Midtown Lunch

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

Man, the Street Sweets Truck just can’t catch a break.  They burst onto the scene back in June, and immediately became embroiled in a turf battle with two restaurants on 55th Street that ended with the fire department being called.  In their next spot, in front of MoMa, they were surrounded by angry hot dog carts.  They’ve finally settled into a solid spot on 50th btw. 6+7th and now they’re being forced to change their name!  They’re not saying exactly why they have to change their name, but i’m guessing it has something to do with this.

Anyway, the good news is they’re holding a naming contest for their fans- and the winner will get a $500 American Express Gift Card, and a $100 gift certificate to the truck. The email from Street Sweets, with all the details, is after the jump…

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Since last week was Thanksgiving, you’re forgiven if you missed this one. Anthos chef Michael Psilakis was our Profiled Midtown Lunch’er last Tuesday, and we’re giving away a copy of his amazing new cookbook “How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking”.  You have until Noon today to register to win…

This Thursday night, Circle of Taste (the new Time Warner Center culinary club) will be having another of their members only, exclusive free food events at Landmarc in Columbus Circle- and they’ve been nice enough to set aside a pair of passes for one lucky Midtown Lunch’er.  The winner and their guest will be treated to five different mussel preparations, plus a Belgian beer.  To enter, just comment below why you think you deserve it.  A winner will be drawn at random on Wednesday morning, at 10am (and in order to attend you have to be signed up for the Circle of Taste exclusive events and tastings email, so if you haven’t signed up yet be sure to go do that now.) Freeloaders… engage.

Related:
Time Warner Center Wants to Give You Free Food

Photos courtesy of the Lucy’s website

You know what was completely lost in yesterday’s MomoMadness?  Lucy’s Cantina Royale (aka Lucy’s Mexican Cantina) opened Wednesday on 34th Street and 8th Ave.  Anybody check it out?  I’m still thinking the menu might be a tad bit too expensive to be a Midtown Lunch, but I’m willing to keep an open mind and check it out.  They actually invited me to have lunch there today, on the house, but you know I don’t roll like that.

I will, however, accept free food on behalf of my readers!

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With the exception of Whole Foods, and the take out window of Bouchon Bakery, most of the restaurants in the Time Warner Center are outside the Midtown Lunch price range. But that doesn’t mean we’d turn down free food, right? The TWC in Columbus Circle has just launched a culinary club called “Circle of Taste”. Become a member (it’s free to join), and you’ll get special access to free events and exclusive tastings, like a smoked meats tasting at Porterhouse (on 11/16) or a mussels and beer thing at Landmarc (12/3).

The kick off event is a free dessert tasting this Friday at 5:30pm with free desserts from Bouchon Bakery, A Voce, Landmarc and more (hello double truffle brownies!) That one is completely open to the public, but in the future events will only be open to members. You can get more info and sign up now at www.circleoftaste.com

On Tuesday I walked into the Japanese fast food spot Washoku Cafe, on 37th btw. Mad+5th, and it was hopping! I mean really crowded, especially compared to earlier in the year when they first opened. The quality of food at bento places like this is far better when there are crowds, and everything I saw yesterday looked really good. It was actually overwhelming. I’d need a small army to attack this place. Which got me thinking… why not assemble a small army?

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