Midtown Lunch

Keeping in mind that I hate hyberbole… TODAY IS THE GREATEST DAY IN MIDTOWN LUNCH’ING HISTORY. If you missed the news this morning, Ma Peche (aka Momofuku Midtown) is now serving a limited Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner menu in the Mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel (on 56th btw. 5+6th.) That’s right. Momofuku has finally arrived in Midtown.

I’ll be completely honest, when Momofuku announced they’d be opening a quasi-Vietnamese Midtown restaurant helmed by Chef Tien Ho, I was ready to blow up the Midtown Lunch $10 price limit. Fuck it. I love Momofuku, and I ain’t missing out on the Midtown restaurant opening of the century just because normally, for lunch, I’m a cheap bastard. The actual restaurant will most likely take another few months to build and open, but Tien, Cory and the gang were getting antsy to start making some food. So… enter the limited menu, served in the mezzanine of the hotel. All of the dishes on the Lunch/Dinner menu look amazing (hello pork & porcini terrine!), and they’re all over $10. But I was ready to splurge.

And then… the skies parted, and the sun shown down (even on this rainy day), and the MomoGods delivered a miracle that rivals turning water into wine… MomoMidtown (aka Ma Peche) has a $10 “Midtown Lunch” specials menu.

It’s only eat in for now (no takeout), so I headed over just before the lunch rush to order the entire menu.  Check out the four dishes after the jump…

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Holy smokes Batman!  Ma Peche (aka Momofuku Midtown) has quietly started serving food in the mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel this week (on 56th btw. 5+6th).  And… wait for it… wait for it… there’s a freakin’ “Midtown Lunch Special”.  I am not shitting you.  A Momofuku restaurant, situated in the Chambers Hotel, in the most expensive, touristy, part of New York City, is offering a lunch special for the Midtown Lunch friendly price of $10.

If you can still move your trembling hands, the menu is after jump. (Spoiler Alert: The Momofuku Banh Mi is back!)

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According to a copy obtained by Eater, the November issue of Vogue refers to the yet to open Midtown branch of Momofuku (on 56th btw. 5+6th) as “Ma Pêche”. Think you can do better? Eater is giving away 50 signed copies of the new Momofuku Cookbook, and one of the ways to enter is to suggest your own name for the new restaurant.

I know it’s complete futile, but I still hold out some bit of hope that the new yet-to-be-named Momofuku, opening soon in Midtown, will have *something* for Midtown Lunchers.  That’s to say, anything under $10 that could be considered a “lunch”.  I know it’s silly, especially considering that not even Ssam Bar and Noodle Bar have something in that category- and those places are in the East Village! (I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Midtown rents are a bit more expensive.)

New York Magazine talks to Tien Ho (the chef who will be running the Midtown Momofuku) and gets some more details. Regarding lunch, they’re going to “try and do a prix fixe, there might be pork buns, and there will definitely not be “asian burritos.”  As for the possibility of opening a Milk Bar and Bakery at street level, as reported by the New York Times earlier in the month, he didn’t say one way or the other.

Related:
MomoMidtown… or would it be MidtownFuku?

It looks like the day I have long been praying for has finally arrived!  It’s not a pork bun cart, or a Korean burrito bar- but it will have to do… The rumors are swirling that East Village based Momofuku will be branching out into Midtown in the next six weeks- opening a large (probably upscale) restaurant “in the old Town space in the Chambers Hotel on West 56th Street.” No word on lunch menu, or prices, but if this ends up being true (and Eater has it on good authority that it is) you’re about to see me break my Midtown Lunch $10 price cap.  (Sorry, but it has to be done.)

Related:
The Perfect Space For the Next Momofuku is in Midtown

UPDATE: New York Times’ Diner’s Journal confirms the news, and David Chang is quoted as saying they are kicking around the idea of “installing a milk bar in the front of the street-level entrance.”  Yes please.

Eater reports that David Chang (king of the Momofuku empire) will be getting into a food cart for one day, as part of some contest sponsored by NYCNewYork.com.  It doesn’t look like it will be open to the public… you have to answer a bunch of questions to win a “golden ticket” that entitles you to lunch from the cart.  The contest website is closed right now, but will reopen this morning at 11a.m. EST.  They haven’t announced where the cart will be parked yet, but all I have to say is this shit better be happening in Midtown.

Related:
The Perfect Space For the Next Momofuku is in Midtown