Midtown Lunch

Photo Courtesy of Food in Mouth

• The fish sandwich from Mike’s Deli on 32nd is just ok, but the fries are good [Food in Mouth]
• Reuters & MSNBC have the grossest cafeterias [Daily Intel]
• Want to run the bar at Momofuku Midtown? [Eater]
• Finally somebody thinks to talk to some old school street vendors! [Salon]
• A new kosher spot has opened on 44th Street [Andrew Strong]
• Dave Cook takes the 93 plates guy to Mad for Chicken [Eating in Translation]
• Midtown as seen through an iPhone [Sakura Pop]

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” will post 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.

I love Greek food and I especially crave lamb, unfortunately most Greek restaurants in Manhattan are much too expensive to include in your regular lunch or dinner rotation (I’m looking at you Anthos!) There are the Halal-style ground lamb gyros, but that’s a far cry from Greek food- plus white sauce is not a substitute for delicious, tangy tzatziki! Last week I happened upon a sign outside Uncle Nick’s Ouzaria advertising a lamb, pork, veggie, or chicken sandwich with a draft beer for $7. I was incredulous. Really? A lamb pita with a full pint of beer for only $7 –and for dinner!? There has to be a catch right? Ouzaria’s sandwiches are usually $9 with fries, but I’ll gladly pay $2 less and trade out the spuds for some suds. Needless to say I made my way there yesterday.

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Between yesterday and Today the Jamaican Dutchy (which has been M.I.A. from 51st and 7th for almost 3 months) realized that Monday is a holiday, so they are postponing their return by one more day. They’ll be back on Tuesday, and they’ll be armed with a bunch of new menu items. Hamburgers, salmon burgers, turkey burgers, and the previously mentioned “Jamaican Dogs” will be added to the menu this Tuesday. Plus they are planning on doing some sort of different special every Tuesday from now on. The inaugural special? Salt fish with beans.

Alright back to the work at hand (aka finding lunch in Midtown).  Got this email from Lunch’er Matt about a street meat cart on 55th and 6th that he thinks everybody should check out (and you know I’m always up for new street meats!)

I’ve been meaning to share with you a newish street meat cart… but my co-worker who found it (and gushed about it) didn’t want me to. But I think we’d both like to insure its survival by having it appear on Midtown Lunch. It is called Kabab Express and it is located on the southeast corner of 55th and 6th, just in from the LOVE sign. I’ve only tried 3 things there so far, chicken and rice, lamb kabab over rice and the chicken kabab over rice. The standout is the chicken kabab which they marinate overnight in little bags for each skewer and come out tasting perfectly cooked and well seasoned with what I think is cumin and cinnamon. Because the kababs take some time as they are cooked to order, the cart has a phone number and a flyer that they give away so you can call ahead of time.

The flyer and more is after the jump…

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Ever since I started this blog (almost 4 years ago), friends and family have been telling me “You should expand!” “Branch out to other cities.” “Register a ton of ‘lunch’ domain names, and conquer the world!!!” And my thought was “Clearly you don’t read my blog. Or work in Midtown.” The site is called Midtown Lunch. It’s about lunch… in Midtown. It is what it is, and that’s why it’s so great. And even if I did want to expand, there’s one major problem: there is no place like Midtown. Seriously. We couldn’t have done this anywhere else. As much as we all like to joke and call it a wasteland, no city in the country has an area comparable to Midtown. Nowhere can you find so many people, crammed into such a small space, with so many lunch options. Despite all of its faults, Midtown is unique. Midtown is (dare I say) special.

The truth is, I never had any intention of turning this site into something bigger. Hell, I never intended it to be anything more than a hobby slash excuse to eat gross lunches every day. I started it for fun… a Midtown Lunch’er myself, eager to leave my co-workers to their boring turkey sandwiches while I went in search of something a bit more satisfying.

But clearly you guys had a different plan for me.

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• Let’s say you were moving to L.A. in two weeks. Where would you eat? [Midtown Eating]
• Birthday lunch smackdown: Anthos vs. MomoMidtown [Midtown Eating]
• Just got a new job, and looking for spots near 40th & B’way [Midtown Eating]
• Hello 30% off Hill Country! [Miscellaneous]
• The next Midtown Happy Hour meet up is set for January 26th [Midtown Connections]
• Need help finding Midtown Lunches in Hawaii! [Miscellaneous]

The bloggiest restaurant critic of all time (and a personal hero of mine) Sam Sifton hit up the Chicken House (on 36th btw. 7+8th) today and clearly wasn’t impressed.

Awwwww… I agree about the banh mi, but nasty is a bit harsh, don’t you think!? I’d call the fried chicken flavorless, but that’s nothing a bit of salt and hot sauce can’t fix! (Thankfully he didn’t try the pho, or else things would have gotten real ugly, real quick.)

Related:
Chicken House’s Vietnamese Food is Just Ok… But At Least Their Bread is From Paris Bakery!