Midtown Lunch

After noticing Chef’s Secret (formerly known as Thai Nam on 45th btw. Lex+3rd) was offering pho bo last week, I went back to try the Vietnamese beef and rice noodle soup to relieve my curiosity. They describe their new offering as “hearty beef broth scented with cloves and anise. Served with thin rice noodle. Choice of beef/chicken/seafood.” All for $9.50! OK, not the best deal in Midtown, but I figured it’s worth a try since they’ve pretty much plastered the NEW pho bo flyers all over their window, their sidewalk sign, and walls inside…

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The blog Law & Food took it upon themselves to try every burger in Midtown East recently and came to these tough to argue with (?) conclusions:  Black Shack (on Lex btw. 37+38th) is meh, Sarge’s (on 3rd btw. 36+37th) is better for deli food, Five Guys (on 3rd btw. 43+44th) does its job but isn’t as good as Blarney Stone (on 3rd btw. 45+46th).  And the winner is… Rare Bar & Grill (on 38th and Lex), even though admittedly it’s a splurge, and Blarney would be their choice for a day to day burger.  Noticeably absent is the burger at P.J. Clarke’s (on 55th and 3rd), but according to AHT (our Mayor of all things hamburger) it’s not that good anymore.

Related:
2009 Readers’ Poll: Best Fast Food Hamburger

Now that Downtown has its very own section of the site, what are we going to post on Fridays at 10am? Answer… how about a new column devoted to those lunches just south of the ML boundaries. Every week we’ll post about a lunch in Murray Hill south, Gramercy, Flatiron, and everything in between… or as we’ll call it from now on: Flatiron Lunch.

After a couple weeks in the ‘Flatiron’ part of the Flatiron Lunch area, I headed back to further my exploration of Curry Hill. One of my biggest challenges when walking down Lex is figuring out which place to pick, so I’ll be a little transparent here so you guys can tell me the right way to pick. Cinnamon over the million other places on this strip: First, it’s new, it opened up just a month or two ago, so I wanted to get the scoop. Second, unlike a lot of the dark, divey old school places with Christmas lights and ornamental chili peppers hanging everywhere, Cinnamon looks sort of, well, normal. Yeah, it’s a weak reason, but it’s true. Finally, there’s the financial reason. The $8.95 buffet seemed like a pretty good deal to me, so I went for it.

I’m not the expert Zach is, but a fat man’s instincts are all one really needs to navigate the all-you-can-eat buffet and I’ve got that. See what’s hot on the steam tables after the jump.

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This just in from Lunch’er Dan:

There is a Tibetan food cart parked outside the Time Life building on 50th St & 6th Ave today. It looks like the Dalai Lama is appearing at radio City Music Hall from today through Sunday so this Potala cart from Queens must surely have decided to set up across the street because of that.

More after the jump…

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Even though my palate is not well educated on Thai cuisine, I’ve so far come to realize that Thai food sort of falls into the same pattern as Chinese food. On one hand, you have more Americanized Thai specialties like pad thai and pad see ew (aka something you’d get at A+ Thai.) Then you’ll get restaurants that’ll do the less known, regional dishes like khao soi (if you’re craving that, Talent Thai is the way to go.) Obviously pad thai can be very authentic and traditional, but in Midtown we would all probably just settle for a fairly decent tasting dish. When I walked by Chai Thai, on 8th ave and 55th, I was intrigued because it was packed. With a $6.95 lunch special, I decided to try that and a couple of other things on the menu.

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I asked last week if any one had ever tried the the fairly nondescript 41st St & 3rd Ave Halal cart, specifically their fish. Since discussing A Salt & Battery and Chip Shop’s fried specialties were deemed more important (this I can understand, both are filled with fried goodness) I took it upon myself to go back yesterday to try out the $6 Fried Fish. What I discovered was the Midtown East equivalent of Kim’s Aunt’s fish sandwiches. Check it out after the jump.

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Sometimes, I get the most random craving for Indian food – chicken tikka masala, specifically – so when I passed Apna Taj (on 55th btw. Lex+3rd) and saw they offer a $9.50 lunch buffet, it immediately sparked my hunt for a Midtown Lunch-worthy Indian lunch. Last year, Zach lunched at next door neighbor Darbar Grill to get in on the make-your-own-dosa action, so Apna Taj already had plenty of competition on the “fancy Indian buffet” front. But check out what you can get for under $10 after the jump… Read more »

A few weeks ago Lunch’er “Chris6Sigma” was kind enough to check out the Korean Noodle Soup cart on 49th btw. 6+7th and report back.  This week he has turned his attention to Arirang in Koreatown, and sent in this report:

Being ‘a chicken’ is a multilateral term, but is usually used in negative connotations. e.g. “The French were a bunch of surrender monkey chickens during WWII” or “What are you McFly… a chicken?” Similarly, ‘tasting like chicken’ is a phrase reserved for bland and unimaginative cuts of protein.

At Arirang (on 32nd btw. B’way+5th) the chicken… tastes like chicken. Americans have gotten so used to battering and deep frying their birds, smothering them with sauces, gravy and a heavy hand of spice, we’ve forgotten what chicken actually tastes like. In the process of commoditization and modernization, the once noble fowl has become so bland that it’s an unspoken requirement that a chicken be heavily seasoned or sauced to make it palatable.

However, the chicken soups at Arirang taste cleanly and boldly of chicken. Sheer poultry flavor, savory, fragrant, familiar, and yet exotic for those who grew up eating skinless boneless chicken breasts deep fried or smothered in mushroom gravy or some other Midwestern concoction.

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Back in March, the ML team ate our way through the entire Grand Central’s Oyster Bar Menu. Well, almost the entire menu…the Oyster Bar offers three soups per day and two of those slots are typically taken by their classic New England and Manhattan Clam Chowders. The third slot is the wild card. We tried their excellent Tuscan White Bean Soup and I’ve had their Lobster Gazpacho, but I’ve never had their famous Maryland She-Crab Soup… until now.
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When the Mini Picanteria: El Guayaquileño truck showed up in midtown I was incredulous. The Guayaquileño trucks mainly stick to the outer borough of Queens with its mother restaurant located at 94-54 Corona Ave, Elmhurst. The term Picanteria is commonly used to describe family-owned eateries that serve inexpensive home-style meals and Guayaquileño is the term for the people of that region of Ecuador. The Guayaquileño truck follows that tradition and now offers midtown something rare and completely lacking in our street food scene: Ecuadorian food from the city of Guayaquil. Ultraclay checked out their tripe soup and I went back this week to test the boundaries of safe eating by trying the ceviche and my favorite: goat stew.

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