Midtown Lunch

My favorite event of the year has finally arrived!  http://streetvendor.org/vendys/“>The 2008 Vendy Awards are tomorrow from 3-7 p.m. in Dumbo, and it’s no secret who I want to take home the coveted Vendy Cup: Meru and the Biryani Cart on 46th and 6th Ave. I’d be happy with a keep-it-in-midtown Kwik Meal victory as well (they’re on 45th and 6th), but that cart has already gotten their fair share of accolades.  I’d like to see the Biryani Cart get their day in the sun.

Over at Serious Eats: New York we set odds for the event, and put the Biryani Cart’s chances at about the middle of the pack.  If the cart is putting their best food forward, I’d pick his Kati Rolls, biryani, and chicken tikka masala over anything the other four carts are serving.  But as we all know, the cart can be inconsistent- and the event will be packed, so the potential for being overwhelmed is there.

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Unlike House of Pita, which struggled to get their customers to travel to 8th Ave. from their original 48th Street location, Pick-a-Pita seems to be having no trouble keeping their clientele.  Granted their original location (on 38th btw. 7+8th) is around the corner from the new larger location (on 8th Ave. btw. 39+40th_… but this line seems longer than anything they were ever dealing with at the original location.  It looks like the Mandler’s curse may be broken.

Grub St. breaks the news that the Dutch chain Danku will be opening at the end of the month on 57th Street btw. 5+6th Ave. Their specialty is “the kroket, a deep-fried fritter filled with everything from chili con carne to macaroni and cheese, each served with a designated dipping sauce (creamy ranch being one).”  Alright Danku… you’ve got our attention.

Uh… yeah.  You heard me right.  Soft shelled mother f’ing crabs on a Midtown by the lb. buffet.  That is what I discovered at the Cafe Duke on 51st btw. 6+7th yesterday. I’ve already written a bunch about how much I love their by the lb. buffet, but this just put it over the top.  Soft shelled crab! I’m still giddy thinking about it.  This could be the biggest money item to ever show up on one of these generic Midtown deli buffets (the ones that cost under $10 a pound anyway).  And, they don’t even weigh that much (especially compared to other stuff like fruit and bone in chicken).  It really is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen at a by the pound buffet.

At $7.79 a pound, Cafe Duke by the lb. is on the high end of these kind of crappy Midtown options… but for the quality it is definitely worth it.  The food always looks fresh, every choice looks damn tasty, and the sauce they put on their fake jumbo shrimp makes me not mind that they are trying to fake you into thinking you’re actually getting shrimp. 

How they were, a shot of my lunch, and the one big downside- after the jump…

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…with Bobby Flay has still not been revealed.  Yesterday, we showed you Chris Chen’s poker face and today his partner Jerome weighs in on the whole Eater “should we or shouldn’t we” reveal the winner of the Throwdown before it airs: “What other show is as effective as Throwdown in using the power of a well-known chef to celebrate the efforts of local chefs? By revealing the winner to a Throwdown, you eat their bread and butter.”  So you are admitting that the episde will “celebrate” the effort of The Dessert Truck?  The truth is I think secretly Food Network doesn’t (or shouldn’t care.) All of this internet stupidity just gets more people excited to see the show- and I hardly think revealing the winner to us few Dessert Truck loving nutjobs will eat into the Food Network’s “bread and butter.”  The number of people who will see the results on the internet pales in comparison to the millions of viewers these shows get when they air.  I’m just saying (selfishly)… damnit Eater, reveal the winner already!!!

 

The Outpost has been mentioned a number of times on this blog, most notably in Lunch’er Grace’s Ultimate List of Midtown Soups at the beginning of the year.  Described as “the soup deal of a lifetime… hidden in the MTV/Viacom Building” this place sounded like a proper Midtown Lunch kind of place. With the weather starting to get cold, I decided to check out the Outpost last week;  but when I entered the building on the NW corner of 44th and Broadway, and rode the escalator up, I found a place called the “V Stop”.  They had soups, and as promised by Grace a 12 oz cup cost $1.25, but the place itself looked like just another generic Midtown crap hole… and the soups looked like they were made by some central catering company- not a random old chef with a whimsical love of soup.  I was kind of thrown off by the whole thing and didn’t even bother trying the admittedly cheap $1.25 soup.

Is this what the original Outpost was like? Has anybody been recently?  Are the soups still good?  My gut tells me this place is now a pass…

I wish I could stop, but the reports just keep on coming in about Obika, the newly opened mozzarella bar on 56th and Madison. At least today it seems like the takeout only sandwiches lasted past 12:30…

Photo courtesy of Danny from Food in Mouth

From Lunch’er Bossman: “Sandwich was actually quite tasty, the quality of ingredients was excellent. I ordered the Prosciutto, Mozz and Basil and found with Mozz/Tomato/Basil in the bag when I got back to the office. It was on a 6″ long Ciabatta-like roll, the Mozz was creamy and oozed fresness. They still have a limited selection and if all they have is what’s on display- not much of it. The staff are dolts, even though the girl taking the order is next to the guy prepping the sandwich there were three screwups in the two minutes I was there (not counting my wrong sandwich)I think their issues on take-out, inexperienced staff aside, is simply not having enough storage space for the menu items. This is the Italian equivalent to Chinese food. 15 minutes later, I’m asking “what’s for lunch?”. Yips beckons.”

Lunch’er Dylan agrees: “I agree: the sandwiches are almost laughably small. Eight dollars later, I am sitting here contemplating an early-afternoon snack. The bread was crisp and fresh, but after all of five bites it was gone. The mozzarella/prosciutto was even smaller than my mozz/tomato/basil affair—that sandwich was barely the size of a blackberry. Dissapointed.”

Another photo, plus more lunchers weigh in… after the jump. 

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