Midtown Lunch

Last week Clay reported that Negi Ya, which was once Washoku Cafe, is now Ronin.  Lunch’er Michael checked in today with this report…

I work on West 37th near 7th, which is pretty much what ML considers “out of bounds” (to which I take umbrage, given the delicious gems near me, but that’s another story) but the reality is that we do indeed lack several delicious fixtures. (Editor’s Note: 37th and 7th is totally in bounds! Our boundaries are usually 8th Ave. to the West and 32nd to the South.) Ramen being one of them – Totto and Hidechan are out of range for my closely monitored 1-hour lunch break.

As such, getting word of Ronin the other day (on 37th btw. Mad+5th) was like sunshine breaking through rain clouds. Don’t get me wrong, I’m surrounded by wonderful Chinese noodle soup opportunities, but it’s not ramen. I used to work downtown near Men Kui Tei, which is as good as it gets outside of Mitsuwa over in Edgewater, so I’ve been craving it ever since I started working in midtown.

I made my way to Ronin and ordered the tonkatsu ramen – it has it good points and its bad points.

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Crisp on Wheels issued this warning yesterday to other food trucks, and sadly it doesn’t sound like an isolated incident. Eddie’s Pizza- who has been spending Tuesdays on 52nd & 6th- was on 40th and 6th yesterday, and today the Kimchi Truck has decided to go elsewhere (citing “parking restrictions“). And we heard that Wafels & Dinges was kicked out of their 52nd & 6th spot last week.   Of course this shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, the same thing happened in the same area last year and all the new food trucks hitting the streets have probably not helped. One thing is for sure, we’ve heard the buildings in the area don’t seem to mind when one truck parks on the street, it’s when there are multiple trucks.

Related:
Street Vendors Talk “Unwritten Rules” on Video
Papa Perrone Saves Eddie’s Pizza From the Cops… Today
Uncle Gussy Reminds Everyone That Truck Legality is Still a Gray Area

There are plenty of generic coffee carts in midtown where you can grab a quick breakfast, and so far few of the gourmet food trucks have ventured into this territory. When I saw a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of the ML Twitter Tracker, that Big D’s Grub Truck had started serving up some AM grub, I had to go check it out. Read more »

• Are cops cracking down on trucks parking on 52nd and 6th? [Eating]
• Anybody know where I can get street meat with brown rice? [Eating]
• 99 Cent pizza has migrated to the FiDi [Downtown Eating]

Congrats to Dana,  she won the $100 gift certificate to Bill’s Bar & Burger, just for buying her tickets to the Midtown Lunch 5th Birthday Party (June 11th @ City Winery.)  This week’s “birthday present” is a $100 gift card to SeamlessWeb!  All you have to do to enter is buy your tickets to our birthday party before Memorial Day, and you could win $100 worth of free delivery from thousands of restaurants in NYC courtesy of SeamlessWeb.  Not enough to convince you?  We’ve also posted a list of the prizes we’ll be giving away at the event itself… and we’re still adding more.  And the best part is, you don’t even have to be present to win.  Everybody who buys a ticket to the party is automatically entered.   With all the birthday presents we’re giving away tickets aren’t going to last long. Be part of a great celebration, and support a great cause… buy your ticket before it’s too late!

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 Nithya, a lawyer who hates bananas and wishes Midtown had a tiffin system.

Name: Nithya

Age: 30

Occupation: I’m a lawyer and work with start-up technology companies. I also love to cook and share stories about cooking Indian food in my Brooklyn kitchen at Hungry Desi.

Where in Midtown do you Work?: I work in the New York Times Building at 41st/8th Ave

Favorite Kind of Food: Mattar Paneer and almost anything Indian, Thai red curry, falafel and fresh pasta.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Everything about bananas grosses me out. But my 17 month old loves them, so now I can bring myself to be in a 2 foot vicinity of a peeled banana.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Minar lunch box (on 46th btw. 6+7th), Kati Roll (on 39th btw. 5+6th), a falafel bowl from Crisp and a slice from Siena Pizza on 40th btw. 7+8th (best “undiscovered” slice in midtown) and the Salted Caramel milkshake from Schnippers (on 41st and 8th).

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Show of hands – who’s a fan of the Korilla BBQ truck? And who’s active on twitter? Both hands raised? Good. As we now know, Korilla has made it through to the final rounds of competition on The Great Food Truck Race, and anyone who wants to show support to Korilla BBQ can do so by adding a #greatfoodtruckrace hash tag any time you mention @KorillaBBQ in your tweets. So support your home town team and get to tweetin’ people!