Cuisine: American
This is the eatery to which every manager brings their new employee on their first day. You know the place. The slightly crunchy, slightly hipster-y casual joint with a menu for every innocuous American taste. Some sandwiches, some salads, some protein and grain bowls for the vegetarian or the meat-a-tarian. Because that manager doesn’t know if their new person eats animals or “ethnic” food or anything too weird. Nope, this is the perfect panacea for feeding the mysterious office worker without making them stand at a counter or awkwardly sit in a conference room with some takeout.
There has always been a dearth of decent options of this type in the Hudson Square area. For several years there was nothing but carts and trucks, which are certainly a decent choice if you just need to grab something to bring back to your desk. And, in recent years, some of the more fast food soup and sandwich-based restaurants have vanished and some more fast casual places have opened — most salad or bowl-based — but there are just very few of these chill restaurants where you can get somewhat generic grub served by a tattooed duded with a topknot and still feel like you’re eating healthy. Because green food equals good.
Haloumi. A fun word to say and something like I feel Westville would have on their menu on top of fries or in some lettuce or something. Weirdly, they don’t. So much for that. But they do have everything else you’d expect: sweet potato fries (truffle parm or plain), a Beyond burger, arugula and kale salads, seared tofu and a “Hebrew” hot dog duo. Yeah, that last one surprised me, too. But you gotta mix in the lowbrow with the medium-brow, I suppose. But, at the heart of their menu are their market bowls. Which is just what we’ve come to expect everywhere since Dig Inn put their mark on the city. A grain base with a couple veggies and a protein (if you’re into that kind of thing). I went for the jasmine rice (with a teriyaki sauce), broccoli, brussels sprouts and grilled chicken. Frankly, it’s more than I usually eat for lunch, but I was eating on someones else’s dime, so why not?
It was all totally fine; exactly as you’d expect. Though the stout broccoli trunks would take the powerful jaws of a beaver and someone way suaver than me to eat with any kind of decorum. I looked around the small-ish dining room with its high ceiling and laid-back wood interior that looked like a cross between something you might find in Woodstock and the old Soho of 1996 and saw pretty much me and my tablemate mirrored across the dining room. White and older than patrons that pack the area salad and fast-casual places I normally haunt. But appropriately office-ish. Mixed in with the oddly lululemoned ladies who walk the neighborhood throughout the morning and afternoon with no particular destination other than their pilates gym, or whatever the latest thing is. Because white ladies need quinoa bowls too.
333 Hudson St. (bet. Charlton & Vandam St.)
212/776-1404
westvillenyc.com
