Midtown Lunch

Time Out New York Kids jumps on the street food bandwagon, recommending Midtown favorites The Treats Truck & Wafels and Dinges plus the Ball Field Vendors, and Sammy’s Halal as great places to take your kids this summer. How my kid wasn’t interviewed for this piece, I will never know.  [via Serious Eats: New York]

The fact that free waffles ends at 1pm did not discourage these people still lined up at 12:55pm. And their patience was rewarded… everyone on line at 1pm gets a free waffle! Nicely done W&D. You could have been dicks and cut it off at 1, but you didn’t. Much appreciated…

Oh… and the new addition to the dinges menu: Speculoos, a spread made from ground up biscoff cookies (the ones you get on airplanes.)  Consistency of peanut butter, but tastes like gingerbread. Amazing!

There’s a reason that most Midtown pubs are not considered Midtown Lunches.  First off, few serve lunch for under $10.  Tack on tax and tip, and you’re usually spending a ton of money for food that is fine by Midtown standards… but kind of boring.  And not better than what you can get for less at a real “Midtown Lunch” spot.  Sure, there is the added bonus of beer and TV during your lunch… but is that really worth paying $4 for a soda?  Yeah, that’s right… Channel Four (on 48th btw. 5+6th) charges $4 for a soda.  I know it’s expensive to run a restaurant in Midtown, and I won’t pretend to understand the financial difficulties of being in this high rent part of town. But $4 for a soda?  That says one thing to me… tourist trap. (Or, rich lawyer happy hour spot.) Either way it’s unforgivable.

But I’ll give credit where credit is due.  Channel Four stepped to the plate with this bacon explosion thing.  If you haven’t heard of the bacon explosion, it was one of those gross food sensations that hit the internets earlier in the year. Essentially a bacon wrapped, ground pork roll covered in BBQ sauce, Channel Four decided to recreate it for consumption in Midtown. (Amazing, right?)  Even more than that, they were willing to turn it into a sandwich (called the “Bacon Implosion”) and charge under $10 for it as part of our Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge.  So I swallowed my cheap bastard, Midtown Lunch’ing standards and stepped into Channel Four yesterday for a taste.

Be prepared to be rocked by the “Implosion” after the jump…

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This just in… today is the free cupcake day for the newly opened Crumbs on Broadway btw. 52+53rd. They’re only giving away 1000, and the employee I just talked to on the phone said they’re already at #600. Of course, if you don’t make it there, there’s always the free waffle sample from Noon to 1pm at the Wafels and Dinges Truck on 45th btw. 6+7th. Freeloaders engage! (Thanks to Blondie and Brownie for the Crumbs tip.)

I finally got around to trying Certe’s May entry in the Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge, the Mexican Torta.  “Tanman” and “Wayne” were kind of enough to send their reports earlier in the month, but in keeping with the rules of the Sandwich Challenge I should probably post something… so here it is.  Good sandwich.  Quality meat.  Love the avocado (always a sandwich bonus.)  Liked the bread, salsa and cheese.  All around a good sandwich.  I wouldn’t call it a torta though.  That’s a torta! This was more like a good steak sandwich with avocado.  Though for $8.95 it kind of lacks that wow factor that is required for me to spend this much on a sandwich- although I would definitely recommend trying it at least once. Another solid effort from Certe (on 55th btw. 5+6th).

If you’re interested in checking it out for yourself, I think Friday may be the last day.

Related:
Certe’s Thanksgiving Dip is the Greatest Sandwich Ever Created
Underestimate Certe’s Vegetarian Sandwich at Your Own Risk

It looks like the short lived Empanada Joe’s (on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th) is becoming a place called Roma Pizza.  If the look of the sign is any indication, I’m guessing this will be just another generic 8th Ave. New York City fast food pizza place (aka for the tourists.)  I guess only time will tell.