Archive for 'Baja Fresh'

41st St Cafe Duke Shutters

As noted by ML comment-er D, the 41st and Broadway Cafe Duke has shuttered and has been gutted inside. While Cafe Duke was never truly a great ML lunch, I thought that it was better than most options in the area, especially if I needed a quick and convenient soondubu fix. Less notably, the Baja Fresh across the street has also called it quits. Thankfully, you can now get Korean food a few blocks away at Liberty Cafe.

50% off Baja Fresh on Lex: Today's InBundles deal is a good one for anybody works on the east side and likes Baja Fresh.  Get $12 worth of food at the Baja Fresh location on Lex (btw. 45+46th) for just $6. The deal is good for everything on the menu- including alcohol.

Win Free Baja Fresh For a Month (By Stuffing Your Face)

It looks like the Go Go Curry Eating Championship isn’t the only competitive eating game in Midtown this month…  Baja Fresh will celebrate Cinco de Mayo by holding a 10 minute burrito eating contest.  The winner will get free Baja Fresh for a month (winner can come in and order one entree and fountain soda, once a day, every day, for one month.)  To qualify for the May 5th final contestants will need to finish a Dos Manos Burrito Enchilada Style in less than 30 minutes at either of the Midtown locations.  Thanks to Lunch’er “Andy” for the tip and the photo.

New Baja Fresh Opens Tonight w/ $2 Burritos: Just got word that the newest Midtown location of Baja Fresh (on 41st and Broadway) will not open for lunch until tomorrow- but tonight they'll be open from 6-8pm and all burritos will be $2!  (That's cheap enough to consider it an "after work snack" right?)

New Baja Fresh Hoping to Open Tomorrow: The second Midtown location of Baja Fresh, which was hoping to open on Monday (on Broadway and 41st), will likely open tomorrow.  They've "passed the health inspection, and are cleared to go- but are still putting some finishing touches" on the space.

Airing of Grievances: “Friends Don’t Let Friends Support Baja Freah”

I try my best not to be too negative on this site, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to vent. Every once in awhile I’ll share some of the more angry useful emails I get in a post called “Airing of Grievances”. (If the Eater Complaints Dept. would like royalties, I’ll be happy to pay up…)


The Baja Fresh Opening Soon on B’way & 41st. Photo courtesy of Lunch’er Harry

Zach,

I’ve had enough, I like you too much and I can’t stand for you supporting Baja Fresh anymore. Friends don’t let friends support Baja Fresh. You’re making a fool of yourself. I told you long ago that this is not the “west coast Baja” you’re used to. I told you, that they’d been in Jersey for years now running a sinister operation of 9$ flaccid burritos, where they push the envelope of rice to meat ratio every time, probably just to test a customer’s breaking point. I would never in a billion years succumb to openly compromising my foodie reputation and associating myself Baja Fresh as a fan. However, just for you, I did [last week], and for the sake of being a cheapie who likes deals that rip off my arch nemesis (i.e. my failed attempt to win a free Yushi lunch). I tried printing the page at work but it would have been about 5 pages long since the stream of comments was so long. I decided to just bring in my phone and show them evidence that I actually went through the hassle of becoming a fan and writing a comment.

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Speaking of Baja Fresh: From the owners: "We are hoping to open 41st and Broadway in mid Sept, tentative date is Sep. 14th. We are also bringing the Nacho burrito and Queso Fundido to NYC due to popular demand, as well as whole wheat tortillas. Also, at Lex we recently received our liquor license and have begun serving beers with wines and margaritas to come in the next week or so."

Lunch’er Jeff Gives a Baja Fresh Primer for First Timers

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Unlike most normal Midtown Lunchers, I don’t usually eat at a place I’ve already eaten at, and order the same thing I’ve already tried (it’s a hazard of the job.) But I do have a few go-to lunches that I can’t help but eat every once in awhile. The sauteed udon noodles with pork from Hing Won, and the fake shrimp from Cafe Duke come to mind. Added to that list yesterday was Baja Fresh. What can I say? The Baja Chicken Burrito was my go-to lunch when I lived in LA (along with Panda Express), why should things be different here?

So yesterday, when a friend and I were looking for a place to eat near his office- I couldn’t help myself but suggest the Baja Fresh (on Lex btw. 45+46th). And it was partially spurred on by a comment posted to the site yesterday by Lunch’er Jeff. It wasn’t really applicable to me (I always order the baja chicken burrito), but I took a liking to his obsessive and meticulous examination of Baja Fresh from a first timers perspective.

Check it out after the jump…

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Free Churros Alert: This almost makes going out in this nasty weather worth it... via twitter: "FREE churro when you show this Tweet! No purch necessary, only at Baja Fresh NYC 7/29." By the way, that's on Lex btw. 45+46th. Freeloaders engage. Don't have twitter? Feel free to show them our ML Twitter Tracker Page. (I wonder if that will work.)

Baja Fresh Really is Trying to Rip off Kogi!

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Photos Courtesy of OC Mexican Food Blog

It looks like the battle between Baja Fresh and LA’s Kogi BBQ truck is just starting to heat up.  A quick recap for those who haven’t been following it closely… at the end of last month the OC Mexican food blog first reported that Baja Fresh had added “Kogi Tacos” to one of their locations in Irvine, CA, a seemingly blatant rip off of the LA Korean taco truck with the same name.  Readers were outraged, although some commenters on various blogs pointed out that “kogi” is just the Korean term for “meat”, so it’s probably legal.  On Thursday, NRN confirmed that Baja Fresh was in fact going ahead with their Kogi named line of Korean tacos, although the owners of the NYC Baja Fresh said it wasn’t going to be coming to New York.  (And in a double whammy, neither is the Kogi BBQ Truck we were promised a few months ago!)  Well, the Wall Street Journal blog is the latest to chime in, shining some added light on the legality of the name, and whether or not Baja Fresh can use it:

[Baja Fresh] chose to call the dish “kogi” because that is a transliteration of the Korean word for meat. Although it says now a Korean-language expert is investigating whether “gogi” might be a more accurate spelling and if Baja should use that instead.

“It speaks to our non-desire to rip off the Kogi name,” Mr. Rink says. Research and development staff from the chain did sample the tacos at the Kogi truck, but didn’t copy the recipe, Mr. Rink says. It created its own Korean taco using steak and chicken.”

So it seems like the word “kogi” is not really the commonly used phonetic spelling of “meat” that we thought it was.  Which begs the question… doesn’t the Kogi BBQ Truck have a trademark!?!

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