Midtown Lunch

Every Tuesday I turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. This week it’s Alison, a media salesperson who wishes we would do a Street Coffee Palooza!

Name: Alison

Age: 35

Occupation: Media Sales

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Rockefeller Center

Favorite Kind of Food: Things I can’t teach myself to cook at home, and that are so much better in restaurants anyway, like Thai, Sushi, and Ribs.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Anything I had to wait for, pay a lot for, or that left me hungry.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Roast Beef and Arugula sandwich at Pret a Manger, the C1 sandwich from Lenny’s, ‘Wichcraft, Koi at the Bryant Park Hotel.

Read more »

Before we dared to stuff two fried chicken fillets between biscuits and before we knew of Franken pie, there was a time when I got excited over good deals from places I walk by everyday. The other week, I passed East Japanese (on W 55th btw 8th+Bway) which had a banner advertising its awesome $5 Hiru-Bento AKA an “un-ignorable and unforgettable restaurant quality to-go lunch with restaurant price!” I’m a sucker for hype (Momo. What? Where!), but love cheap and satisfying grub even more. (Unintentionally funny translations are just a bonus.) So, of course, I had to find out what’s inside the box…

Read more »

If you like giant tasting events, Midtown’s biggest is coming up at the end of the month… It’s the 10th Annual Grand Gourmet: The Flavor of Midtown, presented by the Grand Central Partnership, and it will feature dishes from over 30 Midtown restaurants- including ML favorites the Grand Central Oyster Bar, Murray’s Cheese, Naples 45 and a ton more.  It all goes down April 29th from 7 to 9:30pm at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central. Tickets are $75, but we’ve got a pair to give away to one lucky Midtown Luncher. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below letting us know what free samples you’d be most excited to house at the event (a full list of participating restaurants can be found here.) The winner will be drawn at random on Monday, April 19th at Noon.

Don’t want to leave it to chance? You can buy your tickets for the event here.

We haven’t gotten too many reports from the three Midtown KFC locations, but the newly opened Tri Tip Grill in the Rock Center Concourse seems like the place to be today.  From Lunch’er “skainich”

Very tasty sandwich! Although the wait was a bit long, I think we waited 10 minutes in the first line, and then 20 minutes with a beeper. The sandwich was very flavorful, and I think the original sandwich is the way to go. Almost made me forget about how necessary it is for us to get a Chik-fil-A in midtown, almost.

According to Brownie, the line has been out the door most of the day but they’re easing the pain with (delicious) free samples of steak! Lunch’er Richard hit the place up before the lunch rush.  His “big buck with roadhouse onions” is after the jump…

Read more »

The hype leading up to today’s Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Down release has been enormous. Always Hungry was in Herald Square at 10am, and Eater scored photos of New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton eating his double down and taking notes on Boadway (he just filed his report here.) If you’ve somehow been living under a rock this past week, let me summarize. In place of bread this ‘sandwich’ uses two fried boneless chicken fillets and then glues them together with melted Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese, two crispy bacon strips and the Colonel’s Special Sauce (which sadly does not have Lipitor in it.) Apparently you can also order a ‘healthier’ version using grilled chicken, but why bother? That’s like getting a diet Coke with your double bacon cheeseburger. You’re not fooling anyone buddy. The final countdown ended this morning, so I headed over to get my fix.

Read more »

It takes a special kind of iron stomach to be able to appreciate the gut busting powers of a Chinese steam table take-out lunch. Many people are into Ying Du (on 38th btw. 7+8th), but I think they’ve not been the same since they changed their name from 38th St restaurant and bakery and then had to stop cutting roast meats to order (and apparently portions are getting smaller as well.) Even though they do pile on the food, and the price is ridiculous, I still try to find the next hidden treasure of steam table goodness. So when my former roommate told me about Fuji Restaurant and Bakery, I got intrigued about the possibility of another good option for cheap and filling Chinese food.

Read more »

Remember when the Treats Truck parked next to the Papa Perrone truck (on 55th btw. Park+Mad) a few months back?  They had such a good time they’re making it a permanent Monday thing starting today.  It’s a match made in heaven as far as we’re concerned. (UPDATE: Papa Perrone won’t be out today, but the Treats Truck will still be there! UPDATE #2: According to the ML Twitter Tracker, the Schnitzel & Things Truck is taking Papa Perrone’s spot for the day. Schnitzel + Treats = Happy Lunchers.)

If you’re looking for something completely different for lunch today, you’ve got two big options hitting the ML scene today…  Tri Tip Grill opens in the concourse under 30 Rock, and KFC begins serving their new “Double Down” sandwich.  If you choose the latter, keep an eye out for NYT restaurant critic Sam Sifton… he seems pretty psyched for today’s launch.  (And who can blame him?!) Live reports from early adopters at both fronts are encouraged.