Midtown Lunch

Today Robicelli’s is debuting “Pizza Grana” a cupcake take on the traditional Italian dish “Pastiera di Grano” or “Grain Pie” which is basically an orange-scented ricotta cheesecake filled with cooked wheatberries and a must for the traditional Italian Easter table. The cupcake is composed of Italian citrus cake, ricotta & wheatberry buttercream, pie crust shards. They’ll be delivering to Schnitzel & Things (the brick & morter on 3rd btw. 45+46th) and Joe GCT. Call ahead to Joe because of space they get a limited selection of the cupcakes, usually two of the four flavors.

Yesterday, our friends at Eater announced Burger week, in which they will all sorts of festivities celebrating the hamburger in all its glory. They’ve arranged specials at restaurants around town and prizes that the freeloader in the know will want to get their hands on. They’ll also be running a poll all week to determine the best burger in town. Clearly, it’ll be full of all sorts of fancy-types, but all are invited to nominate their favorites by emailing tips@eater.com before Sunday at noon. Last year’s Midtown Lunch poll was a huge upset as Five Guys beat out Shake Shack, so this should be interesting to see.

The lunchers of Midtown West just got another Thai restaurant with the opening of a Midtown branch of Qi (pronounced: “Chee”) Thai restaurant (8th Ave between 42nd and 43rd St). What’ll set this place apart from the original Qi Thai in Union Square, is that notable pâtisserie and restaurateur, Pichet Ong, will be the consulting Chef for the restaurant, and is hoping to focus the flavors on food from the Bangkok region of Thailand.

The early good news – the lunch prices seem more than fair, with everything falling comfortably under the $10 mark. And the restaurant space is exceptionally large for the area, ensuring enough seating to accommodate workday lunchers as well as the inevitable cadre of tourists. To get more of a preview, click through for the lunch menu and a shot of the interior.
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A month or so ago, Sweetery NYC (formerly Street Sweets) begun carrying ice cream sandwiches. This ice cream sandwich expert saw the flavor combinations and knew that the sandwiches were coming from Melt Bakery. If any of you stopped by the Hester Street Fair last summer, you might have stopped by their booth. And even though the weather hasn’t fully turned to wonderful out, it’s always the time for ice cream. Even if that ice cream comes completely frozen and will set you back a pretty penny.

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Yesterday was the start of the 5 week long free food giveaway from the “Taste of Korea” food truck. Their 1st stop was at Bryant Park and lucky for me I happened to be having lunch at Bryant Park yesterday.  Luckily I spotted them early enough, because even though their Facebook page says they would be serving up freebies until 2pm, they closed the line around 1:15 yesterday.  After 20mins of standing in line I was handed a very nice looking bulgogi filet mignon silder with a side of kimchi. Finely sliced tasty warm filet mignon, buns toasted in butter, and the freshness and texture from the scallions and the slice of cucumber made a really good slider.

Today the truck will be at 52nd & 6th serving Danji’s spicy pork belly (the Serious Eats crew are fans of their spicy pork belly slider). Make sure to check their Facebook page or the ML Twitter Tracker for the truck’s schedule.

This year tax day is a few days later than the usual April 15th deadline and if you kick it old school and mail in an actual copy of your return you may find yourself taking a trip to the James Farley Post Office (on 8th Ave. btw. 31+32nd). My last year’s recommendation of NY Pizza Suprema still holds, but if you need something sweet to dull the pain of having to pay more taxes (or celebrate your refund!) then you might consider a stroll down the block to D’Aiuto’s.

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I decided to begin my search for a proper Italian sausage hero close to home at Mondello (on 37th btw. Mad+5th). Their chicken parmigiana hero has been a favorite of mine since I started working in the area nearly seven years ago.

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One thing we failed to mention during our look at Social Eatz the other week is that there are several menu items that are definitely worth a splurge, because let’s face it – we can’t all be cheapskates all the time (I’m looking at you Zach.) Like luncher Huck, I’m a huge fan of their tomato curry soup ($5) and I agree with our friends over at Immaculate Infatuation that the $12 Bibimbap Burger is a truly good and exciting riff of the classic Korean dish that it gets its roots from. For the lunchers that have the financial means, both of these items are worth a look.
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Recently I had a hankering for some jjajangmyeon- noodles with a brown sauce made from fermented soybean paste. The Chinese version uses ground pork and is less saucey than the Korean counterpart, but both versions are quite excellent. Hyo Dong Gak a Chinese/Korean restaurant (on35th btw. 5+6th) has been the ML jjajangmyeon go to for awhile now, but while looking at the lunch specials (just to see if there was anything tasty looking) I spotted double cooked pork!

Ever since my mediocre experience at Joe’s Shanghai I’ve been on a mission to try all the double cooked pork dishes I can find in Midtown (going to save Szechuan Gourmet for last since it’s probably the best). Will this version come with pickled daikon? Maybe the spiciness is from kimchi? (It is a Korean/Chinese restaurant after all.) But mostly… will this be any good?

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Grinder’s, heroes, subs, whatever you want to call them, I’m a longtime fan and I can’t seem to think of a single place in midtown where I can find a good one. I’m talking about coils of hot and sweet sausages sitting on a griddle with piles of onions and peppers, served up on a hero roll thick enough to soak up all the resulting grease. Carts selling them seem to pop up all over the city at summer street festivals, but the rest of the time, they seem to hibernate.

Last week, Andrea’s Downtown Lunch post about Dominic’s reminded me that I never did track down a decent Italian Sausage sub after the sad, sad halal cart sandwich last year. My first thought would be a pizza shop, but most of those leave their sandwiches as a second thought, drying out on steam trays for hours along with rubbery calzones and strombolis. I’m told Papa Perrone sells them, but I haven’t made it up that far north to investigate. What do you guys think? If anyone has ideas, chime in in the comments.