Midtown Lunch

Do you take photos of your lunch? Upload them to the Midtown Lunch Flickr Photo Pool! Here are some of our favorites from the past few weeks…

This meal from Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen cost $4 last week. Photo by Pabo76

Mul naeng myun @ Big Bowl in Food Gallery 32. Photo by Bionic Bites

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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 Cheryl Tan, an author/freelance writer/blogger who just wrote a book called A Tiger it the Kitchen, A Memoir of Food and Family. It comes out Feburary 8th, but we have 5 copies to give away today… right after Cheryl gives us her recs for Lunching in Midtown.

Name: Cheryl

Age: 36

Occupation: Author, freelance food and fashion writer

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Currently, at home in Brooklyn Heights but I used to work at Time Inc. on 50th Street

Favorite Kind of Food: Anything spicy; anything with big, robust flavors. I grew up in Singapore, where the cuisine is a hybrid of Indian, Chinese, Malay and European styles and almost everything is fiery — or kicked up several notches heatwise with super-spicy tiny chilies. So I tend to seek out those flavors — I adore Korean food (yook gae jang, the bright red spicy beef soup, is a favorite), Indian, Singaporean, Malay, Thai. I love anything curried — even sweet Japanese curries. Even better if these spicy flavors are combined with fried chicken or pork — curry katsu is one of my absolute favorite dishes. As is ayam masak merah, this amazing Malay dish involving chicken that’s deep fried and then stir fried in a spicy and sweet gravy. When I was researching my book, I persuaded a friend’s mother who is a phenomenal cook to teach me how to make it — it’s super easy.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: I’m an adventurous eater but I don’t always love dishes involving less typical parts of the animal like intestines and testicles. It’s not so much the taste — it’s really the mouthfeel. Rubbery and gelatinous don’t really do it for me.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Go! Go! Curry (on 38th btw. 7+8th)– I would eat there every day if I could. It’s cheap, the portions are huge and the curry pork katsu there is really the stuff of dreams. I adore many restaurants in Koreatown (Kum Gang San and Kun Jip, both on 32nd Street, are favorites) but probably end up going to Kang Suh the most just because it’s large — so it’s easy to get a table, which is important if you need to have a quick lunch — and the food is consistently very good. They do a lovely job here with kalbi and yook gae jang. Menchanko-Tei on 55th Street (btw. 5+6th) is a delight — I’ve sampled almost all their ramens and they’re all fantastic. I love their chicken kara age (Japanese fried chicken, an appetizer) and rice balls filled with salmon, too. When I covered New York’s fashion week while it was held at Bryant Park, I found myself repeatedly going to one place for lunch simply because you can have a super quick, comfortable and not bad meal at the bar (I’ve been in and out and had a full meal of pizza or pasta in just 20 minutes): Simply Pasta (41st Street, near 6th). It’s not the best Italian you’ll find in the city but they have a nice selection of the basics, the food is usually satisfying — and it’s very quick.

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Wafels & Dinges is on a roll… last month it was sausage gravy on a waffle, today it’s chili con carne! You can get it on top of a waffle with w. cheddar, cilantro, sour cream, and jalapeño, or as just “chili con dinges” (!?)  They’re parked on 52nd.  Also on the ML Twitter Tracker today, Frites N Meats is on 52nd, Mexicue is on 45th, Eddie’s Pizza is on 52nd, Schnitzel & Things is on 46th, and Comme Ci Comme Ca is on 38th.

For those of you just north of Grand Central hoping for some Mexican deliciousness from El Rey del Sabor during the middle of this week, you’ll have to wait until at least Friday. The cart they normally have parked on 49th Street and Park will be off the streets from today until at least Thursday for its inspection. Though if you really need your fix there’s always the ERdS carts on 43rd & 6th or the original on 60th & 3rd.