Archive for March 2014

Korilla BBQ Truck’s Edward Song Talks to Us About the Current State of the Food Truck Biz

When the Korilla BBQ Truck launched nearly 4 year ago, it was arguably a turning point on the NYC food landscape. It represented a new era of food trucks – not just the introduction of Korean tacos being vended from a food truck a la LA’s famed Kogi BBQ Truck, but also a paradigm shift towards the new school of gourmet food trucks.

Since then, many food trucks have come and gone. A ton of drama, police and otherwise, has occurred. However, the Korilla food truck has persevered and grown their footprint since their launch in 2010. I had a chance to sit down with the founder and owner, Eddie Song to talk about the current state of food trucks and his future plans for Korilla.
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Flatiron Lunch: Two Bagels w/ Whitefish Salad Below 23rd Street

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.

There are too many bagel places in the Flatiron area to continue to ignore them. Granted, not all bagels are created equal, and I still can’t wrap my head around how we lost H&H bagels. Instead of trying to write up each bagel spot, I, completely selfishly, decided to try the whitefish salad on bagel as my benchmark. If there isn’t a complete mutiny, this won’t be the last bagel post.

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Janchi Janchi is Another Option for Korean Fast Food & Buffet

The folks at Kum Gang San are having themselves a busy year. They’ve recently expanded their operations to Rock Center with the opening of New York Kimchi, and now they’ve re-purposed their ground level dining room at their 32nd street location into a fast food / food court / buffet style restaurant called Janchi Janchi (translating to ‘feast’).

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Quick Look: The Sushi at Wasabi Sushi & Bento

During my previous Wasabi review, I ate pretty much everything off their menu, but I never really dove into the sushi offerings. The sushi didn’t originally catch my attention at Wasabi, but I don’t write these posts for my own personal enjoyment (yes, I do), so the addition of a Midtown establishment serving up individually wrapped pieces of sushi will obviously attract some attention. Craving something healthy(ish) for lunch, I zipped over to Wasabi to try out their sushi.

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Choice Eats Highlights the Best of New York’s Diverse Cuisine (Though it Could Use Some More Midtown Flavor)

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Last night, I ate about a 40 course meal in just under three hours. It was at the gut-busting event known as Choice Eats. This year the festivities went down in Basketball City in BFE Manhattan (that weird neighborhood between the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and the Seaport). The far-out location did not stop the crowds nor the food vendors from bringing lots of tasty offerings. And although there was a glut of barbecue and sandwiches (no complaints here), I couldn’t help notice the true diversity of cuisines. Not since the Vendy Awards have I been to a food event that represented so much of the world.

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Free Coffee Alert: If you're a fan of hipster coffee you should be excited about this news... The Manchester Pub (on 2nd Ave. btw. 48+49th) has just partnered with Coffee Foundry to launch a morning coffee pop up featuring beans from Toby's Estate, a small batch roaster from Brooklyn.  The pop up is open from 7-11am and to celebrate, they're giving out free coffee this entire week.  Freeloading caffeine junkies, prepare to engage.

Tickets Still Available Tonight for Choice Eats: Tonight is one of the biggest food parties of the year and it's not too late to buy tickets. Village Voice's Coice Eats, which features unlimited samplings from over 70 NYC restaurants, begins at 7pm tonight at Baksetball City on Pier 36 downtown.  General Admission tickets are still available tonight at the door. For more information and a list of participating food vendors, click here.

Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen Brings Hand Pulled Noodles to Midtown West

When we first heard of Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen (8th Ave @ 49th St), we got super excited (as well as overwhelmed by a mouthful of a restaurant name). Based on this Grubstreet article, the proprietor and Chef not only seems to be quite the character, but also seems to know his way around a bowl of hand pulled noodles having spent time in the kitchens of Lanzhou Handmade Noodles in Flushing. And with the exception of Xian Famous Foods, Midtown is sorely missing a good noodle joint. Noodle envy is never a pretty thing.

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It’s Now Even Easier to get your Tehuitzingo Fix

A few months ago, fans of Tehuitzingo may have been slightly alarmed that the Mexican grocery and deli on 10th Ave was closing temporarily for renovations.  But we breathed a sigh of relief when we learned that the Tehuitzingo team has opened a new location (9th Ave @ 42nd St) that’s even more convenient for office workers near Times Square and Port Authority.  The new location features a small dining room and accepts credit cards (the old location was cash only).  With the extra space, they’ve expanded the menu (front menu / back menu), adding Mexican classics such as mole poblano ($9) and pancita ($9), a spicy beef tripe soup served in a bowl the size of a kitchen sink.

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Flatiron Lunch: Great Sichuan, Where Have You Been All My Life?

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.

With thirty lunch specials ranging in price from $6.98-$8.27, it wasn’t a matter of if I would get to Great Sichuan, but what to order when I went. FL’er Rodalpho recommended a list of amazing sounding dishes (the twice-cooked pork, soup dumplings, gui-zhou spicy chicken, beef with cumin flavor, and the dry sautéed string bean.) But imagine how bummed I was when only one appeared on the lunch specials list.

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