Midtown Lunch

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so every Friday afternoon our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” posts about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

Ok you filthy alkies listen up! As you should know by now the big news this week is the
4th Annual NY Craft Beer Week. That’s right, I said this week, and since you are reading this on Friday I’m willing to bet a freshly pulled cask ale that some of you were ignorantly filing paperwork or screwing around on Facebook when you could have been drinking some prime shit! Well, all is not lost my friends. I have some end-of-beer week suggestions for you even if you’re stuck in midtown. So for God’s sake, put down that PBR tonight and clean your self up, it’s fancy beer time!

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It’s been less than a year since I last checked on the Pump’s most recent renovation, but as of this week they’ve completed their transformation from the bodybuilder paradise of the 90s to a retro/seasonal/local marketplace. The Dionysus plate is long gone and the menu is “more streamlined” (aka less choices). Early adopters (and Pump vets–I’m looking at you Lunch’r Pigiron) let us know what you think in the comments.

This just in from Lunch’er Rachel…

Just like last year, the International Chinese Culinary Competition has taken over the the 46-to-47th street block of Times Square and today is the finals.  Technically food is for ticket holders only, but yesterday they were handing out samples to bystanders while the chefs were cooking, and there are stalls surrounding the competition, mostly on the west side of the street that were also giving food tastings and product samples of various Chinese eats. They’re just setting up now and the noodle stall definitely appears to be prepping samples (and the others seem to be following suit.) They haven’t started the cooking competition portion yet though so samples from that is unclear. Unfortunately the weather today is pretty crappy for an outdoor event but if there are free nibbles, I’m in!

Fall is upon us and with it a wave of new deliciousness coming to the Flatiron Lunch area. This year doesn’t quite have the crazy weekly openings that we saw last year, with Eataly, FoodParc and Hill Country Chicken popping up all in the same month or so. Still, there’s some interesting new lunch options coming our way. Find out more after the jump.

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Mother nature must love street meat. Once again the rain threatened… and once again, chicken and lamb over rice with hot sauce and white sauce prevailed. A couple of hours ago 25 Midtown Lunchers converged on Bryant Park to rank street meat from 15 different carts (as nominated by you.) The votes are in, and now the difficult part begins. Digestion. Oh… and the tallying. The tallying too. Stay tuned, the results will be announced in the next week or two.

Since I was so delighted by Potbelly’s Oatmeal & Chocolate Chip Cookie, I decided to go for a second round and try out their sugar cookie. Sugar cookies can be a tough dessert to pull off right, but evidently Potbelly has their dessert recipes down pat because this was another winner.

The cookie is the same size and price as the oatmeal chocolate chip, meaning that you get a big cookie for under $2. Also, just like the other cookie, this one was chewy with a little crispiness around the edges. The cookie has a pleasant amount of vanilla flavor and is sweet without being cloying. Plus there’s the added bonus of crunch from sugar sprinkled on top! The two wins in a row is making me excited to try their third dessert, the Dreambar.

Potbelly Sandwich Shop has two locations in Midtown.  One on 44th btw. Lex+3rd and one in the Rock Center Concourse.

Ever since I heard about the fried pork sandwich stuffed with plantains from Sophie’s (this was almost 2 years ago), I’ve been wanting to go and eat it. But like so many places in NYC, I was just too lazy or never had the time. So recently when I found myself walking down Lexington Ave I came upon Sophie’s and decided to was finally time check it out. But while scanning the trays and trays of food in front of me, something happened. I decided to call an audible and get the baked chicken with rice and beans instead ($9)

I’m a huge fan of the baked chicken with rice and beans at Salt & Pepper (on 33rd btw. 6+7th), so Sophie’s was going to have to be on their a-game to win me over.

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Only two days until the Vendy Awards, and longtime fans of the event might have noticed there is one thing missing… videos! Every year the Street Vendor Project releases videos of the finalists and we got our hands on them. After the jump hear Fatima Khan talking about the origin of the Tini Paki Boys Cart, and Arturo Macedo talking about how he turned a normal doughnut cart into a breakfast eggstravaganza!

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