Midtown Lunch

If you missed our midtown book launch at Posman Books in Grand Central last week there’s another opportunity to catch us at a special lunchtime signing at the Posman Books located Rock Center’s concourse, tomorrow, Wednesday, 4/10 at 1pm. We’ll be signing our cookbook New York à la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks with our awesome photographers, Donny Tsang and Clay Williams. As the subtitle suggests the book is packed with recipes (over 100!) and stories from our favorite carts and trucks in the city. Including recipes for some of our favorite midtown lunches.

Check out a list after the jump…

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Yesterday was the official book birthday for our cookbook New York à la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks. The book features 46 vendors including a ton of vendors that we’ve gotten to know through our adventures in midtown lunching, whether they’re midtown fixtures like Uncle Gussy’s, Eggstravaganza, Hallo Berlin, Kwik Meal or Biryani Cart or trucks that make regular midtown stops like The Cinnamon Snail, Kimchi Taco Truck, Big D’s Grub Truck, Schnitzel & Things, Wafels & Dinges, The Treats Truck, Luke’s Lobster, Morris Grilled Cheese Truck, Comme Ci Comme Ca, Bian Dang, and Coolhaus. Our publisher made some pretty sweet stickers for the trucks and carts in the book and we spent our morning making some deliveries dropping off copies at the Eggstravaganza Cart and Uncle Gussy’s. Read more »

Zach’s already given you guys the heads up, but here’s a little reminder that today is the official pub date our book, New York à la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks and we’re going to be signing our book in midtown at Posman Books in Grand Central with our awesome photographers, Donny Tsang and Clay Williams. Brian will be joining us, too! And we’re hopeful some other lunchers might drop by. Got a question about Midtown Lunching? Dying to know our favorite spots? Our best lunching adventures? Our worst lunching adventures? Drop by, pick up a copy of our book and ask us anything about lunch! We’d love to see you! Can’t make today’s event? We have a number of other events scheduled around the city including a signing at the Rock Center Posman Books on Wednesday, 4/10 at 1pm.

It’s finally here!  After a year of research, and writing, and photographing, and (of course) eating Blondie and Brownie’s street food book “New York a la Cart” is finally here.  Technically it doesn’t come out in stores until April 2nd, but it’s already available for purchase online- and the best part is, it’s within the Midtown Lunch price range.  The book features stories and recipes from some of our favorite Midtown Lunch vendors… like Biryani Cart’s , Kwik Meal’s recipe for white sauce, and Uncle Gussy’s pork chops and tzatziki.  Plus there’s a great tribute to Rolf Babiel from Hallo Berlin, and plenty more (including a forward by yours truly!)

Don’t want to order it online? On April 2nd at 12:30pm we’ll be doing a special Midtown lunch signing at Grand Central’s Posman Books (Vanderbilt+42nd) where you’ll be able to come pick up a copy, and have it signed by Alex, Siobhan, Donny and Clay (who did the photos for the book.) If you can’t make it that day, there will be another small lunch time signing on Wednesday, April 10th at the Posman in the Rock Center concourse. So come on down, meet the crew, get an awesome book, and support Blondie and Brownie!!!

Get a complete list of events and signings on BlondieandBrownie.com

Spring is slowly approaching and for the past few years, this has meant the return of Macaron Day on March 20th. Organized by François Payard, fourteen bakeries throughout the city will be handing out free macarons (one per customer and while supplies last). Here are the six Midtown locations (+ 1 slightly out of bounds) participating. Sweets-loving Francophile freeloaders engage.

Bouchon Bakery at Time Warner Center, Ten Columbus Circle, Third Floor, (212) 823-9366
Bouchon Bakery at Rockefeller Center, One Rockefeller Plaza, (212) 782-3890
Épicerie Boulud, 1900 Broadway, (212) 595-0303
Francois Payard Bakery, 1775 Broadway/3 Columbus Circle, (212) 956-1775
FP Patisserie, 1 W 59th St, (212) 759-1600
Mad-Mac “The Authentic French Macarons” at Bernardaud, 499 Park Avenue at 59th Street, (973) 225-0930
Todd English Food Hall at The Plaza Hotel, 1 W 59th St, (212) 986-9260

Fancy grilled cheeses is one of the best comfort food trends in my book, and to celebrate the city’s best Openhouse Gallery is holding their Big Cheesy competition again! Last year, our very own Melt Shop (on Lex btw 53rd+54th) took home the grand prize and they’re up for it again against Chelsea Market’s Lucy’s Whey, 2011 champ Milk Truck, UWS’s Say Cheese, Murray’s Cheese Bar, LES’s Sons of Essex, and ‘wichcraft. It all goes down in two weekends, the 23rd and 24th, at 201 Mulberry Street from 12 to 7pm. Tickets are $25 for an hour of eating plus Sixpoint tall boys.

We have a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky winner.  Just comment below with your favorite or craziest grilled cheese sandwich ingredients and you’re entered to win. Don’t want to leave it to chance?  Get your tickets here and go root for the home team.

For those of you who don’t feel like Thansgiving is enough, you should be going to The Turkey Leg Ball, the annual party thrown by the dudes from Immaculate Infatuation (who are Midtown Lunchers!) It goes down a week from today (Weds 11/28) at Hudson Terrace- which is kind of in Midtown (on 46th btw 11+12th)- and features BBQ done by the guys from Foreign & Domestic in Austin.  The event always sells out, and there are only a few tickets left, so don’t procrastinate.  Get all the details and buy your tickets here>>

For the past 3 years, the Grub Street Food Festival at the Hester Street Fair seems to top itself, both in scale and in quality. This was the 3rd annual fest, and it was even more delicious than last year’s Grub Street Food Festival at the Hester Street Fair. With so many vendors, there was no way for one person to try everything, but I made an impressive go at it. Foregoing Midtown favorites Korilla, Chinese Mirch and Kelvin Slush, which were parked just outside the entrance, I ate everything from okonomiyaki to lentils, and as it turned out, my 3 favorite meals had one thing in common: all hailed from Brooklyn. I’m hoping these guys make the journey to Midtown soon so the rest of you get to enjoy them as much as I did.
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Choice Eats, the Village Voice’s annual tasting event which takes place next week, is unfortunately sold out. The good news is that tickets just went on sale for Choice Streets. This is an extension of the main event (although it’s one month later) and is a tasting from over 20 food trucks, including Midtown favorites like Korilla BBQ and Wafels & Dinges in addition to ones that don’t often come to this neck of the woods, like Kelvin Natural Slush and Souvlaki GR. The event takes place on Tuesday, April 24 from 7-10pm on Pier 86. Tickets are $30 for general admission and include all the food, beverages, and entertainment. You can purchase them here.

Yesterday, more than 50 winning lunchers joined us for a free meal at Koreatown’s Food Gallery 32 provided by the fine folks at Google Places. Blondie, Brownie, Chris and I snacked on some great food and met more than a few of the winners.

If you didn’t make it, follow the jump for a few of the dishes that we ate there.

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