PROFILE: Midtown Lunch’er “Alexi”
Every Tuesday I turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. I think it’s pretty well established that I am not exactly the healthiest eater when it comes to lunching, but I am well aware that occasionally some of you like to eat healthy. Every once in awhile a brave healthy eater will step to the plate and recommend some places for those Midtown Lunchers looking for a less gut busting lunch. This week it’s Alexi, a health and wellness coach that doesn’t like Chinese food (stick a dagger in my heart!) but likes rice balls.
Name: Alexi
Age: 28
Occupation: Health & Wellness Coach (plus I have a blog), but my day job is Office Manager/Receptionist
Where in Midtown do you Work?: Zelnickmedia – office is near Bryant Park
Favorite Kind of Food: I love creative food that is healthy and made from whole foods but doesn’t compromise taste. Basically, anything fresh and full of flavor – from Ethiopian to sushi.
Least Favorite Kind of Food: Not a fan of Chinese, or anything fried
Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: The dolce vita hummus salad bowl from Crisp, with whole wheat pita – SO tasty. Rice balls from Oms/B (on 45th btw. Lex+3rd) are really good. I also love picking at Free Foods‘ food bar, and their fresh shakes are juices are great. When I need a major boost I get the Curious George with cacao nibs, banana, coconut and espresso. You can’t lose. And the raw vegan macaroons are to die for. If I’m feeling uninspired I’ll hit up Dishes for a salad (but recently I was elbowed in the chaos of a lunchtime mass so I think I’ll take a break).
“Go-To” Lunch Place You and Your Coworkers Eat at Too Often? My go to place is Free Foods; downstairs, quick, healthy and I like what they’re bringing to Midtown – they’re a little unexpected, I think.
Place(s) you discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch? I don’t search around too often because honestly, I like to bring my lunch to work. However I did discover Cafe Zaiya (41st btw. Mad+5th), which has wonderfully cheap rice balls.
If you could work anywhere (just because of the lunch) where would it be and why? I know it may sounds cliche, but: Italy. I spent some time living over there after college and I had never seen that sort of love of food before. I still dream about the fresh burrata.
Is there anything you’d like to ask the Midtown Lunch readers? I’d love to hear about more restaurants and eateries that focus on fresh, whole foods! I think it’s important to focus on quality versus quantity. SO many places are all about stretching your dollar – which is great – but sometimes you have to stop and think of what that meal consists of and where it came from. After all, you want something that’s going to get you through the afternoon without a 3pm sugar binge!
But I like my 3pm sugar binge. And prefer not to think of where my food came from! (Especially when I’m eating from a street vendor.) And let’s not even talk about my love of Chinese food. Anyway… it’s good to have different viewpoints on the site… and FreeFoods is still open (and always crowded) so there are clearly plenty of people who share your opinion. Anybody have any healthy recommendations for Alexi and the silent minority of Midtown Lunch’ers looking for this kind of food? Put them in the comments.
And as always if anybody would like to be next week’s Profiled: Midtown Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d like to nominate), email me at zach@midtownlunch.com.
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:45 am, September 29th, 2009 under PROFILE: Midtown Lunch'er.
63 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
63 Comments
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The best things in life are fried and or free.
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What’s up with everyone crawling up this girls ass because she doesn’t like Chinese food?
“Well you never had the pork buns from this little cart on the sidewalk outside the Great Wall?” Who friggin cares! This ain’t Beijing Lunch. It’s a NY centric food site. So I think we can safely assume if she doesn’t like Chinese, it’s the meat-centric, mostly fried, gloppy, American-ized version we all know and tolerate.
Sheesh.
What a bag a jerks we got going on here.
It’s no surprise why I’ll NEVER be a midtown luncher.
Danny: Grow up. Some of us think Chinese food mostly sucks. Big time. That’s our right.
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BTW, as a person who eats way too many Johns’ burgers and chicken parms, I think her call for more healthy ideas on this blog is spot on. Cheap crap is easy to find and a lot of the healthy options are pricier.
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I have the same wariness about Chinese food. Went to a Chinese buffet last night and they had the most delicious all green Chinese greens that I rarely see. I ate two servings but boy was the oil overdone on it. Ate the duck after scraping away the fat. Ate snow crab which is plain with no oil. I had none of the fried stuff except for one shrimp which I took one bite of …too much greasy breading so that was all. But all in all a buffet with high quality food
If Chinese home cooking is less greasy then so be it. What’s in the restaurants is and it just isn’t buffets
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…goodness we’re all credit crunch today…
im off to the potkiln.org…….toodles.
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I don’t have anything against someone wanting to be healthy at all. Being an open minded foodie, I try to try everything, including vegan and ‘healthy foods’, so to speak, that this ‘ML’er’ is claiming that she eats.
BUT, I can’t get down w/someone dismissing an entire cuisine, it just shows a massive amount of ignorance on their part. Especially one that is known to be pretty healthy. At least with the Thai hater dude, he went out of his way to try some Thai after we told him the error of his ways. Imho, this poster just feels like they saw a nice opportunity to promote their blog.
I think that being a ‘health & wellness coach’ she can, at least, do a little more research so she can better assist those looking for her help. Not everyone who wants to be healthier needs to drink smoothies or eat 2 lbs of lettuce everyday.
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I think all of this negativity can be cured with some warm lemon water, deep breathing and stretching..
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@Formz: Hilarious comment.
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Clearly Alexi, our featured ML’er, likes to torture herself by coming to this site to look at what she can’t or won’t eat….I wonder if she is vegetarian? From the look of her, my guess is she probably is. Definitely not a ML’er. This is kind of a shill ML profile. A little disappointing this week…
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1. This is not the first poster with a blog. Who doesn’t have one? And who cares if she does? Somehow this woman is the person for whom having a blog is some kind of pejorative? That’s bull. Selective suspicion, anyone?
2. I really don’t like Chinese food. But I eat some parts of it. But shorthand, am I supposed to say “I generally dislike Chinese food. However, I do like sweet and sour chicken which are just really chicken fingers with some sweet sauce, and general Tso’s chicken, while not an authentic chinese dish, has the sweet/fried/fat/meat combination I like, and those pork buns at Wu Liang Li are awesome…”
No. Thats absurd. It’s nit picking and it’s hypocritical because we ALL use shorthands that express meanings, shorthands which would fail on microscopic examination. It’s a linguistic necessity for conversation to flow.
So I just say I don’t really care for Chinese food.
Doesn’t make me ignorant or anything else. It means that particular combination of food and preparation methods that result in what Americans call Chinese food, I really don’t like.
Or: I don’t like Chinese food.
When the F did not liking some kind of food be “an error of one’s ways?” This foodie culture is just so obnoxious.
I like ketchup on hot dogs, mustard on burgers, Ruffles chips on a ham sub, I’ll never try monkey brains, I hate broccoli but wish I liked it, love Thai but I hate seafood and curry so it limits my choices there and I think most chinese food sucks. Whatever. Who cares? No one should but me. Those are all my unique choices and tastes. You can jam my face in the best pad thai in the world, but I’m still gonna hurl on you when I come up for air. You’re not gonna show me any “errors of my ways,” that’s for sure.
All this telling everyone what they are supposed to eat and how is just the most odious thing on blogs like this.
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MikeNYC as always if anybody would like to be next week’s Profiled: Midtown Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d like to nominate), email zach@midtownlunch.com
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Alexi is obviously someone who struggled with what they ate and her body self image. Through her struggles she managed to overcome negativity (probably externally and internally) to reach a happy medium where she feels most comfortable. Her lifestyle may not work for everyone (perhaps more MDL followers than most), but it manages to work for her and keeps her happy. All she’s doing is sharing what she has learned along her way to achieve her happy medium. For some, that happy medium may lean the other way to all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets or taco challenges at the local taqueria.
Dismissing Chinese cuisine is purely ignorant. But considering what kind of exposure most people have to Chinese food isn’t entirely blasphemous for a health nut. Even if you happen to find an authentic Chinese restaurant, most aren’t going to be ordering a traditional meals like I grew up eating: LOTS of vegetables and controlled portions of meat. Most people always order tons of fatty meat and the fried fatty goodness of cheap Chinese. Even after gorging myself on dim sum, I am a little disgusted with what I ate . . . till an hour later. Even authentic Mexican food isn’t all queso and enchiladas. A lot of it is fresh vegetables. She probably just hasn’t been around a lot of like minded people as her with exposure to authentic Chinese food and its more healthy options.
Anyway, my suggestions are if you want to stick with your healthy lifestyle is to keep bringing your lunch to work. But don’t forget to check out Murray’s Cheese Shop in Grand Central for quality foods. I really don’t know much else other than the Pump and Energy Kitchen. My lifestyle is probably completely opposite yours.
Who’s looking at her clavicles? Look at that bowl of shrimp!!!!
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So im guessing she never ate street meat??
Whoever said Korean- YUUM!!!!
Mamacita- falafel is my healthy food too!
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@CheeeeEEEEseee one that only you an I will understand :(
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zach already asked. No friggin way. My non-existent self-esteem cannot handle this crowd. I’m waaayyy to dorky looking. I make zach look like Peirce Brosnan.
Plus I’d just say: Johns’ burger ten times, followed by a John’s chicken sandwich and be done.
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@MikeNYC,
Gonna keep it short. One, it’s true that perhaps the spirit of her comment is not interpreted fully/completely by the rest of us. However, most of the criticism comes from the idea that it would be absurd to to pan a whole genre of food when that genre is quite large and multifaceted.If you want the freedom to believe what you believe and have your choices, you must also allow us to have ours. You don’t like most Chinese food? Fine. It seems most people here dislike those who simply go about saying “I don’t like [insert something here]”. So if you want your cake and eat it too, let us eat ours.
If you don’t like the criticism people receive as profiled lunchers, then maybe you don’t read enough on Tuesdays. If Alexi is offended by the comments, it’s probably for the same reason.
So maybe you should grow up too, big boy.
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Cute ML’r doesn’t agree with your preferred genre of food = internet nerd rage!
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Speaking of Chinese, someone just called my office wanting to order chicken and broccoli. I should’ve taken his order. Or better yet, I should’ve directed him to this profile lol!
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@chris6sigma,
i can’t help it. i live in my parents’ basement and have never actually had a real conversation with a girl. oh and i wet my bed at night. nerd rage is what i do.
Damn, you people are protective of your chinese food. Speaking of, I think I will go get some.