Midtown Lunch

The spread of the Korean Taco has slowed a bit since last year, but that doesn’t mean I’m not psyched to hear about any new entry into the field. KalBQ, a cleverly named Korean fast food shop near Baruch opened up last month (on Lex btw. 23+24th) to offer another take on the combination.

I stopped in last month for KalBQ’s pre-opening party to see what it was all about. The menu was still in flux at the time, so I’ve been holding off on a return visit to give them a chance to settle in. That being said, I’m going to be out of town for a bit, so before I leave I wanted to at least give you all a first look at the place.

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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.

Way back in June, at the Midtown Lunch Birthday Party, I got to meet a few lunchers, including Goats, who gently (that’s code for drunkenly) suggested that I totally need to check out the Mexican food cart on Sixth Avenue btw. 28+29th. I had passed it before from time to time, but wasn’t sure what they were selling. You see, the cart has no sign, no menu and, besides the long line of folks speaking Spanish, there’s not much of a hint as to what kind of food they sell. But with the strong lunch’er recommendation, I obviously had to check it out.

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As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Beecher’s, Seattle’s Pike Market cheesemonger opened up an outpost on 20th Street and Broadway last month. It’s still on the new side, so today’s post is more of a look around at the place and what they offer.

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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.  This week Brian H. is stepping in for Clay…

You don’t often see the contributors on ML reviewing salads. Zach has expressed an aversion to leafy greens over the years and the rest of us also tend to like our food fried, buttery, and meaty – in other words, with lots of flavor. Another reason we don’t cover healthy food very often is because it’s so darn expensive. It’s a lot cheaper (and more fun) to rack up the calories than to design your own salad.

And the truth is I probably would not have gone out of my way to check out Quality Greens, the new salad bar concept at FoodParc, if it wasn’t for the promise of a taste of Tanoreen. The Middle Eastern restaurant in Bay Ridge is one of my favorites in the entire city and since an hour-long ride on the R train is not how I like to spend my weekends, I’ve only been there a handful of times. So when I read that Tanoreen was coming to Midtown, I could barely contain my excitement. Why do you think I hijacked this column from ultraclay this week?

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I was pretty excited when I saw the first reports of Mexicue bringing its Mexican/Barbecue fusion to the northwest edge of Flatiron Lunch bounds. The area, south of Penn Station and around FIT has precious little good or interesting food to draw lunchers so having a solid spot like Mexicue will be huge.

According to Fork in the Road they had their soft opening last night and the first day of lunch service is today starting at 11am!  Last week, they offered a preview of the new shop to friends and family as a test of the ordering system and we snuck in to get you a look.

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It’s been years since the Cubano sandwich hit the lunching scene. The double dose of pork on a pressed sandwich hit all the right pleasure points in the lunching public. Sophie’s and Tina’s rode the call for more porky goodness and the underlying desire for Latin food to a pair of empires that seems to stretch to everywhere there’s an office building in this town. Maybe that’s why, until recently, Cuban food seemed to be entirely left out of the food truck craze… that is until now.

The Bongo Bros. popped up on my radar after Goats posted about the truck in the forums back in May. They typically set up shop on 20th and 5th avenue, 24th and Broadway or somewhere in the general vicinity, yet I could never manage to catch up with them. I finally got a chance to try them out this week. Check it out 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.

This summer is turning out to be surprisingly busy for the Flatiron food scene. In addition to the events like Madison Square Eats and the upcoming Flatiron Chefs (only $160 – ouch!), there are some new restaurants opening up in what’s usually a pretty dead season. See the brand new, the sorta new, and the coming soon after the jump.

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In all the time I’ve been wandering the Flatiron District for good, cheap lunches, I have no idea how many times I passed Petite Abeille. The Belgian spot on 17th Street between 5th and 6th always seemed like it was going to break the ML budget, so I didn’t give it a second thought. One day, I decided I wanted to splurge for lunch and was on my way to Rye House when I decided to try something new. Turns out, the lunch here is more affordable than I’d expected – and pretty tasty too.

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Walking down 30th Street the other day, I was surprised to find the sign for Punjab Palace had been taken down. If you recall, I’ve always been a big fan of the wide selection and huge portions they serve up. I stopped in to check it out, and found that things are definitely a bit different about my old favorite.

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