Midtown Lunch

Love cupcakes or hate them, it’s hard not to wonder if Midtown can take *another* cupcake place. Seriously. “Hey not sure if you’ve seen/heard – but ANOTHER Crumbs is opening over here on the East side (on 3rd Ave. btw. 53+54th)”. This location, which has been planned for awhile, is set to open sometime in Feburary. This will be in addition to their orginal 42nd street location, their newer location on Madison and 52nd, plus a new location planned for Broadway btw. 52+53rd. Oh yeah, plus the Magnolia Bakery in Rock Center (which surprisingly has not fully entered the tourist radar yet.) I’m sure Crumbs’ giant expansion was planned long before the economic collapse, but you can’t help but wonder if they’re making a mistake by not scaling back. Or perhaps cupcakes are recession proof?

This is probably as good a day as any to go to the readers’ choice for “Best Fast Food Chinese” two years running. How could I not, right?  According to commenter Yvo, you’re supposed to eat vegetarian on Chinese New Years Day as some sort of cleanse (???), but I didn’t get the memo before leaving for lunch.  I almost always order the same thing at Hing Won (sauteed udon with pork) but today I mixed it up!  House Special Lo Mein, with shrimp, chicken, and ground pork (substitute in roast pork, please.)  Uh… yeah.  Pretty much the exact same dish as the sauteed udon, just with a different kind of noodle.  Oh well.  I couldn’t help it! (As it was, it took a lot of will power not to do their newish by the lb. buffet… which always looks good, but then kills me when I weigh my lunch.)

Lucky for me, I had my wife along with me- who is always much better at mixing it up.  Her lunch (which I ate a third of) is after the jump…

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Clearly I wasn’t going to win the free lunch for a month from FreeFoods contest with the essay I wrote (although surpringly they included one of my quotes in a list of their “submissions,” even though I never technically entered it), so I probably won’t be eating at the super expensive upscale organic deli owned by Matthew Kenney anytime soon. (Many have commented that it tastes good, but I just can’t bring myself to spend the money.) But I know there are a lot of vegetarians, and organic food enthusiasts (it’s not all vegetarian stuff) who can afford it, and lucky for those people Kathy YL Chan (from A Passion For Food) was willing to take a hit for the team, and eat her way through the FFNYC menu. Here is her report… (those who get offended by overpriced healthy food, avert your eyes now.)

Full disclaimer: I am a pork lover, I am a foie gras lover, and prefer my bread toasted with melted lard smothered over the top. I eat dessert till no end, and then chase it with a beer or two. But every now and then, it’s rather interesting and fun to delve into the vegan world. Hence, my report on FreeFoodsNYC (which is not entirely vegan, or vegetarian for that matter.)

The new FreeFoods NYC is exactly what we don’t need in this economy: very fancy-smanshy, very-expensive organic, vegan, and raw food version of a standard Midtown deli. Regardless, it’s pretty tasty and I’ll confess to a growing addiction.

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Since today is Chinese New Year, and many (myself included) will be seeking out some Chinese food today to celebrate, I figured it would be a good day to post this interesting email I got the other day:

“So there are some new designers (women) for a new line that we are launching that are not afraid to eat good food (yesterday they had Lazzarra’s here delivering pizza). The other day they were eating delivery Chinese and it smelled great. So I asked the “from where” and they replied Dong Hai Grill. I then said I have a great place for you, and one said “what Szechuan Gourmet?” I sad “yes” and before I could even finish saying yes, she retorted “we like Dong Hai much better”. Now I often walk by Dong Hai (on 39th btw. 6th+B’way) but have always ignored it. I have never eaten there. Now my curiosity was peaked.”

More on the menu and food, is after the jump…

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Lunch’er Larry sends along this photo and report: “I just noticed on the NE corner of 45th & Lex, which used to be a Vitamin Shoppe, there’s a sign in the window for a ‘Green Room Cafe on Lex’.” Just another generic Midtown deli? Or perhaps it’s a U.S. outpost of the healthy cafes run by Aramsa Spa in Singapore. Either way it’s pretty meh news, but I’m betting on generic deli… besides, the last Singapore company to open a chain in Midtown didn’t fare so well.

Fat Annie’s Truck Stop (on 33rd btw. 6+7th) during the Inauguration. Photo by presley 

• Does eating at City Burger too much give you the gout? [The Feedbag]
• Dave Cook checks out the kashiwa mochi at Dainobu [Eating in Translation]
• A rundown of the different flavors of Mitzy’s macarons at Tafu [A Passion for Food]
• The steak may be fine, but skip the burger at the Midtown Smith & Wollensky [AHT]
• The oatmeal chocolate chipper from the Treats Truck [Blondie and Brownie]
• Ed Levine calls the just out of bounds Baoguette, the best banh mi in New York [SE:NY]
• The inventor of the doner kebab passed away [The Local]

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” will post 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.

The first time I went to the Judge Roy Bean it was a holiday weekend and the place was mostly empty, save for a few guys eating at the bar and a family of tourists seeking rest at a table. I ordered a well drink. My friends got a beer. In general, I was not really impressed. There wasn’t a happy hour, prices were in the $6-$8 range, my drink came in your usual medium sized glass and was just right, but not potent. The place was ok, but somewhat lacking. I couldn’t get past the fact that I was drinking in Midtown. Now let’s fast forward to this past Wednesday.

I needed a bar to review and I figured I’d give the Judge a retrial. I called upon a couple of single girlfriends and some pals and we met up after work. I was the second to show up. By then my blonde friend had an Orange Stoli and soda half finished and was telling Derek, the Irish bartender, how cute he was. I got a black and tan and soon realized that, “Wow, there’s a bunch of hot guys here!” You see babes, I’m not calling this review ladies night at the JRB because it was the bar’s theme night. Oh no, as the night drew longer it was obvious by the healthy dose of young man-meat that filled the bar that this was the place to be if you were a single lady.

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Photo courtesy of Occam

Wednesday morning, there was a fire in the building that houses Menchanko Tei on 55th btw. 5+6th, forcing them to close along with Onigashima and the Five Guys Burgers and Fries on the same block.  Menchanko Tei says they’re hoping to be back open in a week, while Five Guys is not answering their phone.  Five Guys is always packed on Fridays, so I’m guessing there will be a lot of disappointed people today. Another prediction: Burger Joint (on 56th btw. 6+7th) and Men Kui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) will be mobbed…

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…

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