Midtown Lunch

Sorry for the schmear-my lens had a run-in with BBQ sauce

Two very important things happened to Midtown yesterday. 1) We got the Double Down (and Mamacita immediately improved it), and 2) we got steak sandwiches! While I loves me some fried chicken, biscuits, cheese, and bacon, I love steak more. I especially like when it’s a somewhat affordable lunch. Tri Tip Grill is probably the most important thing to happen to Rockefeller Center since the ice rink, and maybe NBC calling it home, and the tree; so it’s the 4th most important thing. But it’s number one in most delicious and juicy!

Though I’ve always been a little sketched out by the Rock Center concourse (it’s attached to the subway and we all know, or don’t know, what lives down there), I was willing to met up with Brownie yesterday to check out the scene at Tri Tip. My expectations weren’t too high, it’s sirloin and with almost the entire menu around $10, I felt there had to be something up. Fortunately, I was wrong. I had my eye on the burgers, but I went with the Little Buck: 4 oz. of meat with au jus sauce and carmelized onions placed in a hero.

I had the first half of my sandwich with just juice and it was great enough for me, but the juice did make the bun get soggy fast. The second half was covered with their house barbeque sauce, a sweet Texan style one, and it made a pretty awesome sandwich better (and led me to get BBQ sauce on my camera lens.) I highly recommend topping your sandwich with sauce. The meat itself is fantastic for this price, cooked to medium (that’s not medium rare in any sense of the word), covering it with good spices and the marinade definitely made the difference. Tad’s this is not. The Little Buck was enough for me, I wasn’t hungry again until well into the evening, but for those of you with bigger appetites, you should get the Big Buck (Hunter! sorry, had to.) I noticed they also do a Philly on there, if any of you Philly cheesesteak experts out there want to weigh in on that.

As for Brownie, she fell on the sword for the vegeMctarians among us, with a portobello sandwich. Not that it was healthy, it is covered with melted provolone. She found it highly enjoyable, with a distinct meaty taste to it. “Perfect for vegetarians who miss meat, bad for vegetarians who hate the taste of meat.” The menu says that they marinate the mushrooms prior, I just hope they keep the marinades separate. As for ambiance, the interior is distinctly different from the other food places in the Concourse-wood beams and bar seating can easily lead you to believe that you’re somewhere half-decent, not surrounded by tourists.

The +

• Satisfying steak sandwiches, in Midtown, for under $10. This is nearly unheard of.
• It doesn’t matter what you get, it tastes like delicious marinated meat.
• You can get a side of chicken tenders with Ranch dressing because we’re fat like that.

The –

• I’m vegetarian and hate the taste of meat.
• With additional toppings, sides, and drinks, it comes to a little over $10
• Um, you’re eating in Rockefeller Center between a fat tourist and a mutant rat.

Tri Tip Grill, Rockefeller Center Concourse, North Side, no phone