Midtown Lunch

Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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.

Unless you live or work on the far east side, there’s nothing convenient about going to first avenue for lunch. In fact, it’s quite the schlep. When I got back into town last month, I had to make the trip to Stuyvesant Town to see a friend – the same friend who recommended Petite Abielle some time ago – and he told me he had a great lunch find I just had to try. He wasn’t wrong.

Filipino food is few and far between in New York, especially in lunching bounds. I’ve been on the lookout ever since I discovered the Filipino breakfast in San Francisco last summer. so when we planned to meet up at Grill 21 (21st Street and 1st Ave), I was already excited. When I found out they have $8 lunch specials, the only question was how soon could we get there.

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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.

Madison Square Eats is back with it’s third month-long stint in Worth Square and I’m pretty excited about it. How could I not be? More that 20 new food stands pop up for a month offering dozens of new dishes to try out. There’s pizza and pretzels and pig face sandwiches, there’s a little something for everyone. Follow the jump for highlights from this season’s market.

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Fall is upon us and with it a wave of new deliciousness coming to the Flatiron Lunch area. This year doesn’t quite have the crazy weekly openings that we saw last year, with Eataly, FoodParc and Hill Country Chicken popping up all in the same month or so. Still, there’s some interesting new lunch options coming our way. Find out more after the jump.

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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. He’s still out of the country this week, so Brian has stepped in to take over.

In July, Clay got a first look at Seattle import Beecher’s, the Eataly of cheese shops. Most of the food world was buzzing and I for one was very excited since I had a tasty visit to their original store in Pike’s Place Market a few summers ago. I particularly couldn’t wait to get another sample of their world famous mac and cheese.

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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. He’s still out of the country this week, so Donny has stepped in to take over.

A while back fellow lunch’er Goats had mentioned a halal truck on Mad btw. 27+28th. But my craving for street meat comes and goes. Sometimes it’s the farthest thing in my mind while sometimes I’ll happily eat it every freakin day. And it just so happened that while I was walking down on Madison Ave, I found the halal truck that Goats talked about and the smell of curry drew me in. It smelled delicious and struck my halal food craving.

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It never fails. As soon as I go out of town for a couple weeks, some sort of amazing deliciousness pops up at home. This time, it’s Cannibal, the new butcher shop and lunch counter from the folks at Resto. Urban Daddy reports that the shop may be open right now and will be serving interesting deliciousness like cow tongue pastrami, boudin noir and a pig’s head cuban sandwiches. I’ve long been a fan of Resto’s pig face sandwiches, but it breaks the ML price limit pretty easily. Their booth in the Madison Square Eats this spring managed to slip in just at the $10 mark. Hopefully, this sandwich-focused service will offer something as economical.

Cannibal, 113 East 29th St. Between Park & Lex. 212.686.5480

Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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. He’s out of the country this week, so Blondie has graciously stepped in to take over.

When you first look at Terry’s Gourmet (6th Ave btw 16th+17th), it looks like any other steam-table deli. And if it hadn’t been for a Trinidadian friend of mine tipping me off to Terry’s off the menu item, we’d never know that Terry’s offers up some of the only West Indian food in the area. Every day, they offer a few types of West Indian curry, that can either be combined into a platter or made into that wonderful Caribbean burrito, the wrap roti.

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I don’t often find myself east of the Midtown Lunch boundaries, but a few months ago, I got invited to a dinner at Bao Noodles on Second Avenue. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with the Bao empire. For all the tasty food they come up with, the random openings, closings and rearranging starts to get annoying. Maybe I’m still sore about Baorrito swapping for Mikey’s Burger without any notice.

Anyway, I learned two things that night: first, Michael ‘Bao’ Hyunh hasn’t been a part of the restaurant for years, so it’s not likely to change format next week. Second, they offer a $10 lunch special that pairs a soup or a sandwich with a reduced size starter. The dinner that night was definitely tasty enough to warrant a return, and the price for the lunch special seemed right, so I headed back last week to see what it was all about.

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