PROFILE: Midtown Lunch’er “Mike”
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 Mike, a web guy who’d rather be stuffing his gullet with seafood in Spain.
Name: Mike
Age: 32
Occupation: Senior Digital Producer
Where in Midtown do you work? Bravo / 30 Rock
Favorite Kind of Food: Anything rustic/ethnic, but if I had to boil it down specifically in terms of items or cultures: Indian / Southeast Asian / Spanish, and items would be smartly made grilled sandwiches (my sandwiches must have a crunch element), any seafood and spicy noodle-based soups (ramen, pho).
Least Favorite Kind of Food: American-style ham. Not the fancy La Quercia stuff, which I adore, but salt-bomb grossly pink spiral ham or cold-cut ham. I just gagged writing that. I also continue to have a lifelong hatred of pancakes — see crunch necessity above.
Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Tina’s Cuban sandwich (on 56th btw. 5+6th), Menkui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) in the winter (Menkui ramen always), and was recently pleasantly surprised by Steak N Shake (on B’way btw. 53+54th).
“Go-To” Lunch Place You and Your Coworkers Eat at Too Often? I get in a rut and grab salad or pay-by-weight stuff from City 75 (on 51st btw. 5+6th). It’s not great, but they do have consistently good grilled salmon and some other dependables that work in a pinch. Also, Lenny’s (spicy chicken on toasted ciabatta) when I need to be quick and fulfill a sandwich craving.
Places you have discovered thanks to Midtown Lunch? Margon (on 46th btw. 6+7th) back in the day before it was a nightmare to even attempt getting lunch at. And the calamari sandwich at Tuscan Square (I think that was the name?), which is now Bill’s.
If you could work anywhere (just because of the lunch) where would it be and why? Two possibilities: In Boqueria market in Barcelona where you can easily bounce around the different vendors looking for what’s the freshest that day, or Amalfi — seafood, anchovy and lemons all day long.
Anything you’d like to ask the midtown lunch readers? Any decent Vietnamese near Rock Center, either for Bahn Mi or pho in the winter? Seems to be a pretty big void there.
Got an answer for Mike? Put it in the comments. Want to be next week’s Profiled: Midtown Lunch’er (or know somebody you’d like to nominate)? Email editor@midtownlunch.com.
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:56 am, August 14th, 2012 under PROFILE: Midtown Lunch'er.
20 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
LOL @ Vietnamese in midtown. There is a sandwich shop called Boi over on 44th/3rd, but it doesn’t hold a candle to any of the known places in Chinatown or Brooklyn. The bread is all wrong IMO and it’s way more expensive than a banh mi deserves to be.
There may be a random Chinese noodle shop around that serves pho as well, but I say why bother? I’d stick to the ramen joints in the area.