Midtown Lunch

This stupid cookie episode has proven one thing- everybody likes a different kind of chocolate chip cookie. (Photo courtesy of Food in Mouth)

• Danny questions the validity of Pret’s chocolate chip cookie victory [Food in Mouth]
• Le Pain Quotidien makes a great Belgian brownie [Dessert Buzz]
• Magnolia Bakery is now serving Rockette Red Velvet Cupcakes [Cupcakes Take the Cake]
• Rudy’s backyard is set to reopen in the spring! [Fork in the Road]
• Going to taxi school makes you crave the Famous Halal Guys [Taxi Gourmet]
• Some kind of Australian vegetarian restaurant is opening on 8th Ave. [Zagat Buzz]
• You can order takeout from Sapporo [Ramen and Friends]
• Another look at the Sichuan cuisine of Lan Sheng [Fork in the Road]

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” posts about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

Ever get a case of the Mondays? You know, that feeling you get when facing the beginning of a long workweek or just staring into the never-ending list of projects and errands for the day? Well, I had it bad on Monday and found a wonderful solution. Of course it involved beer and procrastination. Now I’m not condoning drinking liberally at the beginning of the week… oh heck, who am I fooling, you need it, get your drink on people! Here’s how I did it up this past Monday…

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As reported earlier OBAO is in fact open for lunch, and is already slammed. There’s eat in and take out (although there have been reports of 45 minute wait times) and a lunch menu that is slightly different than the dinner menu. Not everything is being offered at lunch, but the 3 meat dishes, 3 rice dishes and the vermicelli noodle dishes are all cheaper (although sadly most of the noodle dishes are now $11.)

Check it out after the jump…

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Considering how burger obsessed NYC is, it still amazing to me that Black Shack (the new burger spot on Lexington btw. 37+38th) managed to fly under the radar all this time. Fork in the Road broke the news on Wednesday, and yesterday I headed over to check the place out. The whole thing is less surprising once you see the joint.  With only a paper “Black Shack” sign in the window, it would be real easy to walk right by this place and not notice it. Black Shack is owned by the same folks that opened 67 Burger in Fort Greene- but unlike that place, which has 14 different toppings and a “beer milkshake”, Black Shack is a completely pared-down old-school fast-food burger joint.

Check out what they’re serving, after the jump.

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Left is Mine, Right is Hers

I have slowly come to the realization that in the matter of sushi (as it pertains to Midtown Lunch’ing) I will never find the holy grail. In other words, you pretty much always get what you pay for… and it’s impossible to get a ton of sushi for less than $10, and also have it be edible. But if push comes to shove, my favorite spot is still Aoki (on 48th btw. 7+8th) even though they raised the price of their 3 roll lunch special from $10 to $11.  Tasty Eating is apparently a fan as well, and I couldn’t help but notice that her roll choice is a mirror image of my standard order:  eel and avocado, crunchy spicy tuna (don’t judge me), & shrimp tempura.  Great minds, I guess?  What’s your ideal three roll combo?

Related:
3 Quality Sushi Rolls for $10? Aoki Me!

Our Downtown Lunch man Daniel Krieger is taking some time off (he’s busy being a professional photographer!), so I’m turning to a couple of new Downtown Lunchers to pick up the slack. This week Lunch’er Kevin discovers the wonders of an Israeli egg salad sandwich.

Egg Salad does not get a whole lot of love here on Midtown Lunch. In fact, there’s little about this old lunchtime workhorse on the site beyond this post on the forum sending those seeking egg salad to Ess-a-Bagel or Eisenberg’s.  And I can understand why. Bad egg salad is truly awful, and most egg salad out there is bad egg salad. I love egg salad that I’ve made myself when I can keep the mayonnaise level under control, but I almost never order it when I’m eating out.

Unless there’s a really good reason to, and the relatively new Jou Jou Café at Nassau St. and Maiden Lane offers up just such a reason: Their egg salad is not just any egg salad. It’s Israeli egg salad.

Hell yes.

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