Midtown Lunch

Pinnacle Bagel & Deli (3rd Ave. btw. 45+46th) is the latest to enter Midtown’s growing Korean taco craze, with a sign proclaiming Tacos Zen (I’m not sure if that’s the name of the taco counter within, or simply the mental state they expect their tacos to leave you in). I’ve never been to Pinnacle before, but they have the salads and sandwiches you can get anywhere. I’m not sure when they started serving this Korean-Mexican fusion (they also have burritos, burrito bowls and gimbap in addition to tacos), but it’s sure to make them stand out from their deli brethren. Chris H. has already written about Pro Hot Korean, Cafe Duke and Bann Next Door. Can Pinnacle be added to the list of places to satisfy your Korean taco craving?

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After weeks of seeing all the ads and tweets and posts about free food from the Malaysian Kitchen truck, I was pretty excited to see that they were spending the week near my office near Herald Square. All week they are serving samples of food from the UWS restaurant Penang, so I stopped by yesterday afternoon to check it out. I was initially put off because of the line. I’d hoped that a dreary day would have scared more people off, but it is free and I was already there, so I stuck around. Turns out that since everyone is getting the same food, the line moved really quickly. I had my food in five minutes.

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Do you wonder what the ML contributors do when they’re not eating lunch in Midtown? (They’re actually pretty easy to stalk!)

Ultraclay was in North Carolina where he had some pretty amazing looking lasagna, Brownie hit up Four & Twenty Blackbirds from some pie, and their new cider spritzer (and will most likely be at this weekend’s Big Gay Ice Cream Truck farwell party), Amy posts a video of herself making caramel apples, Danny enjoys a chocolate croissant from Patisserie Claude, and the notoriously picky Chris H. gives 5 stars (!?!) to Kelvin Slush on Yelp.

Elsewhere in the ML universe, Jamie turns the Philly site over to Nick (from My Inner Fatty) who visits a Caribbean food truck with a great stew chicken. Andrea finds a link to her childhood at Adrienne’s Pizza Bar downtown. And I discover the joys of the cemita in L.A.’s Chinatown.

Interested in being a ML Contributor in New York City, or elsewhere? We’re always open to likeminded eaters looking to share their lunches. Email me zach@midtownlunch.com

Eater put together a map of New York’s “strange sandwiches” yesterday and (naturally) our very own Cer Te (on 55th btw. 5+6th) made the cut. They had so many “bonkers” options to choose from, but went with the Mr. Potato Skin, a special from back in April featuring fried chicken sandwiched inside a baked potato. In other strange sandwich news, Robert Sietsema from the Village Voice hit up City Sandwich, the new Portuguese spot on 9th Ave that Chris got really excited about a few weeks ago. Sietsema’s favorite sandwich? The blood sausage with broccoli rabe. Nice.

After reading Chris’ early word on Korilla BBQ, I made a mental note to check it out next time it came to my nabe. When I read on the Twitter Tracker that they’d be on 46th and 7th the other day, I took the opportunity to hit them up for lunch.

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Here are some tidbits from the ML Twitter Tracker and beyond… Rickshaw is near Columbus Circle, Steak Truck is on 46th, Eddie’s Pizza is on 46th, Pizza by Certe has handmade pasta, Cupcake Stop is on 58th, Frites n Meats is on 46th, Street Sweets is on 52nd, Wafels and Dinges is on 47th, Comme Ca is on 55th, Papa Perrone should be back on 55th, and we’re hearing that the first 200 customers at both locations of Crisp today will receive $5 gift cards. And Oaxaca is giving away free chips and salsa to anybody who orders delivery and says the phrase “Umbrella Savings”.

Zengo, the upscale Latin restaurant on the corner of 3rd Ave and 40th Street that Amy wrote about earlier this year, has been hiding a secret underground cove named La Biblioteca de Tequila. This “library of tequila” is owned by Chef Richard Sandoval who also runs Pampano Taqueria, and they’ve been boozing up the after-work scene since April with 400 different tequilas alongside a decent menu of Mexican food. But starting this Monday (November 1st), they’re going to be giving a whole new meaning to my beloved boozy lunch… or as one of the hosts told me, “tacos & tequila.” Sweet Mexican Jesus.

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