Midtown Lunch

Valentine’s Day might not be until Sunday, but the Treats Truck will be hitting the road with their V-Day treats starting today. This year they’ll have heart shaped sugar cookies with red sprinkles for $1.50, bags of red and pink sugar heart shaped cookies for $6.00, heart shaped linzer cookies for $2.00, and they will also be doing personalized heart shaped sugar cookies. The Treats Truck crew says they can personalize the cookies with anything… “A name, phrase …whatever will fit! ” The personalized cookies will run $2.50 for a big cookie or $2.00 for a small cookie and you need to preorder by phone or email. Think of it as you chance to create your own Conversations Hearts. I’m sure you can come up with something better than “Fax Me” or “Foxy Lady.” Check their twitter account, or the ML Twitter Tracker, for their exact location.

Photo courtesy of @NYCDailyDeals

Lunch’er Michael just checked in earlier today to us know that Oaxaca Grill (on 47th btw. Park+Lex) has stopped accepting those free burrito coupons we posted about last week: “Just went to Oaxaca for a free burrito with the online coupon (for the 5th time) and they are not accepting them anymore. I guess they learned not to post a coupon online that is good until the end of March. Back to Chipotle I go.” 5th time!?! Nicely done sir…

Whoa… almost forgot to mention this!  Don’t forget that Dorie Greenspan’s pop up CookieBar opened today inside of Mizu (a hair salon on Park Ave. btw. 59+60th) and unsurprisingly the first reports are all positive! Sure a bakery inside a hair salon is weird, but whatever… it’s freakin’ Dorie Greenspan selling cookies in Midtown (with a little help from Johnny Iuzzini and Brad Thompson.)  They’ll be selling cookies from 11am to 7pm, or until the last cookie is sold, and it’s only open through this Saturday (2/13).  For a complete list of cookies check out Dorie’s website, and keep up to date by following them on Twitter.

Cookiebar (inside Mizu), 505 Park Ave (btw. 59+60th), 212-688-6498

Related:
Pop Up Dorrie Greenspan Cookies

The first reports are pouring in from NBC’s fancy food truck promotion today. You had to win your way in… and it looks like a lot of Midtown Lunchers took advantage. Blondie and Brownie are on line right now at the Boulud Truck in Midtown (on 48th btw. 5+6th) and they will be sending live reports from the scene (apparently he is serving burgers!), but to tie you over here’s a report sent in by Lunch’er Jill from the Liebrandt truck, which was parked from 10-Noon in the Flatiron District.

Due to my strange talent for being able to tell the location of pictures taken around NYC, we landed a spot on the fancy food truck express today. An email told us to go down to the Flat Iron district, where Paul Liebrandt was going to be serving fish and chips. Yum! I was excited! Exclusivity in New York is a very heady thing, and I was all excited that we didn’t get one of those obnoxious ACCESS DENIED emails. But, honestly, leaving work for lunch at 10:30 and spending $4.50 for the trip made me hope that the food was going to be worth it. ACCESS GRANTED read the little card we were handed at the start of the line. Then they checked our name, our password, and stamped our hand. First of all, it seemed like there were many more NBC staff standing around the cart then there were lucky winners. We grabbed a little cone of food and barely walked four steps before we were stopped by a camera crew and interviewed about the experience. Everyone, the chef, the staff, the camera crew, could not have been nicer. But we were served one tiny fish croquette type thing and a few chips. A magnificent, delectable fish and chips combination, but it was practically a thimbleful. The fact that they called this a lunch was very misleading.

Check out the cone, plus live reports from Midtown, after the jump…

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Now that the Super Bowl is out of the way, you’re probably sick and tired of fried chicken wings. Here at Midtown Lunch, we never get tired of fried chicken, especially when it’s covered in a sweet and spicy sauce. Many of you probably had traditional buffalo wings for the big game, but Korean fried chicken is not like Southern fried chicken or buffalo wings. The texture contrast and sauces make Korean fried chicken a different beast. A beast that I like eating. When I heard about Bon Chon opening up on 38th, I was really ecstatic until I heard about the 2 hour wait… After waiting for the dust to settle and giving Bon Chon time to figure out a better system, I decided to go check out their famous Korean fried chicken.

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The spots have been announced for today’s NBC branded fancy food truck featuring chefs Daniel Boulud, Paul Liebrandt, Alain Ducasse, and Michael White... and prime time has gone to Midtown.  From Noon to 2pm the truck will be parked on 48th & 5th, with Daniel Boulud supposedly serving his Pork Belly topped “Frenchie” burger (although we are hearing that there might be a last minute switch happening to the far less jealousy inducing croque monsieur.)  You had to win your way in, but there’s nothing that says you can’t lurk in a scary enough way to get served.  [Photo courtesy of jmoranmoya]

Don’t know about you guys, but after last night’s game how could you not be in the mood for a po’boy today!  You could go to that place with the weird muffuletta on restaurant row, or that place on 9th Ave. that serves rice and beans (rather than beans and rice), but for us the best place in Midtown for some hot po’boy action is the Grand Central Oyster Bar lunch time take out window. It’s not as good as, say, Crabby Jack’s… but it’s as good as you’re going to get in Midtown. And considering this site’s long history with New Orleans (Zach got married there, took Ralph Brennan to Kwik Meal, and live blogged the food at Jazzfest a few years back) don’t be surprised if you see some Profiled Midtown Lunchers waiting on line with you.  (Not in the mood for a Po’boy?  Popeye’s, on 40th btw. 7+8th, would be an acceptable replacement!)

Related:
Celebrate Fat Tuesday With a Fried Oyster Po’Boy

We don’t normally like to promote PR gimmicks, but how awesome would it be if Pepsi gave the Street Vendor Project $25,000!  If you’ve got a second this morning, follow this link and vote up the Vendy Awards. If they win, Pepsi will give them 25 grand to take the Vendy Awards on the road.