Midtown Lunch

I love how Bobby Flay continues to champion the New York City street cart scene.  Since his original, widely publicized Throwdown with the Dessert Truck, he’s gotten Throwdown help from the Jamaican Dutchy and Kwik Meal, plus visited the Biriyani Cart, the Dutchy, and Wafels and Dinges for a pre-Vendy award spot on CBS.  The latest visit comes courtesy of Serious Eats, who reported yesterday that Flay returned to the Wafels and Dinges Truck yesterday for a full fledged Throwdown!  Owner Thomas confirmed the news on Twitter, and posted photos to Facebook.   It also appears that the producers have gotten far better at lying to the contestants.  Dessert Truck figured things out immediately, but Thomas said he was completely “fooled into believing that it was a pilot about food trucks.”

Related:
Dessert Truck Bests Flay; Throwdown Blamed on the “Internet”
Kwik Meal Helps Bobby Flay Beat Taim in Falafel Throwdown
Jamaican Dutchy to Help Bobby Flay Throwdown

If you’re a fan of Dan Delaney and his weekly street food videos on VendrTV than this week might be a good time for some old fashion stalking. On Wednesday they’ll be filming with the Schnitzel & Things Truck in Dumbo, and on Thursday they’ll be involved in some way with the This is Why Your Fat Eat N Tweet Challenge (the thing we posted about here). But the most interesting VendrTV episode in the works might be with Fancy Fast Food (the blog that turns fast food into beautifully fancy dishes). From their twitter: “Got approached by vendr.tv to do a fancification with NYC street meat. Thoughts on what to make?” I like the sound of this… anybody have any ideas?

Related:
Fancy Fast Food Makes Mousse Out of Miss Softee
VendrTV Visits the 53rd St. & 6th Ave. Halal Guys
Vendr TV Launches With Midtown Treats Truck Video (Do You See Yourself?)

I guess the past two weeks were just the prelims, because Barros Luco (the new Chilean sandwich shop over on 2nd Ave. and 52nd Street) is celebrating its “official” grand opening today.  So if you were turned off by an earlier visit, or were forced to wait 28 minutes for your food, maybe this means they’ve worked all the issues out.  I was a fan from day one.

Related:
Barros Luco Is Just What New York’s Chilean Food Fans Have Been Waiting For

Sit down restaurants are not really what Midtown Lunch is all about.  Sure, the $10 price cap disqualifies most of them, but even so… ML is about adventure, and value, and finding something different.  Everybody knows that if you are willing to shell out the cash, and have a couple hours to spare, there are tons of delicious lunches to be had in New York City.  This site is about finding the less expensive options that save you from eating boring turkey sandwiches and build your own salad every day for lunch.

But every so often, a deal comes along from a fancy sit down restaurant that is just too good to ignore (like Del Frisco’s $9.95 steak tips bar menu loophole- since closed.)  So when I read about Fishtail’s new October $5 menu, I had to go check it out.

Read more »

Last week Yushi (on 47th btw. Lex+Park) introduced a new bento specifically aimed at the Midtown Lunch crowd looking to get more for their money.  They call it the “Greatest Hot Hits”, and it’s got a mix of some of their more popular items all in one box.  Chicken teriyaki, 2 scallion and chive dumplings, edamame and fried rice all for $8.  I’m all about variety, so this thing is right up my alley.  The white meat chicken was not surprisingly a tiny bit dry (although I heard that they might be switching to dark meat) and the edamame could have used some salt… but overall it’s not a bad deal for $8 (especially for Yushi, where some of the bentos can leave a guy like me pretty hungry.)

Still worried it might not be enough food for $8?  Well fear no longer… Yushi has decided to offer Midtown Lunch’ers a buy one get one free deal on the “Greatest Hot Hits” box for one week only.  All you have to do is print out this post, and take it to Yushi during lunch any day this week, and you get two “Greatest Hot Hits” bentos for the price of one.

The fine print is after the jump…

Read more »

Thanks to Lunch’er Nick for sending over this photo from this morning.  It looks like the new location of Financier Patisserie has opened in the walkway that goes through the Fox News Building (on 6th Ave. btw. 47+48th).  The best way to access it is on 48th btw. 6+7th.  In addition to pastries they also have hot sandwiches, salads, quiche, and soups.  Also open is the new 99 Cent Pizza place on 3rd Ave on Lex btw. 45+46th.  Not surprisingly it is pretty much an exact rip-off of 99 Cent Fresh Pizza because it was opened by a former employee.  Thanks to Lunch’er Larry for sending in that photo.

Got news to report?  An opening, closing, or recommendation? Email it to zach@midtownlunch.com

Once a month the website Foodbuzz showcases 24 meals, by 24 bloggers, in the same 24 hour period around the globe. This month they chose Midtown Lunch to be one of the showcased blogs, and graciously agreed to fund a Street Meat Walking Tour of Midtown for 5 lucky Midtown Lunch readers and their guests. A contest was held, names were drawn (randomly), and on Saturday at Noon I lead 10 winners on a guided tour of the best street meat Midtown has to offer. We ate, met the vendors, ate some more, and compared. Here’s a little recap of the tour…

Read more »