Good & Plenty to Go 05-06-2011

Location: 410 W. 43rd St.
Time: 1pm

Feelings: My favorite films are usually by auteurs. Pasolini, Fellini, Almodovar, Jarmusch, Antonioni, Kitano, Kurosawa, Todd Haynes, Wong Kar-Wai, Haneke--the list goes on. On small screen, while I enjoy innovative TV shows like Breaking Bad, Mr. Show and MacGyver (!), I have a guilty pleasure: Ms. Bethenny Frankel on Bravo. Unfortunately, when you are sleep deprived taking care of an infant, all the brain can tolerate is mindless reality shows and not Italian neo-realism. I particularly enjoy watching Nick, her part time food blogger, who would take her to all the foodie hot spots and exposes her to the world of delicious non fine dining experience.

When I saw Nick chowing down his lunch in front of Good & Plenty at their small outdoor dining area, I did a double take and rushed inside. If he is eating there, it must be good. It turns out that on Midtown Lunch, he mentions Good & Plenty as his favorite lunch spot.

They carry a lot of home style meals behind glass displays. Salad, daily sandwich specials, soup, and daily special entrees such as meatloaf and baked mac and cheese are available here. I felt like I walked into someone's kitchen and picking up whatever they were making that day. For many busy New Yorkers, this is exactly what is needed. But for people outside of the city, they might think they can easily whip this up at home.

All the dishes I saw were less than $8, and my vegetable tortilla flats and blueberry coffeecake were together around $10, and considering how enormous the tortilla flats was, this was quite a good deal. I was only able to finish half of my dish and took the rest home for dinner. The vegetables were fresh, and it was well cooked and seasoned without over salting. If you like Whole Food's buffet but wished the food was more fresh, better seasoned and a bit cheaper, you would be very satisfied here.

Because of the convenient and delicious places like this, New Yorkers really don't need to cook. We have Central Park as a backyard, and Good & Plenty as our kitchen. Thank you Nick. Good & Plenty will definitely be my go to lunch spot.