Midtown Lunch

• Tabata’s black sesame ramen is not the same thing as black garlic ramen [Food in Mouth]
• Rice the Great has raised their prices, post Street Meat Palooza [Food in Mouth]
• Mami PG’s Nasi Lemak is great [Chubby Chinese Girl]
• All locations of Chop’t above 24th Street are offering free stuff for people who have donated to the Red Cross [Eater]

Stuck in the no-mans-land between Port Authority and Penn Station and looking to break the chain of tuna cans and penicillin-infected bread as you trudge back into the office? Fret not, you have options today!

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If you check the Midtown Lunch Twitter Tracker today, what you’ll find is that many of our beloved food trucks are giving away free food to those affected by Hurricane Sandy. As first reported by Businessweek, this effort is sponsored by JetBlue and from tweets we could gather that this effort is coordinated in part by the NYC Office of Emergency Management. Wafels and Dinges and Big D’s Grub Truck were featured in the article, and more food trucks are out helping today. Toum NYC, Wafels and Dinges, and Rickshaw Dumplings are at Astor Place; Milk Truck and Frites & Meats are in Chelsea (19th and 8th); Eddie’s Pizza is in the Far Rockaways; Coolhaus and Big D’s Grub are at NYU; and Sweetery NYC and Mexico Blvd are at Tompkins Square Park.

We still have a few trucks serving Midtown today, like Bob & Jo, at Vanderbilt & 46th. One of the Wafels & Dinges trucks is at 60th and 5th, Valducci’s is at 52nd and Park.

In lieu of our regular review, we thought a partial list of open restaurants in Flatiron might be helpful.

Without power at my apartment and office, I relocated to the north. For those of you braver than I and still toughing it out in Flatiron, we thought you might appreciate a list of where to eat on Friday. Fingers crossed we get power back over the weekend.

Eater has been tracking restaurants that are open all around town since Sunday afternoon, and it put a smile on my face to see restaurants hosting sidewalk grill-outs to use up food before it spoiled. Check here for city-wide updates.

Arguably more important than food is the need to charge your cell phone. Mad Park News posted a list of places near the park to charge up as of October 31. They also posted the above photo of mass cell-charging at 7-Eleven on 5th Ave. I salute 7-Eleven for providing a place to charge phones.

If you are reading this, you might have enough battery to try your luck on seamless.com. But remember to follow Seamless’ Sandy Ordering Protocol, which requires calling the restaurant to double check that they are open and able to deliver.

Melt
Melt has been open with limited hours on Wednesday and Thursday with intermittent power and food outages. They are hoping to be open Friday but couldn’t confirm at press time. They hope to answer phones, so call 212.447.MELT (6358) to confirm.
55 West 26th street (between 6th Ave and Broadway), (212) 447-MELT (6358)

Hill Country
Hill Country will be open starting at noon, and they confirmed they will have a full menu on Friday.
30 West 26th Street (between 6th Avenue and Broadway), (212) 255-4544

Ace Hotel and NoMad Hotel
It also seems that just up Broadway, The Ace Hotel has opened The Breslin, John Dory Oyster Bar, No. 7 Sub, and Stumptown, in addition, to outlets for cell phone charging! And if you are interested in splurging over the ML budget to release some of your stress, NoMad is also open and serving.
Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th Street at Broadway, (212) 679-2222
NoMad Hotel, 1170 Broadway at West 28th Street, (212) 796-1500