Midtown Lunch

Photo courtesy of Ultraclay dot com

Back in September my quest to find the best chicken parm in Midtown took me to Mondello (on 37th btw. Mad+5th).  It was “satisfying, but nothing to write home about.”  And yet, it appears as if I missed something crucial that would increase the awesomeness of their chicken parm tenfold.

From the blog Ultraclay:

Where other places may dump pizza sauce on top, they offer a choice of regular and a meat sauce. Both have a salty, sweet flavor, but the meat sauce has a richness that adds another dimension to the sandwich.

Shut up! Meat sauce on a chicken parm!?! That… is… awesome. I don’t remember them giving me a choice, because if they had I would have obviously gone with the meat sauce.  Clearly it’s time to revisit this one.

Mondello Pizzeria & Restaurant, 3 East 37th (btw. Mad+5th), 212-684-2411

There will probably never be consensus on the best chicken parm sub in Midtown, but the search will continue on. I had a enjoyable one at Tuscany Catering (on 55th btw. 5+6th), but was surprisingly disappointed by Little Italy Pizza (on 46th btw. 5+6th) and Park Italian across the street. The best I’ve had so far is probably at Labeleca on 40th btw. 7+8th (and their sister location La Bellezza on 49th btw. Lex+3rd.) In order to keep up with lunchtime demand, none of these places fries their chicken cutlets to order- and while they’re all fine, none will end the search.

So on Friday after I walked by the still plywooded Washoku Cafe (the new Cafe Zaiya’ish Japanese place that is opening soon on 37th btw. Mad+5th), I decided against my better judgement to check out Mondello’s, a standard take out pizza and subs place right next door. I say “against my better judgement” because I pride myself on my strange sense for good Midtown Lunch’ish food. There is a vibe a place gives off that lets you know it’s going to be good, and this place didn’t have it.  But there were alot of people in there, and sometimes you just feel like a chicken parm.   Read more »