Midtown Lunch

Every Tuesday we 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 Jennie, the lunch’er who tipped us off to Bann Next Door a few weeks ago.  (Thanks again!)

Name: Jennie

Age: Sometimes I have the food habits of a 13 year old boy who plays a lot of video games (pizza and coca-cola with flamin’ hot cheetos as a side dish, and a snickers bar for dessert).

Occupation: Advertising Operations Manager

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Parade in Midtown East (near Grand Central/United Nations)

Favorite Kind of Food: Tuna sashimi, fancy sandwiches, a good burger, pepperoni pizza with a lot of Tabasco, spam and eggs on rice with nori and kimchee, lobster rolls, fish tacos/burritos, donkatsu, soon doo boo, arepas, pho…I can keep going.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Licorice

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Crisp Africa wrap (I’d eat there more often if it was cheaper), Roast Duck Noodle Soup at Mee Noodles (2nd Ave. btw. 48+49th), Any of the noodle dishes at Menchanko-tei (on 45th btw. Lex+3rd), fish burritos at Pampano Taqueria (on 3rd btw. 49+50th), the cold buffet at Amish market (on 45th btw. 2+3rd) has a good selection of prepared salads that uses unusual vegetables (like jicama, different types of mushrooms), The Health Nut on 2nd Ave. btw. 44+45th (I like their curries but they also have a nice buffet of vegetarian options), and Oms/b (on 45th btw. Lex+3rd).

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From Lunch’er Steve: “Just walked by Spoon City (on 33rd btw. Mad+5th), the ice cream/soup place across from the Empire State Building. It was all cleaned out. Looks like Shake Shack wins.” Well, we didn’t think there was any chance that Shake Shack would *lose* but it is kind of surprising that more people didn’t get excited about this place. I guess people only like concretes when they have to wait in line for them.

Related:
Spoon City Brings Shake Shack’ish Custard to Midtown

Walking by the old Wilshire State Bank (on 32nd btw. 5+B’way) the other day, I found myself surrounded by a cloud of plaster and debris. The doors were open to the site of the upcoming Koreatown food court, so I peeked in for a moment to get a photo of the space. It looks like there’s a lot more work to be done demolishing the interior, but you can sort of see how the space is going to come together on the first floor, at least. It looks like most of vendors will be on the left, underneath the mezzanine. The stairs in the back look a little rickety, so there’s a chance they might do some crazy Kyochon-style stairway to get to the upper floors. I don’t know the first thing about construction or design, so I can’t really speculate beyond that.

The big news, though, is the rumors about who might be moving in.

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If you’re near Pizza by Cer Te (on 56th btw. Lex+Park), but not exactly craving a slice, Hello Pasta (on Lex btw. 54+55th) will soon cover that other carb craving we always have.  Early reports say this location will be the first of ten for this new fast food pasta company, and they’re not shy about wanting to be “the Starbucks or Pinkberry of pasta”. Honestly, I don’t know whether to celebrate or cringe, but you know we’ll be there when they open in June to see if they should bother with the other nine locations!

Midtown is in desperate need of a lot of things, and good pizza is definitely at the top of that list. This is New York, bad pizza is unacceptable, and unfortunately we have a glut of it. I haven’t exactly been hiding my love for the sandwiches at Cer Te (55th btw. 5+6th), so to say I was excited about their “green” take-out pizzeria, Pizza by Cer Te (on 56th btw. Lex+Park) would be an understatement. I’d been studying the menu since it came out, particularly curious about the “bakers” and the “ciagels,” but since I was going for lunch I could only get the answer for one of these creations (ciagels are on the breakfast menu.) Having a low environmental impact is good and all (I’ll admit the plant walls are pretty cool) but we want awesome tasting pizza and we want it now!

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9th Ave. is just out of bounds for Midtown Lunch’ing purposes, but you know we’ll travel an extra avenue or two for the Northern Thai specialty khao soi!  And from the looks of it, the version at Pam Real Thai (on 49th btw. 9+10th) is the real deal!  Read all about it over on Food in Mouth>>

Related:
Talent Thai’s Khao Soi is the Bee’s Knees