Midtown Lunch

This stupid cookie episode has proven one thing- everybody likes a different kind of chocolate chip cookie. (Photo courtesy of Food in Mouth)

• Danny questions the validity of Pret’s chocolate chip cookie victory [Food in Mouth]
• Le Pain Quotidien makes a great Belgian brownie [Dessert Buzz]
• Magnolia Bakery is now serving Rockette Red Velvet Cupcakes [Cupcakes Take the Cake]
• Rudy’s backyard is set to reopen in the spring! [Fork in the Road]
• Going to taxi school makes you crave the Famous Halal Guys [Taxi Gourmet]
• Some kind of Australian vegetarian restaurant is opening on 8th Ave. [Zagat Buzz]
• You can order takeout from Sapporo [Ramen and Friends]
• Another look at the Sichuan cuisine of Lan Sheng [Fork in the Road]

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.

Ever get a case of the Mondays? You know, that feeling you get when facing the beginning of a long workweek or just staring into the never-ending list of projects and errands for the day? Well, I had it bad on Monday and found a wonderful solution. Of course it involved beer and procrastination. Now I’m not condoning drinking liberally at the beginning of the week… oh heck, who am I fooling, you need it, get your drink on people! Here’s how I did it up this past Monday…

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As reported earlier OBAO is in fact open for lunch, and is already slammed. There’s eat in and take out (although there have been reports of 45 minute wait times) and a lunch menu that is slightly different than the dinner menu. Not everything is being offered at lunch, but the 3 meat dishes, 3 rice dishes and the vermicelli noodle dishes are all cheaper (although sadly most of the noodle dishes are now $11.)

Check it out after the jump…

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Considering how burger obsessed NYC is, it still amazing to me that Black Shack (the new burger spot on Lexington btw. 37+38th) managed to fly under the radar all this time. Fork in the Road broke the news on Wednesday, and yesterday I headed over to check the place out. The whole thing is less surprising once you see the joint.  With only a paper “Black Shack” sign in the window, it would be real easy to walk right by this place and not notice it. Black Shack is owned by the same folks that opened 67 Burger in Fort Greene- but unlike that place, which has 14 different toppings and a “beer milkshake”, Black Shack is a completely pared-down old-school fast-food burger joint.

Check out what they’re serving, after the jump.

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Left is Mine, Right is Hers

I have slowly come to the realization that in the matter of sushi (as it pertains to Midtown Lunch’ing) I will never find the holy grail. In other words, you pretty much always get what you pay for… and it’s impossible to get a ton of sushi for less than $10, and also have it be edible. But if push comes to shove, my favorite spot is still Aoki (on 48th btw. 7+8th) even though they raised the price of their 3 roll lunch special from $10 to $11.  Tasty Eating is apparently a fan as well, and I couldn’t help but notice that her roll choice is a mirror image of my standard order:  eel and avocado, crunchy spicy tuna (don’t judge me), & shrimp tempura.  Great minds, I guess?  What’s your ideal three roll combo?

Related:
3 Quality Sushi Rolls for $10? Aoki Me!

Restaurants have all sorts of creative ways to cover up the big yellow sticker that lets people know their establishment has been closed by the DOH. But using Twitter to preemptively alert your customers that you will be “closing for the holidays” is a new one. Yesterday, we thought that maybe Mantao Chinese Sandwiches (which announced they will be closed through the weekend) got their Thanksgiving dates mixed up. Nope!  According to Lunch’er “ceh” they were closed by the DOH. Mantao has since deleted the tweet, but you can still see it on the ML Twitter Tracker. So much for the “Chinese Thanksgiving” theory…

This morning a Mantao employee answered the phone and said that their boiler is broken and they are waiting for the landlord to fix it.  According to her it could happen this morning, in which case they’d be open for lunch today (although I’d call ahead.)