Taam Tov

Thirty-minute lunch break? Taam Tov, a glatt kosher comfort-food café, is speedy. Concealed on the third floor of a well-worn office building in the Diamond District, it's peopled by local workers in yarmulkes and backpackers on a budget who've most likely discovered it through blogs or Lonely Planet. Colorful murals—veiled women in black at sidewalk cafés, seascapes that could be the Mediterranean or the Caspian—brighten the plain, brightly lit room. Unless you like pallid tomatoes and iceberg lettuce, skip the salads and head straight for the hearty soups, samsa (baked beef and onion pie), manti (steamed beef dumplings) and the basket of lepeshka, fluffy Uzbek bread. To drink are kosher wine, beer, green tea and sweet Israeli juices.