Midtown Lunch

A couple of exciting tidbits from the world of Midtown street vending this morning.  First up, I just got word that Kwik Meal’s Muhammed Rahman will open his new pasta cart today.  It will be parked next to the OG Kwik Meal cart on 45th and 6th and will have three options: Angel hair w/ chicken, shrimp, or vegetables in red sauce.  Can’t wait to hear from the early adopters about this one.  Feel free to send photos to zach@midtownlunch.com.  Also going down today… Schnitzel & Things and the Street Sweets truck are parking together today on 52nd btw. 6+7th. Schnitzel burger, followed by fresh oven baked chocolate chip cookies?  Sounds like a plan… (although, as always, you may want to check the ML Twitter Tracker for confirmation before heading out.)

Related:
Famous Street Meat Vendor Branching Out With Italian Food Cart
Schnitzel Burger is Everything That is Fun About Food
The Street Sweets Truck Top 5

On days like today soup will be on the agenda for many lunchers… but for me there is a less obvious choice: Indian buffet! On Friday I tested this theory with a little cold (and rainy) day trip to Spice Fusion (on 8th Ave. btw. 47+48th.) I consider it one of the better buffet options in Midtown, especially in its price range (which at $10.95 pushes me to my buffet price limit.) The tricky thing about most Indian buffets is items will change from day to day, so you never know what you are going to get. But I was excited to discover that Spice Fusion has created a schedule and posts it for everyone to see at the front door. That way you know exactly what you are going to get before heading over.

Check out a close up after the jump…

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Blondie and Brownie discover another reason why Midtown chains suck. Lenny’s, which is not terrible (but should certainly not be at the top of any list for best lunch in Midtown), charges customers an extra 25 cents to have their bagels toasted.  Brownie is rightfully outraged: “WTF?! That’s down right unAmerican. Shouldn’t toasting be the inalienable right of a bagel buyer?” Agreed.

She goes on to ask if there are “other places in midtown where I can get a toasted bagel with olive and pimento cream cheese that won’t charge me to toast?” I don’t know about olive and pimento cream cheese (which could be considered an outrage in and of itself) but I know Times Square Hot Bagels (on 44th btw. 7+8th) is pretty good and has a crapload of different cream cheeses. Ess-a-Bagel (on 3rd btw. 50+51st) is also good, but that’s probably too far east for anybody who works in Rock Center (and they have some overcharging issues of their own.) Anybody else have bagel recommendations for the ladies? Put them in the comments…

Related:
Ess a Bagel and the Ultimate Case of “That’s how they getcha!”

Buckhorn Grill’s Tri Tip,coming soon to Rock Ctr. Photo courtesy of mmmfruit

• It sounds like Stumptown is worth walking to 29th street for [Fork in the Road]
• I am not cool enough to know what Bagatelle is, but one is coming to Midtown [Eater]
• A look at White Castle’s spicy buffalo chicken rings [Me So Hungry]
• HB Burger makes a list of NYC’s best tator tots [Restaurant Girl]

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” posts 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. This week she hits up her second all you can eat happy hour in a row!!! (Very exciting…)

Koreatown has its fair share of fried chicken places. One thing they all have in common is the price. We’re not talking KFC here, and when you factor in drinks not only are you out of the ML price range but you are also putting a dent in your wallet that these days no one can afford. Then I read about Third Floor Café’s unlimited fried chicken and beer special on Tuesdays on Serious Eats. For $18 bucks (and with the right hearty eaters) this could easily be the deal of the year. It took me a while, but I finally made it out this past Tuesday.

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Out with the old, in with the… old. If you were hoping that something exciting was going to replaced the recently shuttered Sbarro’s in the subway station beneath 30 Rockefeller Center- I’m sorry to have to break this news to you. It’s being replaced by an Au Bon Pain. They make good cookies, but there’s already one across 6th Ave. on 50th Street. Can’t we get something new and fun!?! (Thanks to Lunch’er Nick for the photo…)

It’s been forever and a day since Taam Tov (the semi-hidden 3rd floor Uzbeki restaraunt on 47th btw. 5+6th) has been mentioned on Midtown Lunch, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the spotlight.  The Polish version of Playboy featured them recently.  Now I know what you are thinking… “Zach, I could have sworn your subscription to Polish Playboy ran out over the summer.  How on earth did you find this article?”  Well, that’s an easy one.  They used one of the photos from my post about Taam Tov in the article. I have no idea what the feature was about, or what they said about the place, because I can’t read Polish… but it’s exciting anyway.  Look Ma!  All your hopes and dreams for me finally have come true.  Your little boy has a photo credit in Polish Playboy.

If you can read Polish, after the jump there is a close up of the sadly-safe-for-work article (which I’ve heard are really good in Polish Playboy.)

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It’s been a duck kind of a week. Yesterday I wrote about the Thursday duck pancake special at Yushi… and then subconsciously (or consciously) I felt a sudden urge to try the duck soup from Aura Thai. I’ve seen the soups at Aura mentioned a bunch of times on Midtown Lunch (most notably by Lunch’er “Nantini”) but the place is out of bounds (9th Ave. btw. 35+36th) and there are plenty of good soups in Midtown. We don’t need to be hiking out to 9th Ave. just for soup.

Now that I’ve tried the soup, though, I think hiking out to 9th Ave. is exactly what we all need to be doing (especially now that’s it starting to get colder.)

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Photos courtesy of Food in Mouth

Midtown Lunch’er Danny was all about carts on his blog Food in Mouth this week, giving a big thumbs up to Street Meat Palooza 2 winner Kwik Meal (on 45th & 6th).  Sadly, the spicy pork tacos at El Rey Del Sabor (on 43rd btw. 5+6th) were plenty spicy but not as porktastic as he would have liked.

Related:
Street Meat Palooza 2: Our New York City Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown Crowns A New Champion
All Midtown Lunch Posts about El Rey del Sabor
All Midtown Lunch Posts About Kwik Meal