Midtown Lunch

If this doesn’t put you in the mood for the 4th, nothing will. Photo by FiM

• F&W’s Dana Cowin lunches at the bookstore outlet of Cafe Zaiya [Grub Street]
• ‘wichcraft’s breakfast sandwich is just aiight [SENY]
• Top 7 Cabbie Eats include some ML classics [Taxi Gourmet]
• Fay Da’s “red bean ice” is meh [Food in Mouth]
• There is something about holiday weekends that new restaurants love… Shake Shack might open on Tuesday [Eater]

A winner has been chosen in the contest to name Miss Softee’s new ice cream truck, and allow us to be the firsts to say… AMAZING.   Congrats to Lunch’er “Ender” for coming up with that one, for his trouble he wins a whole month of free soft serve.  (If you entered, there is no shame is losing to that name.)  There are consolation prizes though… whoever came up with “Penelope” “Frozen Franny”  “The Miss Adventurer” and “Dolly” will get free ice cream for a week starting on Monday.

Like some of you, I’ve taken off to enjoy the 4th July weekend. However, in some ML Happy Hour news Luncher Adam sent this tip: Darbar Grill, the Indian buffet on 55th btw. Lex+3rd, now has a free appetizer and $4 beer special. Let’s just hope it’s better than Spice Fusion’s.

In April, we mentioned that Hello Pasta, the self-professed “Starbucks of pasta” wannabe, would be opening this summer. Well, the day has come! Next Wednesday, the first of ten planned storefronts will open on Lex btw. 54+55th while the others will open over the next four months. Sure, we’re all a little skeptical of empire builders (especially those involving weird new fast food concepts), but even we’ll be hard pressed to resist the 8coupons deal on Thursday that gets you any pasta with any sauce for just 88 cents!

I’m not sure if any Midtown Lunch’ers still eat at Variety Cafe, the big generic deli on 48th (btw. 5th and 6th), considering its rather odious presence on this site over the years. On my way to lunch yesterday, however, I noticed that they are celebrating their 5th Anniversary by slashing the price on their hot and cold buffet from $7.49/lb to $5.99/lb (Monday-Friday). Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to their “salad bar for fat people,” and you know, there’s the whole DOH thing to worry about. I stopped in just to see what they had to offer, and besides the usual stuff all these delis have, there were some shrimp stuffed mushrooms. Proceed, if you must, but do so with caution.

Now that Downtown has its very own section of the site, what are we going to post on Fridays at 10am? Answer… how about a new column devoted to those lunches just south of the ML boundaries. Every week we’ll post about a lunch in Murray Hill south, Gramercy, Flatiron, and everything in between… or as we’ll call it from now on: Flatiron Lunch.

Chinese food is everywhere in NY. It’s in tourist shops, it’s in generic deli buffets, it’s even kosher. But Indian Chinese food?  Well, that’s completely new to me.  I’ve walked past Chinese Mirch, in the middle of Curry Hill, dozens of times without thinking much of it. It’s actually been mentioned a few times on the site… but it wasn’t until Luncher ‘Steve’ told us recently about their $5.95 lunch special, that I finally made it over there to check it out. I didn’t have very high expectations, but was happily surprised with what we got.

Details on the special and food photos after the jump.
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Early in June, we mentioned that Sapporo (on 49th btw. 5+6th) would be closed til mid-June. Well, they’re back open- with slightly higher prices and a completely redesigned space.  This is actually the second time in 5 years they’ve done this, but this time the changes are a bit more noticeable… and they’ve added some new lunch specials.  Check out pics of the new digs plus the new lunch specials, after the jump.

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• New street meat alert? [Midtown Eating]
• Don’t order the veal parm at Luigi’s [Midtown Eating]
• Were you eating lunch outside today, wearing gold rimmed aviators? [Connections]
• What do you order from Seamless Web? [Midtown Eating]
• What are you grilling up this weekend? [Miscellaneous]

It was a sad day for bread pudding fans when the Dessert Truck lost their permit last year, and was forced to stop parking on the streets of Midtown.  Sure, they went on to open DT Works– a brick and mortar dessert shop downtown, but going all the way to the LES for dessert during lunch isn’t realistic for most Midtown Lunchers.  Well, now you don’t have to!  Feast NY reported this morning that the Dessert Truck is returning to the streets this afternoon. According to twitter they got a seasonal permit, allowing them to vend on the streets until October.  Today, they’ll be parked on Astor Place- but here’s hoping they’ll be back in Midtown soon!  We’ve re-added them to the ML Twitter Tracker if you want to keep dibs on their location.

Related:
BREAKING: Dessert Truck Loses Their Permit; Chef Jerome Claims to be “Relieved”