Midtown Lunch

All grievances are valid, even when they are aimed at yours truly…

Photo courtesy of Blondie and Brownie 

I was hoping that my post about not eating the sandwiches at Walgreens after being dared by a reader would elicit sympathy from the Midtown Lunch commenters… but clearly not. I thought turning my nose up at shrink wrapped sandwiches, shipped from Massachusetts to giant pharmacies would increase my cred- not destroy it!  Boy was I wrong…

You buy food from anonymous unlicensed people standing on the street selling shit illegally that they made in their home with no idea about the sanitation, storage, source ingredients or skill….people who just randomly show up on a sidewalk every now and then with a stack of styrofoam containers…..and you balk at sandwiches made by a company that is accountable to health inspectors and other governmental agencies, giant corporate customers (Walgreens in this case) not to mention shareholders/investors. ???????????? Obviously a company can screw up just as easily as an individual, but your risk/reward paradigm has gotten severely messed up. -Ben

Yes! Exactly! In fact, when you consider what the Government allows our corporations to get away with-and conversely, the hoops they force street vendors to jump through- I am much more comfortable eating street meat. Not to mention, I didn’t welsh on the dare because I was afraid of getting sick, I welshed because the sandwiches had no chance of being something Midtown Lunch readers would want to eat.

Or so I thought…

Both Wined & Dined and Blondie and Brownie capitalized on my moral outrage failings as a self-proclaimed fat man, and tried the Walgreens sandwiches for themselves- to much fanfare in the comments:

You’re good ppl by me. That turkey sub doesn’t look bad at all. And for 4 bucks, that’s a steal. The burger looks weak, and I know you only bought it for shock value, but a job well done. We can chill anytime. You’ve got yourself a new fan.

Zach, you are on thin ice. Step up to the challenge and reclaim some dignity. When I first saw this site, you totally transformed the way I think about midtwon lunch. I never once tried Street Meat and now I eat it 2-3 days a week. Biryani Kart and Kwik Meal are my favorite places to eat. I get Indian buffet and food from a news stand because you told me to. There were two mottos: lunch under $10 and have an open mind.

Restore our faith in you and eat a sandwich. Please, for the sake of midtown-lunchers everywhere. I’ll gladly come with you for moral support if you want. Sincerely, DougieC

Dougie C, how did we let it get to this point? Were there signs that something has been wrong for awhile, or was it just a switch that turned off inside your heart?  Damnit, I should have just eaten the damn sandwich…

Wait… no! I don’t feel bad… I didn’t not eat the sandwich because I was scared. I didn’t eat the sandwich because it was assembled and produced by a company outside of New York, and shrink wrapped before being shipped to Midtown. What am I saying is, these sandwiches would survive a nuclear holocaust. There was no way this was going to be a legitimate Midtown Lunch, and to even mention them in the same breath as Biryani Cart or Kwik Meal is terrible!

Shrink wrap is where i draw the line people… I think it takes these sandwiches even out of the 7-11/gas station sandwich category, and makes it more like a frozen dinner or something. Should I start writing about Stouffer’s, if they are sold in Midtown delis? Is there nobody who will sympathize with my decision!

I’m sorry if I’ve let you some of you down… but lucky for you, there are other blogs that seem willing to take up the “gross pre-packaged sandwich” beat! Sorry, I just can’t do it. (Gross pre-packaged Asian food, maybe. But sandwiches? No thanks.)  Hopefully I won’t have to turn in my ‘fat guy’ membership card. Could I redeem myself by eating a Tad’s Steak, sandwiched between two fried fish sandwiches from the Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart?  And then we can never speak of this again. I’ll even drink the saran wrapped wine, if it will make you love me once again…