I’ve only eaten at LumLum twice. It was good, but I wasn’t blown away. My first impressions of Cha Long were much better, and so were my second to 10th+ (the last just two days ago). Here’s a dedicated LumLum thread to help you compare (use the two I linked to above on Cha Long).
Ultimately, it will boil down to which menu sounds more appealing to you. If you pick Cha Long I can suggest dishes I’ve liked.
ETA: Operation mincemeat is right up your alley, with your feeling for language, and the absurd. I saw it in previews.
Carry food for the trip – the food on Amtrak is bad. If you arrive peckish at Moynihan, you have decent options in the station itself
but, of course, the culinary splendors of NY await you outside.
You escape by the skin of your teeth having me offer to meet you and your friend for a drink or something. I was in NYC all week this past week, but am traveling back to Cambridge right now. On Monday evening I Amtrak to NY. On Tuesday evening it’s back to Cambridge. Wednesday evening → NYC. Thursday evening … you get the drift.
ETA: When you emerge from the train the escalators to Moynihan are near the very front of the train. Those to the old Penn Station are closer to the back. If you haven’t seen Moynihan train hall it’s worth a look.
If you want Thai, I’d go to SaiTong or Chalong over LumLum. They focus on different regions, so not directly comparable, but I’ve had good meals at all of them. Chalong skews spicy (and will not adjust), portions are small compared to the others, but the food is good. SaiTong has a very interesting compilation of dishes.
Here’s another write-up of Chalong, and a few write-ups on SaiTong.
Here I have to disagree. There is one really spicy dish at Chalong, their Sator Goong. But the combination of stinky beans, ground pork and shrimp is so felicitous that I urge people to try it, even if they need plenty of plain rice on hand.
The other dishes, in my opinion, range from mild (but very tasty) to only slightly spicy. Their goat, for example, skews a bit spicy, but what glorious goat it is!
ETA: Intrigued by your descriptions, I have Saitong Thai on my list, also Chatti, but as you can glean from my travel schedule above, my eating is limited even though I’m in NY a lot.
“Skews spicy” is relative, not absolute, both across restaurant options and based on who the consumer is. I don’t know @Parsnipity’s spice tolerance, but I do know that for the dishes that have heat, Chalong is spicier than the other spots (and prides itself as such, because they will warn you, and tell you they won’t make anything less spicy even if it can be).
Did I find them intolerably spicy? No. Were they spicy? Yes. I do not find the goat or crab curry spicy, but my companions have on occasion (they were warned by the server). And I think the pad kee mao should have 3 peppers against it, it is the spiciest of some several dishes they tag as such, courtesy the fresh chillies in it.
ETA: Re SaiTong, it has the usual stuff you’d expect and some crowd-pleasers, but also several things not found elsewhere (that are good), and a sub-section of Chinese-skewing flavors that I have yet to explore (popular with customers at other tables who appeared to be of East or Southeast Asian descent, which is what prompted me to take notice). As with most things, it becomes about what dish(es) one wants to eat on a given day. I’ve gone back there multiple times for the jowl, as I have to Chalong for curry. There are 3-4 new Thai places around that I haven’t made it to yet as a result.
As a simple, factual observation, of the 26 dishes on Cha Long’s current menu, 11 have a zero-chili rating, and based on my experience with most of them, deservedly so. They are are very tasty (I recommend, in particular, the squid fried rice – also crab, which isn’t on the menu any more, I think, but you can ask for it – the see lew chicken and the phuket pak mor) but not at all spicy. Eight dishes get a chili, but I’d say it’s a mild chili pepper. Of the seven remaining (2+), you can often brush off the heat-inducing elements except for the sator goong where they’re deeply, exhileratingly embedded. I urge the dish on everyone. That’s the kind of scamp I am.
So, finalizing plans here and I have come up with one more factor: it turns out I have a LOT of unused money to spend. I get an annual use-it-or-lose-it continuing education allowance, and in past years, I’ve flown to a conference in Grand Cayman and spent a few days in Key West (with associated trip report for Key West here). Since this trip is a train ticket and a fairly cheap conference registration, that will leave at least $1000 on the table. No reason to let that return to our corporate overlords! I had been planning to walk the High Line and end at Chelsea Market, but I might as well spend big on Thursday night! Thoughts along the general route from the Javit’s Center? Y’all are the best!
How serendipitous. I’d probably blow a load at the seafood place @Chelsea Market, but no doubt the natives have better suggestions for a proper sit-down meal on Thursday
Get thee to Le Bernardin pronto. You can sit in the lounge if they won’t give you a dining room spot, they will still serve the full menu outside.
And there’s a schmancy new Milos right at Hudson Yards – that should kill the rest of that $$$: get the octopus for sure, and the lamb chops are fantastic, but you can splurge on the seafood by the lb too (me, I would get 2 orders of octopus and 2 orders of lamb chops, and finish with the yogurt – yeah, stupid yogurt is worth the $$$).
How can I disagree? Especially when it comes to me. I’m happy to accept your found $1000 in small bills in an envelope under my hedge.
Oh, but you want food in return for cash. Time was when there were many nice options at that foot of the High Line. Santina! (Many visits and my daughter’s high school graduation party!!) Del Posto!!! (a visit, and our 25th wedding anniversary party!!!), etc. There’s Crane Club where Del Posto once was, but it seems odd to me.
You’ll have to walk a bit in that area to spend your bucks.
