Midtown Lunch

Last week marked the beginning of fall and for those of you who follow the ice cream truck trade, that means that fewer and fewer trucks are on the road these days. While the last official day of the season isn’t until October 31st, it’s pretty much going to depend on the weather; about 1/2 of the regular trucks (both Softee and non branded white trucks) have already stopped for the season. Miss Softee is still out there (when it’s not raining!) and is currently running an ice cream contest. Want free ice cream? Details after the jump.

Read more »

Earlier in the week, we told you how you could help your favorite food truck win $10,000 as part of the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race Giveaway. If you follow Cupcake Stop, Treats Truck, Mexicue, Calexico, NYC Cravings, Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, Bistro Truck, or Eddie’s Pizza Truck on Twitter or Facebook you know that everybody is lobbying hard for the win. But not every truck is planning on keeping the $10k prize for themselves. Eddie’s Pizza Truck has said they will donate the prize to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, while the Cravings Truck has vowed to give away free lunch for a week if they win (200 platters a day for 5 days.) Tough decision. Help a charity? Or help yourself get free food. Or just vote for whoever you think is the best! Either way, the current Top 10 doesn’t have a single New York Food truck. Clearly we need to change that… Vote now. The contest ends a week from today (on 9/10).

It’s been almost 9 months since we first discovered 4Food, the crazy new burger concept opening soon on 40th and Madison Ave..  They launched their website back in November of 2009 promising to offer a fully customizable, healthier fast food burger by cutting a hole in the patty and filling it with various “scoops” (think mushrooms and onions, or spinach and toasted pine nuts.)  With 8 different patties (beef, pork, fish, veggie, etc), 5 different buns, over 15 scoops, 7 cheeses, 6 other toppings, a ton of condiments, and the promise of seasonal specials, the permutations are endless… and as if the food itself isn’t crazy enough, there will be free wi-fi, the ability to order from an iPad, computerized ordering kiosks (for those who are iPad-less), social networking tie ins, and a giant menu board that will show Twitter info, Four Square check-ins and menu fun.  You’ll also be able to create your own burger, and then “advertise” it to friends using… you guessed it… social networking!

Horrible or horribly amazing?  Either way, we’re pretty excited to see how this madness turns out- and we’re guessing if you read this site, you feel the same way.  So, with that in mind, 4Food has agreed to let some of you get a special sneak preview.  The grand opening has been pushed back to September 7th, but they’ve agreed to allow 35 Midtown Lunch readers (and a guest) come in for a special preview lunch at the end of the month.  All you have to do to enter to win is comment on this post with the burger creation you’d want to try on your first visit. The best sounding burger (to us) will get to attend the preview, and their burger will be added to the 4Food menu as the “Midtown Lunch” special.  The rest of the winners will be chosen randomly and notified next week.  Good luck!  The contest closes on Monday, August 15th at Noon.

Check out the opening day menu of 4Food after the jump…

Read more »

FloFab reported it weeks ago, and we just got confirmation that the original location of Soup Kitchen International (the spot on 55th just west of 8th Ave popularized by Seinfeld as the “Soup Nazi”) will reopen on Tuesday at Noon… and according to their website, they’ll be giving away free t-shirts on opening day. The Soup Man’s people offered us a VIP pass to skip the line for free soup (and the T-Shirt as well) but you know we don’t like to do that kind of thing… however, we’ll gladly let them give it to you! Want to win the pass and the shirt? Leave a comment with either your favorite S.K.I. soup (or whichever soup sounds the best to you). We’ll randomly select a winner today at 5pm, so they have time to mail you the prize before Tuesday.

Want to see the opening day soup menu? It’s after the jump…

Read more »

Profiled Lunch’er, City Council liveblogger, and all around great gal “Miss Softee” emailed us today about a contest she’s holding to win free ice cream for a month.  “The inspiration just isn’t coming to me, so I need help naming my new ice cream mobile.  Submit entries via Twitter or in person at the truck (location can be found on Twitter or the ML Twitter Tracker).  All submissions must be received by midnight tomorrow (07/01) one entry per person, no profanity, and winner will receive one free ice cream a day for the entire month of July (good at my truck only). Winner will be selected by myself and a group of other ice cream drivers on Friday, July 2.”  Good Luck! UPDATE: Don’t use twitter?  Miss Softee says she will accept any submissions in the comments of this post as well.

Yesterday PR people from the newly opened Lena Latin Grill (on 35th btw. 5+6th) offered us a free $20 gift card, to “sample the variety of Latin-inspired dishes from [their] wood-burning grill”.  We have a general policy of paying for all the food we write about, and we just wouldn’t feel right keeping the free food to ourselves when we could give it to you instead! Want to try Lena Latin Grill for free?  We’ve got a $20 gift card for one lucky winner, and all you have to do to enter is post a comment below letting us know why it should be yours.  Limit one comment per person, and we’ll draw a winner on Friday (6/25) at 3pm.   Good luck!

Shilla, the Korean restaurant on 32nd btw. B’way+5th that has been known to offer $5 and $6 take out lunch specials, has been doing a little PR lately… inviting bloggers to come sample food for free so they’ll write about it. Their sit down lunch specials are $9.95-$14.95 and include kimchi jjigae, gop dol (a dolsot bi bim bap sounding kind of thing shown on the left), plus a galbi box for $11.95. As good as it looks- we here at ML don’t accept special free meals from the places we write about, but we’ll gladly give the free food to you! Shilla has agreed to let us give away the free tasting menu to one lucky Midtown Lunch’er and a guest. Just comment below and let us know why you should be the one, and you’re entered to win. Contest ends on Friday at 5pm. Good luck!

Photo courtesy of Ultraclay

If you like giant tasting events, Midtown’s biggest is coming up at the end of the month… It’s the 10th Annual Grand Gourmet: The Flavor of Midtown, presented by the Grand Central Partnership, and it will feature dishes from over 30 Midtown restaurants- including ML favorites the Grand Central Oyster Bar, Murray’s Cheese, Naples 45 and a ton more.  It all goes down April 29th from 7 to 9:30pm at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central. Tickets are $75, but we’ve got a pair to give away to one lucky Midtown Luncher. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below letting us know what free samples you’d be most excited to house at the event (a full list of participating restaurants can be found here.) The winner will be drawn at random on Monday, April 19th at Noon.

Don’t want to leave it to chance? You can buy your tickets for the event here.

You still have a couple of more days to win a lunch from NBC’s food truck, which will visit undisclosed locations on Monday Feburary 8th with Chefs Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse, Michael White, and Paul Liebrandt in tow.  But there have been some complaints in the comments about the difficulty of the quiz… so we managed to snag a pair of passes for one lucky Midtown Lunch’er. The locations haven’t been released yet, but the passes will be for the lunchtime slot (Noon to 2pm).  And we’ll make it easy for you to boot.  Just post a comment below explaining why you should be the one who gets passes, and you’re entered to win.  A winner will be drawn at random tomorrow (Friday) at 3pm.  Limit one entry per person.  Good luck!

Related:
Less Than 1 Week Until Boulud Truck Hits the Streets

This morning we revealed that Daniel Boulud will be serving “frenchie burgers” from the one day only NBC food truck hitting the streets on Feburary.  Eater has even more info, and it’s a good news bad news situation. The good news is, it’s not just Boulud… Alain Ducasse, Paul Liebrandt, and Michael White will also be on the truck and the food is free! The bad news… it’s not open to everybody. Only 500 people will get “golden tickets” and you have to win your lunch by logging onto the NBC website every day between 11am and 4pm. Urgh. Get more info and register to win here>>

“Frenchie Burger” photo courtesy of jmoranmoya