Patio-a-go-go

Aguas frescas at Cinema Taco (Photo by John Robinson)

Melon heads
What says summer better than a slice of fresh fruit in your hand, its juice dripping from your chin? Fruit poured into a glass, that’s what. Here are three of our favorites. Mild Get an aguas frescas (1) from Cinema Taco (we’ve seen watermelon and lemonade there) and pair it with some chips and tomatoey salsa. Misty The watermelon-lime Italian soda (2) at Mudhouse makes your mouth go pop, pop, fizz, fizz. Relax with a tall glass on the patio out front. Mixed Slurp down a Snoop from Bang!: Tanqueray with cranberry, pineapple, and orange juice. That’s practically a daily serving!

Cool as a cucumber sandwich

A hot, humid summer day will kill your appetite. All the things you usually crave sound heavy and sleep-inducing. But getting by on a handful of carrots and doubling your caffeine intake isn’t going to help your metabolism any, and come mid-afternoon, you’ll be in for a blood sugar bonk. Here are three cold lunches that will keep you going and tickle your taste buds.

The rice noodle salad at The Box is, like many of its new lunch offerings, Vietnamese styled. A pile of vermicelli topped with thin-sliced cucumber, carrot, cilantro, and jalapeno beside bean sprouts and your choice of pork belly or skirt steak. Pour over a generous helping of nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce) and you’ve got something light enough to eat under the sweltering sun and substantial enough to keep you moving.

Sitting outside can be cool if the summer breeze is just right, but during a brain-killing heat wave you’re going to want to seek shelter. Miyako, tucked away in York Place, occupies a dark, windowless universe in a large air-conditioned building. The only thing on the lunch menu is sushi, and you can order a la carte, but a better deal, more suited to a quick lunch, is to order the kaisen donburi, lunch chef Ted Nogami’s choice of sashimi artfully arranged over a mound of perfectly-cooked sushi rice. You’ll get pieces of the usual suspects—salmon, tuna, tamago–and you might also get a spotted sardine if you’re lucky.

The Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar is another Downtown Mall hideaway that offers a cool, dark oasis on a sweltering day. Order a Zen Wrap, a tasty combo of organic tofu, seaweed, and salad topped with ginger-carrot dressing and done up in a teff pancake. Pair it with one of the freshly iced teas on tap if you’ve got a cool combo that will stand up to the hottest day of the year. Moroccan mint tea will help with your garlic breath.