Midtown Lunch

Aside from Palenque, which limits its menu to Colombian arepas, we don’t have a whole lot of Latin food coming out of food trucks in Midtown. I had an amazing ropa vieja and cuban sandwich at Bongo Brothers, but they have yet to make their way to Midtown proper. Thanks to an email from Luncher Michelle, we discovered a brand spanking new truck called Blend Latin Fusion. And they’re serving, well, latin fusion food.

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Last night was the annual gala Grand Gourmet at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Station. I was fortunate to attend (as was our lucky winner Luncher meyekull) and I stuffed myself silly getting samples at almost all 39 of the food vendors. Most of the tastings were from fancier restaurants that are quite a bit out of ML’s price range. However, surprisingly enough my favorite happened to be a true Midtown Lunch.

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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.

Today marks the end of week one of Mad Sq Eats, and I have been almost every day since it opened…because, you know, here at Midtown Lunch, we do stuff like this for ourselves you, the readers. For those of you not yet familiar with Mad Sq Eats (where have you been during all of our previews), it is the twice yearly festival in the shadow of the Flatiron Building where restaurants set up tents in Worth Square, the triangle between 5th Ave and Broadway and 25th and 24th Streets. Every year, the festival has a nice balance of different cuisines and types of eateries, as well as some returning favorites and some newcomers, and this spring’s edition continues this tradition, with Marimekko tablecloths, umbrellas and all. The kind folks over at Mad Park News were nice enough to round up most of the menus here: Keep in mind that some of the menus have already or might change, so best to use it as a guide to get you hungry to hit the tents, and once you are there let your eyes and stomach make the decisions.

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• The Midtown sandwich chain argument rages on [Midtown Eating]
• The Frying Dutchman truck is no more [Midtown Eating]
• Any other soft shelled crab sandos besides Cer Te? [Midtown Eating]
• A positive review of the now back Little Morocco Cart [Midtown Eating]

Last time I had a sandwich, it was the horribly messy bulgogi beef sandwich from Sarah’s Kitchen. For $7.50 it left me hungry and unsatisfied. At that same time, a coworker of mine in his office just next to my desk was eating a sandwich as well. Unlike me, he had a much better experience. He had gotten an egg salad sandwich from Macchiato Espresso Bar on 44th btw Lex+3rd. The sandwich was so filling, he couldn’t finish it. Now if I were given a choice of sandwiches, I doubt the egg salad would be my first choice but my coworker raved about it. Well I needed something delicious after eating the bulgogi beef sandwich, so I decided to follow his lead and check out the egg salad sandwich from Macchiato.

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This year instead of taking my mom to an overpriced brunch or sending her a bouquet of flowers that will quickly die, I thought I’d show her what it’s like to eat lunch in Midtown. Uncle Gussy’s was the perfect place to visit since the truck itself is run by a mother and her two sons. Along with Donny manning the camera, mom and I got to try their awesome Greek food and learn about how the truck came to be. This is the third in our series of holiday themed videos (following St. Patty’s Day and Easter) and probably the last one I’m bringing my mom on. Check out the video after the jump.

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Do you wonder what the ML contributors do when they’re not eating lunch in Midtown? (We’re actually pretty easy to stalk!)

Lunch at Hill Country Chicken – as seen in the pages of Travel + Leisure. Photo by Clay Williams.

Brian went to East Harlem for Al Pastor Tacos at Taco Mix, Donny is psyched about the return of the Red Hook Ballfield vendors, Blondie had Nacho Tots from Domo Taco, Brownie got a first look at the new Treats Truck shop, Chris had Lola’s Lamburger in Seattle, and I got a few of my Flatiron Lunch photos in the pages of Travel + Leisure magazine.

Elsewhere in the ML universe… Zach lists another 7 reasons to hate lunching in Los Angeles, Andrea had mind-blowing kati rolls in the Financial District and Jamie found a steakhouse burger for $8.37 in Philly.

Ramen lovers in Midtown, it looks like the second coming of Ippudo will be much later than originally expected. Last year, we learned that a January opening might be in the works, but one only needs to take a glance at the space to think that Crain’s might have meant January 2013, not ’12.  Although I’m certainly not an expert at interpreting these things, the work permit seems to indicate that construction approval was only recently granted on April 18th. I called the East Village location to get more information, but received a “No Comment” from the person that answered the phone.