Every Tuesday I turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. This week it’s Mike, a Financial Panther who hates Brother Jimmy’s and is really pissed at Pampano Taqueria for getting rid of their Agua Fresca combo add-on.
Name: Mike
Age: 24
Occupation: Financial Panther
Where in Midtown do you Work?: My office is at the out of bounds location of 29th and Madison. I used to work on 51st and Park. That’s where I did my serious midtown lunching. I never thought I would miss that area when it came to lunch but now I actually take trips up there to get some of my favorite places that I miss.
Favorite Kind of Food: Wow that’s tough! Does cheap eats count as an answer? I live in the village so I try to bring my midtown lunching rules of nothing over $10 back for dinner and I rarely go over. My favorite type of food has to be Mexican, BBQ, or Bar Food but basically I love anything loaded with starch or carbs (healthy right?). I love all Asian food and have recently been on a soup dumpling and ramen kick (and no not Nissan cup of soup). At a pizza joint I will ALWAYS order a chicken parm sub unless were talking Neapolitan pizza. I grew up on my grandmother’s sauce so anything Italian that is not smothered in red sauce is sacrilege. Finally, a bagel with nova lox and cream cheese is my favorite all time favorite breakfast. I don’t get it that often because I haven’t been able to find a good place in the city that gives me nova with cream-cheese on a bagel for less than 10 bucks.
Least Favorite Kind of Food: It is a tie between Vegetarian and Ethiopian. When I say vegetarian I don’t just mean food with no meat. I am talking about anywhere that serves wheat grass cocktails and tofu burgers. Yuck. Eating raw fatty meaty is disgusting to me. I’m grossed out by Kosher pizza and the other day I heard of Kosher Mexican (I don’t even want to know what that constitutes).
Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: For this I will stick to my old midtown location of 51st and Park. I still make the trip uptown to go to Pampano Taqueria (on 3rd Ave. btw. 49+50th). 2 or 3 Alambre steak tacos with the combo and the Agua Fresca and I am in the food zone! The Agua Fresca always sealed the deal for me and I was even so bold as to ask them how it was made. They gave me the Heisman and said, “no way” but every time I go I still try to find out that secret recipe. Now the sad news. I went there last Friday with my girlfriend and they got rid of the Agua Fresca as a add on to the combo. I called shenanigans and tried to reason with them that the Agua Fresca made the deal, but I was denied. Even without the Agua Fresca it is one of the best lunches in midtown. My go to pizza place was always La Bellezza (on 49th btw. Lex+3rd) for a chicken or eggplant parm sub. When a chicken parm is made with thin flat pounded chicken that is freshly breaded and spiced just right it is a thing of beauty. Sizzle chicken with extra sauce at Fusion Grills in the food court at 875 3rd Ave is great. Cheap generic chicken teriyaki is one of my favorite food court meals. When I found this I was so excited because I mourned the Sarku that got removed when the heartless JC Penny Corporation moved into the Manhattan Mall.
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Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:45 am, October 27th, 2009 under PROFILE: Midtown Lunch'er.
22 Comments
Over on Serious Eats: New York Joe DiStefano has filed the first report on Lan Sheng, the new Sichuan restaurant that recently opened on 39th btw. 5+6th (right across the street from Szechuan Gourmet.) All the food he ate was part of a free “press dinner”, and much of it isn’t even on the menu yet, but hot damn the photos look tasty! He also found out the chef trained in Chengdu, and the “number two” chef used to work at Wu Liang Ye. As we reported last week, the lunch specials menu (which is what I’m most interested in) doesn’t really have too many Sichaun specialties on it, but the owners reassured me yesterday via email that they are working on a new menu that will be ready in a week. And… “there will be a lot more Sichuan food on the lunch specials.” Nice.
This just in from Lunch’er “Matt”: “Not sure if this has been reported yet (I didn’t see anything) but the Free Foods NYC on 52nd btw. 3rd+Lex is closed! It was definitely open last week when I passed by and I even saw the chef ordering product out front. In hindsight maybe he was taking inventory! Anyways I figured I’d pass along the news so you can break the bad news to the masses. The windows were completely papered up.” According to the owner most of the business at that location was delivery, so they decided to consolidate operations. I’m guessing that means if you used to have food delivered from the 52nd location, 
