailand Café
95 2nd Ave, (Below 6th St.)
Time: Everyday Noon- 3:30
Price: Vegetable or Tofu, $6.00
Chicken, Beef or Pork, $7.00
Shrimp, Vegetarian Duck, $8.00

The Thailand Café is a cute, cheap and delicious must-lunch locale. The lunch special comes with unlimited hot tea, and appetizer and entrée of your choice. I have tried all most everything on the menu, and they are all great. Appetizers include amazing Thai wings, fried tofu, salad, and others. Entrees include a long list of curries, pad Thai and other Thai classics, all satisfying. My favorite is the massamun, a milky and spicy coconut curry. A matron-type (pictured to the side), who I take to be the owner, oversees the restaurant like a hawk, and always appears seconds away performing some form of painful and/or sexually-humiliating Thai torture on the customers in the back room if they are not enjoying the meal (luckily not a problem.)

(1 out of 5 hot dogs)

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Ogawa Café
36 E 4th St. (Between Bowery and Lafayette)
Time: Everyday, 11:30 am- 3:30 pm
Price: Two sushi rolls, $7.25
Three sushi rolls, $9.75
Lunch Box Special, $8.60

My first time, (Yes, I went more then once) I had intended for the usual sushi lunch special. However, the description and the sheer magnitude of the ‘lunch box special” was so impressive, that I had no other choice to order it. It comes with a soup, salad, rice, 3 fried shumai, four pieces of California roll and an entrée of your choice. What they don’t tell you is that is inedible in every possible way. And when I say inedible, I mean that I actually could not eat it. For my entrée, I decided to be gutsy, and go with the Tofu Teriyaki. What they served was a moist lukewarm chunk of tofu covering in this layer of gummy “teriyaki.” I would not call myself fluent with chopsticks, but I am at least conversational. And I kept attempting to pick up parts of the tofu, and it would fall and slip from my grasp. Even when I switched to the fork, I was unable to get it on the fork and into my mouth. I finally used my hands, and I shouldn’t have even bothered, it was so heinous. The other components were equally below average and unappetizing. A month later, I was in the neighborhood, and decided to give Ogawa a second chance, and this time just stick with the sushi lunch. Three sushi rolls for $9.75. I ordered salmon avocado, philly and yellowtail rolls. The salmon and avocado was warm and mushy. The philly roll was dominated by dollar-store cream cheese that had been sitting in the freezer for years. The yellowtail was too fishy, and I imagined myself slowly getting food poisoning as I ate the meal, and dreaded becoming a human party favor (stuff coming out of both ends). The cherry on the top of the afternoon, actually both times, I got the bill, the sales tax seemed to be over three times what it should be, and the server conveniently didn’t speak English when I asked them about it. Fortunately, I did not spend that evening on the toilet, but I would never go back for a strike three, or recommend that you do so, unless it’s an April Fool’s prank or you need the ideal location to break up with your girlfriend.