Midtown Lunch

Café Duke is such a tease. Ever since initial reports that bulgogi tacos were being haphazardly offered as a daily special at their Korean entrée counter, I’ve been fascinated by these tacos. After all, Bann Next Door took on the Korean taco concept and hit a home run, so I don’t see why Café Duke couldn’t replicate this success (and it’s a few avenues closer to work.) Besides, assembling a competent Korean taco is laughably easy in concept – just jam Korean meat into a taco (no double entendre intended), and you’re the next Roy Choi.

Café Duke has always been a staple in my weekly lunch rotation, given that it‘s a smorgasbord of wallet friendly options that appease my co-workers’ finicky spectrum of palates. But for weeks, I’ve bolted straight to the back counter, only to see a non-bulgogi taco special coquettishly playing with my emotions. We even sent ML contributor, Jeremiah, on a wild goose chase to hunt down these tacos at the 41st Street location, to no avail. However after weeks of speculation, my dumb perseverance and gullibility was finally rewarded.

I came. I saw. I conquered the elusive Café Duke bulgogi taco.
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Rest assured we have computer nerds working around the clock to fix the broken ML Twitter Tracker (ok, more like one nerd spent 15 minutes last night and hasn’t been able to fix it.) While we try to sort that out, here’s everything you need to know… NYC Cravings is on 53rd btw. Park+Lex, Joyride is on 52nd and 6th, Frites N Meats is on Park btw. 26+27th, Eddie’s Pizza Truck is on 55th and Park, Eggstravaganza is on 52nd and Park, Wafels & Dinges is on 46th btw. 5+6th, and QBA Kitchen is hoping to be on 44th and 5th at 12:30pm. We’ll update this post as more info comes in…  UPDATES: Quick Stop Kosher is on 33rd and 9th in front of B&H.  And Miss Softee is on her way to 44th and 6th with “cinnamon bun” cones.

Since most of you will be ditching out of work tomorrow (but not me, thanks boss!), it seemed like a good idea to bump Flatiron Lunch up a day. Enjoy!

You might recall reading about Mario Batali’s new mega-market Eataly here in Flatiron Lunch a month or so back. Or maybe you read about it here or here or maybe you caught Eater’s live-blogging of the opening Tuesday night. I passed through opening night to scout out this Big New Thing, and as you can imagine the place was packed. What I didn’t quite expect was that there would be lines out the door at lunchtime the next day!

Who has time to stand in line just to get into this place, and then meander through the cavernous space trying to figure out if anything’s worthy of being considered a Midtown Lunch? So… I figured I’d do it for you.

Eataly’s Midtown Lunch’ish options (plus a splurge or two) are after the jump.

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Do you wonder what the ML contributors do when they’re not eating lunch in Midtown? (They’re actually pretty easy to stalk!)

Sorry, but you have to go all the way to S.F. for this

This past weekend Brownie was in Maine eating ice cream, while her partner in crime Blondie was in San Francisco eating some amazing look sweets from Tartine and Bi-Rite Creamery. Danny was in Chinatown discovering a cart that serves long tzi tang (a sweet Chinese treat made from peanuts and spun sugar), while Clay hit up Jin Fong for some Dim Sum. Chris H is a big fan of the pizza at Totale in the East Village, and here is a video of Amy making a peanut butter and banana sandwich in Providence.

Couldn’t help but notice that DOH letter grades are starting to pop up all over Midtown.  Unsurprisingly, the ultra clean looking Zibetto Espresso Bar got an A, as did E-Mo in Koreatown.  But we’re a little more interested in the grades that will gross out our boring co-workers (like seeing a Cafe Metro or McDonald’s with a C), or something that would be shocking to Midtown Lunchers (like Ying Du getting an A).  Seen anything interesting?  Post it in the comments, or send us a photo…

As if I needed more reasons to stalk the ML Twitter Tracker (hopefully it will be fixed soon!), this week it brought me news of several new lunch menu items from the Eggs Travaganza Cart (on 52nd and Park). These are the same folks that brought me that de-freaking-licious Bacon and Chorizo Grilled Cheese sandwich, so naturally I had to check it out.
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