Alpha Fusion’s General Tso’s Will Have Zach Missing Midtown Today
By now it’s no secret that the Godfather of Midtown is leaving us for the left coast. Like you could somehow find a pocket of deliciousness in L.A. that rivals Midtown Manhattan. As if! The one thing that we should all remember about the Godfather is that he has a penchant for cheap Chinese food. Those crunchy, left coast, salad eaters won’t ever convert him. He’ll always be a fat man at heart. There’s plenty of evidence pointing to Zach’s love of cheap Chinese food, so when an email from Lunch’er “Ethan” recently recommended the General Tso’s chicken from Alpha Fusion I knew it would make the perfect jealousy inducing post for Zach’s first day away from Midtown.
Technically this place is slightly outside the Midtown Lunch borders, but it came recommended, and you know we gotta show Zach what he’s gonna be missing in New York! The lunch special General Tso’s chicken comes in at an acceptable price point of $7.35. For the price, you’re allowed a soup or salad. Here’s where the real ‘fusion’ comes into play. The only soup option? Miso soup. Of course! I always knew that miso soup was the missing piece in any meal of fried chicken chunks… It’s a fairly average miso soup and you could probably do without it.
The other fusion-y part about Alpha Fusion is that in the back of a restaurant, there’s an area where they prepare the sushi. But this is Midtown Lunch and take-out makes it more authentic so I didn’t stay in the restaurant. Now with any fried food items, you have to make sure to eat it as soon as you can. If there’s to be any sort of crunch factor in the food, you gotta make sure you open up the container before the steam softens the chicken to a mush. While general tso’s chicken is generally a mushy dish, if you can crack into these chicken chunks in time, you’ll be greeted by a pleasant crunch to each bite.
I thought this was what set it apart from most general tso’s chickens out there. The breading was fairly minimal compared to some other places, and while the sauce was sweet, it wasn’t close to sweet-n-sour pork territory. One other note was that I only got white meat in my dish. Maybe that’s how they do it, so if you’re a dark meat fan, this might not be the place for you. And if you’re hoping for at least one serving of vegetable to go along with your fried goodness, you’ll be disappointed. There’s maybe three itty bitty bits of broccoli in the dish.
For those of you on the South Western edges of Midtown, this is worth a try. It might not live up to your favorite general tso’s, but we should all do our best to let Zach know that you can’t get this shit in L.A.!
The + (What somebody likes this place would say)
- Crunch with each bite of chicken
- Not your typical mushy American-Chinese take-out
- I like miso soup with my Chinese food
- White meat chunks are delicious
THE – (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)
- For 7.35 I want at least a spring roll or something
- I don’t eat American-Chinese food
- There are grimier places with larger portions
- I only eat dark meat
Alpha Fusion, 365 W. 34 St. (btw. 8+9th), 212-279-8887
Posted by Danny at 11:45 am, February 1st, 2010 under Alpha Fusion, Out of Bounds, Review.
22 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
22 Comments
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Looks decent. Are there other rice options – brown for the healthy, fried for the heavyweights!?
And I’m down for Miso soup! -
That’s not right… first day on the west coast, and I’ve gotta read about this shit!
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Great post, Danny!
Fuson = Chinese food + Miso soup?
Way to make Zach jealous. :)
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So if this site has in fact dispelled the myth that midtown is a wasteland, why is the title page still “Finding Lunch in the Food Wasteland of NYC’s Midtown Manhattan”? Shouldn’t you change it to something like “Mission Accomplished”?
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“That’s not right… first day on the west coast, and I’ve gotta read about this shit!”
My sntmnts xctly, “Gdfthr”? Hly crp n a crcker, ML rlgtd to nthr fd blg wrttn by n Asn, nvr thght I’d s th dy.
Chck pls.
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@Bossman: i hope i’m misunderstanding your comment. If I’m not, then: not cool man, not cool at all.
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@Spydr331,
The peppers didn’t provide any heat, although I didn’t puncture any of the peppers… so that might have changed things.@StreetMeasOnsumer3008,
The menu mentions nothing about fried rice or brown rice… -
@Mira It was changed to “Food Adventures for Your Urban Lunch Hour”
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i’ll take the $9.95 lunch special at Fusia (56th & Lex) over that any day.
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Have they outlawed General Tso’s chicken in Southern California since I left? Granted, it wouldn’t exactly surprise me.
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Miss the Big Guy so much that I went to Hing Won today and cried in my noodle soup with pork and chinese pickel.
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@Wined and Dined – Not if you worked on 35th and 7th Ave. you wouldn’t
:-)
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How’s the General Tso’s at Hing Won? I thought about getting it today but decided on Shake Shack instead. Maybe later in the week then.
Is Danny going to eat a large Stew Peas this Thursday then? LOL.
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I hope this ship gets righted soon. So far ML is becoming “this is what Zach is missing” (get over that SOON!) and what I’m afraid will be an excess of ‘sweet treats’ postings (courtesy of B&B).
I know the reins had to be turned over, but these people have their own blogs (and preferences). I want the real ML content that a “fat guy” like Zach (you’re not really) can put out there. SO far it looks like we’re getting FiM part 2, with dessert provided by B&B.
Is there any way to get some ML “exclusive” people involved? Preferably those with a real ML mentality? I frankly see a conflict of interest and style when the ML staff (in NYC) is basically people moonlighting from their existing blogs.
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People – it’s been a day. Breathe.
Change is always difficult at first. Come here with an open mind and a positive contribution, and the transition won’t be as bad.
And for shit’s sake, Zach is still here in the comments contributing, as are all the same people as before! And we’re still discussing General Tso’s chicken.
We can all start wringing our hands in worry when Zach brings on a vegan macrobiotic healthfreak contributor. Even then, it’d be interesting to read about their intestines exploding when they go & try to find something acceptable to eat in midtown.
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stevenp, I think that ship will sail soon and Zach will be able to turn the tides on us NYers with In-N-Out, Kogi, etc., when he starts LA Lunch – Lunch jealousy amongst the areas.
I don’t think Zach would’ve stirred away from Sweets anyway.We all have individual tastes. That’s why nobody can really replace Zach.
Like myself, I’m a fan of street carts (mainly halal or chicken/lamb variety), not so into Delis or Fancier Feasts, but it doesn’t mean I won’t be interested in reading about them or other types of foods. I remember the complaint of too many asian soups or if it was becoming Midtown Cart? Haha. Variety is the spice of life. You cna’t always please everyone right away either…Maybe you can start writing about what you like and see if it can be posted in ML, provide feedback to Zach, present ideas and places you want the staff to explore, and within the same fashion how people were able to help Zach do his job better in Midtown.
It’ll work out because the ML Staff and the loyal followers want Midtown Lunch to continue being a great success.
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smo–I agree with your thoughts, but it’s also the big picture. There’s a reason why I have been reading ML religiously for years now–and not these other blogs, which I might peruse occasionally. I know there’s no easy way to hand the NYC reins over to someone else, but I am also not crazy about ML becoming a mashup of a couple of existing blogs, minus the key ML philosophy of Zach (at least for NY–I’m sure he’ll continue to spread the gospel to the folks in LA).
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I think it will work out over time. It has to!!!
There’s plenty more foods in NYC to review and somebody has to do it for us readers…Have some faith Cat that Zach left NYC up to the reliable hands of his staff. Plus Mama is still around, if we don’t scare her into hiding. ;P
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@stevenp
You’re right, it’s a tough job to replace Zach because many of the loyal followers of the site have come to love his taste and style of writing. The goal is always to present something useful for the readers of ML. The intel gathering portion of this great site remains in tact. Zach reads emails from various Midtown Lunchers and passes some of those tips on to us to figure out how to cover as much of Midtown as possible. I have no desire to turn my posts into FiM2, and neither does Zach. I can only ask for a little bit of patience as I get more practice on how to write in a different voice for this group of readers. Only time will tell if I can do that, and hopefully you still find value and usefulness to ML that you keep coming back.
was it spicy? i mean i see all those peppers in the middle of the dish (larger than i have ever gotten)