Midtown Lunch

We get pretty excited when new halal carts pop up in Midtown.  Even though there is practically one on every block, new ones don’t come along that often.  So when I spotted Tazy Halal Food (on44th btw 2+3rd) last week right across the street from my office, I had to check it out. The menu looked like pretty standard Halal cart stuff (chicken and rice, lamb and rice, gyro and etc), but the cart quickly proved me wrong.

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Photo courtesy of @jareddiamond

Is Kwik Meal (on 45th and 6th) no longer a “Midtown Lunch”?!  We don’t know much about the price of lamb, but apparently it’s gone up- possibly as much as $3 a pound, if this sign is to be believed.  If the language seems confusing, allow us to break it down for you… Kwik Meal’s famous lamb over rice (one of the only versions in Midtown that uses real lamb and not gyro meat) is now $11, up from $8, and their lamb on pita is a whopping $10, up from $7.  Kwik Meal was always a bit on the pricey side, and we understand that food costs are what they are, but $11 for a plate of street meat seems kind of insane.  Will you pay?  Or has the original Street Meat Palooza champ just priced themselves out of the market?

What a very strange and heartbreaking episode of the Great Food Truck Race last night. If anybody’s been following it, you know that our hometown favorites Korilla have been consistently on the top. They’ve used some clever strategies along with their delicious Korean tacos to get ahead in the game. We knew that they had made it into the top four, but as it turns out, that’s as far as they got. Last night’s episode was a difficult one for all the trucks because they were not allowed to use meat in the carnivorous town of Memphis, and Korilla really seemed to suffer without their usual massive lines.

And when the elimination was announced, there was a twist nobody saw coming.

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Good enough for Philly? Feisty Foodie says yes.

• Carl’s Steaks is good enough to be open in Philadelphia [Feisty Foodie]
• You can get vegetarian Korean food at HanGawi [FitR]
• Atomic Wings are now available at Subway Inn [FitR]
• Colin Quinn will be a judge at this year’s Vendy Awards [Gothamist]
• Larry David was traumatized by Mr. Softee as a child [Gothamist]
• The Burger Joint is one of NY’s 10 best hotel restaurants [FitR]
• Shocker: The dude from No 7 Sub hates both Potbelly and Earl of Sandwich [Grub Street]

On Wednesday, September 14th, Stag’s Head will start off NYC Craft Beer Week early with a River Horse Brewing Co. tasting with Chris McGrath. Many selections will be available including Hipp-O-Lantern, Hop Hazard, Double Wit, Special Ale, and a special Bourbon Oak Aged Hipp-O-Lantern with vanilla. So mark your calendars, I can’t see a better way to get over Hump Day. The Stag’s Head, 252 East 51st Street, (at 2nd Avenue,) 212-888-2453

Thanks to Lunch’er Michael for letting us know about this one!  You might remember his report on the ramen at Ronin (on 37th btw. Mad+5th).  Today he files this report on the newly open Tabata Ramen.

Okay, it’s about time that Midtown West had a really good ramen place, and this one’s even doable for a quick (albeit commute-challenging) dinner pickup to bring home to Jersey and beyond if you go to Port Authority. One of my co-workers found out about Tabata Ramen (on 9th Ave. btw. 39+40th), and he knows how crazy I am for noodle soups and how I lament the lack of good ones thereof.

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes south of the ML boundaries in search of a delicious lunch. Sometimes it’s Murray Hill south or the Flatiron District, sometimes Gramercy and everything in between- but we just like to call it Flatiron Lunch. He’s still out of the country this week, so Brian has stepped in to take over.

In July, Clay got a first look at Seattle import Beecher’s, the Eataly of cheese shops. Most of the food world was buzzing and I for one was very excited since I had a tasty visit to their original store in Pike’s Place Market a few summers ago. I particularly couldn’t wait to get another sample of their world famous mac and cheese.

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We have no idea what about.me is, and quite honestly we don’t really care.  But we do kind of want to see our man Ultraclay’s face on a Times Square billboard (it is part of Midtown after all, and we feel one of our own should represent!)  So will you help us make this happen by voting for him in this contest? You can vote once per day, and all you have to do is click the vote button in the upper right hand corner of the page.

Any savvy luncher in New York knows by now that Koreatown (32nd St between 5th and 6th Ave) is a wonderland of cheap and filling lunches. In fact, it’s almost becoming difficult to choose between the overflow of options – Shilla, Food Gallery 32, Woorijip, Miss Korea, Arirang, etc etc. Last week, I stumbled across yet another lunch deal at Muk eun ji, the reincarnation of the old Hang Gang space, where you have an option of at least 10 different dishes that fall at or below the $10 price range.
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