Midtown Lunch

It was just back in May that we first learned that Chicago sandwich chain Potbelly would be opening a location in Rockefeller Center. And since then, they’ve continued to expand in Midtown at a feverish pace. In addition to the new location on 37th and 7th, yesterday we got word that another store will be opening in the spring. It will be located at 366 Fifth Avenue (between 34th and 35th) on the ground floor of the New York Accessories Exchange Building. There’s no signage up yet, but the security guards in the building (who seemed very excited about the new addition) said it would be taking the place of shuttered shoe store Make 10.

Most people hit up Sapporo when in need of a nice, big bowl of hot ramen. In a crowded noodle market, though, Sapporo doesn’t particularly hold up well against the competition (a fact proven again by this year’s reader poll.) Don’t count them out of your lunching rotation, though: The noodle joint also serves up several homey and delicious donburi (meal over rice) that make a trip to west 49th street very worth while.

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Every Friday we go 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.

Tappo (on 24th btwn 5th & 6th) opened just as I was leaving the Flatiron area, but with a menu full of lunch specials and combos at or under $10, my curiosity was piqued when I first stumbled across Tappo back in the fall. And once I saw Blondie’s post about their chicken parm, that settled it. I was hitting the place up the next time I made it to the neighborhood. So, when I had a lunch meeting with someone who had just recently started working nearby, I jumped at the opportunity to take a look for myself.

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• The torta cubana from Tacos y Quesdillas is not as big as I expected [Midtown Eating]
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• “Disgusting Biryani Cart Experience” is an understatement [Midtown Eating]
• Searching for a good bowl of chili in Midtown East [Midtown Eating]

The inevitable happened: it got cold. When the flimsy Salumè kiosk opened last summer, I wondered what would happen to them come winter. Well, here we are, and now that we’ve had a couple days of frigid weather, they appear to be wondering the same thing, because they’ve gone missing. But let me back up a sec.

On December 24, Salumè tweeted that their kiosk was moving due to the holiday festivities. That makes sense — the other kiosks also moved around a bit, too, as they did during Thanksgiving. But, while everyone else is back in their rightful spots (actually, Snack Box has moved down the block from 47th to 46th street, FYI), Salumè is nowhere to be found…

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Filicori Zecchini is not the only coffee establishment that expanding it’s empire to 46th street last year. A recent lunchtime walk around midtown east revealed a semi-newish location of Gregory’s on 46th street between Madison and Fifth that opened just a couple of months ago and has a full baking kitchen cranking out fresh pastries. While Gregory’s was omitted from the ML Readers’ Poll this year (mea culpa, Gregulars!), we promise to give them a long overdue full ML treatment very soon. If you’re a Gregory’s fan, let us know what we should try in the comments.

Gregory’s Coffee, 12 East 46th Street, (212) 661-1722

Every morning on my way to work I always pass by the guy wearing a sign and handing out menus for Joy Curry and Tandoor. I rarely crave Indian food (I wonder why?) and and usually manage to ignore the dude.  But one particularly cold morning, I thought to myself “it must be a tough job standing outside passing out menus and having everyone around ignore you.”  So, feeling sorry for the guy, I figured the least I could do was check out Joy Curry and Tandoor.

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I really enjoy soup but usually avoid it for lunch for fear of major mid-afternoon munchies. The exception to this rule would be homey and delicious Asian noodle soups, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to regular readers of this blog — we tend to be partial to the Asian goodies. Anyway, a month or two ago, I noticed that the Hot Soup cart had returned the northeast corner of 45th street and 6th avenue for the winter season. Soup carts are usually invisible to me, because of my previously stated aversion to cup-of-soup lunches, but the unusually long line caught my eye. I checked in recently and couldn’t resist trying the interesting (or maybe just weird) sounding “chicken jerky” soup listed on the menu.

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There is definitely no shortage of Mexican food in Midtown but good tasting authentic Mexican food is a bit harder to come by. Enter Mexico Blvd, a new food truck set to hit the streets in February, which according to their website plans to “bring to New York the food and culture of Mexico that we loved so much.  Apparently the owner of the truck has worked at Riverpark the Tom Collichio restaurant run by ‘wichcraft chef Sisha Ortuzar.  You can check our their menu and a gallery of photos on their website, plus follow them on twitter or the ML tracker for updates, and as soon as we know more we’ll let you know.