Archive for May 2008

BAGELFELLER GOES DOH!: This straight from the M.L. Inbox: "The DOH must be cracking down on the 48th St. places.  Bagelfeller has a closed DOH sign up as well..."  Don't pretend to be surprised.  That place looks dirty, smells dirty and at one time they served something called a "banana roll" in their pre-made sushi section.  Wrong on so many levels...

Secrets to a Hot Latin Body Can be Found on a Midtown Food Cart

 

I don’t know why I found this so funny.  Admittedly I know nothing about selling books, but if you are going to advertise “The Hot Latin Diet”, don’t you think there are better places than street carts?  And even if you must go with a sidewalk vendor as your canvas of choice, wouldn’t one of those fresh juice carts be a better choice?  And what was the vendor thinking?  Do you really want to remind people how fat they are, just before they step up to your cart for their 75 cent coffee with doughnut chaser?

Seeing as how I consider myself the prototypic street cart customer, I can’t see how this book will appeal to anybody willing to buy pastries out of a mobile tin can, parked on a Midtown sidewalk.  Unless “Hot Latin Diet” is one of those crazy weight loss programs (Atkins I’m looking at you) that involves eating more carnitas?  Does it involve stuffing your face with roast pork?  Because I’d buy that book.

PROFILE: Midtown Lunch’er “Paul”

Every Tuesday I turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. Today it’s Paul, a die hard Mets fan from Queens who has been waiting over a year for his Profile to finally see the light of day.

Name: Paul

Age:
26

Occupation:
Literary Agent’s Assistant and part time/uncompensated consultant for http://www.beermenus.com

Where in Midtown do you Work?:
56th & Park at Janklow & Nesbit (feel free to snail mail me if you happen to be a brilliant writer with a polished manuscript)

Favorite Kind of Food: Y’know, the four food groups: pizza, Chinese, Mexican, and breakfast.

Least Favorite Kind of Food:
I’m not down with hating on vegetables cause they are wonderful things, but the overdressed Midtown salad is disgusting. And since when did salad need to be “chop’t”? And what the hell’s happened to the normal NY slice in the past 15 years? I feel like I have to go to gourmet pizza parlors to get something edible- consarnit.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown:
My original response was the Azuri Café on 51st, but then it popped up on in another profile, so my tip for your Midtown West folks is a burger place named Vizio. They featured Angus beef, which is incredible (and maybe unbelievable but that’s for someone else to discuss) for $5.50 burger, even if fries aren’t included. It puts goodburger, betterburger, bestburger, homeburger et al to shame. In my heart of hearts, I’m a street food man and I try to hit the Dragon on 62 & Mad and the Indian cart on Park & 53rd often.

The “go-to” lunch place you and your co-workers eat at too often: Lightbites, 55th btw. Park & Lex (prototypical and awful representation of quick salads/sandwiches for people ‘on the go’ in Midtown)

Place you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch? Indian fast food carts on 53rd+Park and the 1.25 pizza at Naples 45 (although the price is up!). The after work, Naples 45 slice might be a tad stale, just so your readers know, but they’ll reheat if it’s not packed. Recently tried the Pampano Taqueria and Sophie’s Cuban , both of which were terrific. I’ve pretty much planned my life around this website for the past year and a half.

If you could work anywhere (just because of the lunch) where would it be and why? My roommate and I once talked about getting into the cart game so lunch would follow work around; however, I’m leaning towards Brighton Beach/Coney Island. They have a wonderful talent of stuffing meat inside of dough and then frying it…or Napa.

As always, if you want to be the next Profiled: Midtown Lunch’er, or you’d like to nominate somebody in your office, email me at zach@midtownlunch.com

Midtown PSA: Beware the Lunchtime Purse Snatcher

Midtown Links (Three Day Weekend Edition!)

CHOCOLATE/COFFEE: (Forgive the shameless self promotion, but this shit is good!)  Check out these espresso filled chocolates I wrote about for the newly launched Serious Eats: New York. They're available at Macchiato Espresso Bar on 44th btw. Lex+3rd.  It's not my favorite place in the world, from a Midtown Lunch'ing standpoint, but damnit if these chocolates aren't the perfect afternoon pick me up. [SE:NY]

And Then There Were Two (99 Cent Pizza Now $1.49)

I promised I wouldn’t cry post about all the price increases, because there were just too many, and it is starting to sound like a broken record at this point… but some things are much bigger than a Price Hike List (which I put up on the left hand Navbar on Wednesday).  For example- the $1 slice of pizza, which is hands down, the cheapest Midtown Lunch there is.  Well, I’m sad to report that Z Deli on 8th Ave. btw. 48+40th has upped the cost of their slice from .99 to $1.49 (a 50% increase!!!), leaving 99 Cent Fresh Pizza (one location on 43th btw. Lex+3rd, and one out of bounds location behind Port Authority)  and the Prince Deli (on 3rd Ave. btw. 43+44th) as the only two remaining purveyors of the $1 slice of pie in Midtown.

The Z Deli slice was barely worth $1, I can’t even fathom anybody paying $1.50- but more importantly, what will 99 Cent Fresh Pizza do if the cost of flour, and cheese continues to rise.  Shut down, or change their name?  Either would be incredibly upsetting…

Cops Cause Hop Won to Get the Short End of the Protest Stick

Today, around lunchtime, Africa Action sponsored a Darfur Rally to force the US to act against the genocide happening in Darfur, when we take over the Presidency of the UN Security Council on June 1st.  In order to keep the sidewalk clear in front of the building that houses the soon to be President’s office (on 45th btw. Lex+3rd), the police forced the protest across the street, in front of Hop Won!  Seems like a bunch of BS to me.  The office building that houses people who should rightfully be inconvenienced by this noble cause can’t be bothered, but feel free to block me from getting to the best sauteed udon in the city!  What crap…

At Lunch Now: Free Yogurt Edition

Apparently free cuban food is more of a draw than free frozen yogurt… it’s almost halfway through organic’s free frozen yogurt day (it ends at 3pm), and the scene is oddly calm. There’s more of a line over at Pampano Taqueria.

Wait time at 1pm was under 5 minutes, but they still managed to make it annoying by saying “Welcome to Yorganic, where the toppings are organic” when you order, *and* when they hand you your free frozen
yogurt. Yeah, we get it. It’s organic.

Avoid this by ordering one of the non-organic toppings. I got a pretty surly “Not organic capn crunch.”

ASK MIDTOWN LUNCH: CORN DOGS: From the Inbox:  "My co-worker and I have been desperately trying to find a place that’s not a Gray’s Papaya to get a corn dog in the general Rockefeller area. Can you help us out?"  Yeah.  Can you help us out.  Comments please... (I love corn dogs too.)