Midtown Lunch

One of the easiest parts of acclimating to central Midtown after seven years in Midtown south has been the getting used to the variety of cart food. No less than half a dozen mobile food vendors surround my new office building. One of the most noticeable has been Kims Aunt Kitchen, which manages to waft a garlic-scented breeze past me as I walk down 46th Street every morning.

It’s been years since we’ve given the cart some proper attention so, I decided it’s about time to follow up on the fried delights that this cart had to offer.

Read more »

Got word of two street vendor price hikes going down on 6th Ave.  First up is Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart on 46th and 6th.  Lunch’er Susan sends word that they raised their prices last week.  “The fish sandwich is now $4.”  Still pretty cheap by anybody’s standards, we can’t help but wonder if the oil spill had anything to do with this (although we’re guessing it doesn’t.) Also jumping on the price hike bandwagon is Kwik Meal, the already-kind-of-pricey cart on 45th and 6th.  According to this post in the forums, a sign went up last week saying that starting today they’d be raising their prices on chicken, lamb, shrimp, and fish due to “rising costs”.  Not sure what the actual increase will be, but I guess we’ll find out today.  Hopefully these are just two isolated incidents, and not the beginning of some big trend (like the giant price hike wave of 2008.)

Have you ever been kind of jealous of the winners of Zach’s various cart tours?  Even though I work in midtown and can hit the great midtown carts anytime I want, there’s something to be said about the fun of taking on a bunch of them at once.  To really do it right you need strength in numbers, so when I learned that a couple of my friends from Seattle, would be in town and free for lunch during the week, I started plotting potential food adventures.  Both of them regularly read Blondie & Brownie and they were jealous of the midtown cart/food truck scene.  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that we should try to hit as many carts for as many different types of foods as possible and with that in mind, may a present Brownie’s Cart Canyon Tour: 10 carts/10 cuisines/$10 a person…

Read more »

Today is the first Friday of Lent, which for many practicing Catholics means no meats. Now there’s plenty of other great midtown meatless options, but for me there’s something about Lent that goes hand and hand with cheap fried fish sandwiches.

Read more »

At this point everybody should know that Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart (on 46th btw. 5+6th) makes the best (and cheapest) fried fish sandwich in Midtown.  And I’ve even tried their bulgogi beef and lo mein.  But did you know that their fried shrimp are pretty spectacular as well?  As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of the fried shrimp from a cart.  Little Morrocco (on 39th & 7th) does a nice job, as does the Halal & Seafood Cart (on 39th & 5th), and the 100% Halal Food Cart (on 54th and Park).  But those little jobbies pale in comparison to the monsters being served of the Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart.

Check ‘em out after the jump…

Read more »

With only two Fridays left in lent, Blondie and Brownie went on a mission to uncover the best fried fish sandwich in Midtown. In what some would view as an upset, Wendy’s beat out McDonald’s and Burger King- but the overall winner was the fried fish sandwich at Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart (on 46th btw. 5+6th).  Ladies, I won’t begrudge you an excuse to go out an eat four fried fish sandwiches in one lunch… but was the outcome ever in doubt?

Related:
Lent PSA: My Favorite Fried Fish Sandwich in Midtown

Midtown Lunch Flickr friend The Flooz has been tracking the fried fish sandwich at the Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart on 46th btw. 5+6th for over a year now. The first photo was taken back in November of 2007, and TF had this to say:

I finally got a chance to visit Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart on 46th btw. 5+6th (right next to Moishe’s) and i have to say- i’m so glad i did! I ordered the fried flounder on a hero. Yeah everyone else in front of me was getting lettuce and tomato on white bread, but why bother? Slap on some tartar and hot sauce and we’re good to go. Also because of the quantity of fish (so much!) I went for the toasted hero so as to enjoy every last morsel. Wow- $4.50 never tasted so good!!!

But then, things went wrong back in September…

Read more »

A friendly little Public Service Announcement for all our practicing Catholics.  If you are looking for a cheap and quick meatless lunch that doesn’t involve a filet o’ fish sandwich from McDonald’s, check out my personal favorite fried fish sandwich in Midtown at Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart on 45th St. just East of 6th Ave.  If you’re not into that, there are plenty of recommendations from my lent post from last year… all of the places listed still apply (except for Ressie May’s which has closed.)  I won’t be crazy enough to recommend Zen Burger (for fear of drawing the anger of all the commenters),  but their whole menu would be lent friendly as well…

Got your own suggestion?  Post it as a comment below…

Related: Friday Guide to Midtown Lent

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I don’t know who Kim is, or his Aunt, but they have a pretty awesome cart.  I first wrote about this place months ago, when the Bulgogi Cart first appeared on 49th St.  Brand new, and so full of promise, I was excited for Bulgogi Sandwich, and cheap Korean food from a cart.  And then, it disappeared.  Frantic, I found myself wandering the streets in search of something… and by coincidence, Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart had just hung a handmade sign, touting their very own bulgogi.

I tried it, and remembered thinking it was good, but not as good as it could be.  It turned out to be better than the actual Bulgogi Cart on 49th, but not as good as the version Cafe Duke serves on 51st.  Even so, it was from a cart- and Kim’s Aunt Kitchen earned a place on my list of return lunches.  They had a pretty extensive menu of fried seafood, and random Chinese dishes like Lo Mein, but the draw for me was definitely the Bulgogi.

Flash forward a few months, and the cart gets picked by NY Mag as one of the best carts in NYC… for their Fried Fish Sandwich.  Fried Fish Sandwich you say?  Methinks it’s time to revisit Kim’s Aunt.  So back I went for the $3.50 fried whiting sandwich… or what I now come to think of as “The Best Bargain in Midtown”.

Fishy sandwich porn and a +/- after the jump… Read more »