Midtown Lunch

It’s a little out of bounds, and you know most of us aren’t really down with the vegetarian stuff (save for Zach’s weird obsession with the now shuttered Zen Burger) but if you are a vegetarian or vegan you’ll be excited to hear that a branch of the international vegan chain Loving Hut opened on 7th Ave. btw. 29+30th a few months ago.  Everything on the menu is under $10, and “all dishes are free of animal ingredients. NO MSG. NO MILK. NO EGGS. All items are 100% vegan.” [via GirlieGirlArmy]

Loving Hut, 348 7th Ave. (btw. 29+30th), 212-760-1900

By now it’s no secret that the Godfather of Midtown is leaving us for the left coast. Like you could somehow find a pocket of deliciousness in L.A. that rivals Midtown Manhattan. As if! The one thing that we should all remember about the Godfather is that he has a penchant for cheap Chinese food. Those crunchy, left coast, salad eaters won’t ever convert him. He’ll always be a fat man at heart. There’s plenty of evidence pointing to Zach’s love of cheap Chinese food, so when an email from Lunch’er “Ethan” recently recommended the General Tso’s chicken from Alpha Fusion I knew it would make the perfect jealousy inducing post for Zach’s first day away from Midtown.

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It’s been 5 months since the Dessert Truck lost their permit, and left the Midtown Lunch scene. But last week they made their triumphant return with DT Works- a brick and mortar shop on the Lower East Side- and Serious Eats and High Low Food Drink have your first look. That’s kind of close to the F train for those of you who miss their bread pudding enough to subway lunch it to the LES.

Remember that new Union Square California style burrito spot you guys went crazy for in the forums a few months ago?  Well, I was treated to a fine lunch there by Ed Levine last week and today he reviewed the place over on Serious Eats: New York. He was a big fan of the quesadillas, and preferred the chicken and steak over the carnitas (which he thought was dry.)  I can’t speak for anything else on the menu, but I actually enjoyed my carnitas burrito more than any other carnitas burrito I’ve ever had in NYC (although I admit that is not saying much.)  They don’t off all the different ingredients properly (beans, meat, pico de gallo) so the integrity of the burrito was severely compromised after a few bites (very disappointing), but I thought the taste was there.  Regardless of its faults, the choice between hopping on the Q train or going to Chipotle is no choice at all.  (And Serious Eats agrees… they did a side by side Chipotle taste test and Dos Toros easily won.)

The old Soul Fixins’ spot on 34th, just west of 9th finally has a replacement. Tawa Tandoor opened at the end of last month, serving kati rolls, chaat, and a steam table full of pre-cooked hot dishes. Prices are pretty standard ($6.99-$8.99 for a combination plate of hot food), and all the stuff I saw looks pretty decent. I know 34th Street and 9th Ave. is technically out of bounds, but I’ve been to know to travel over there when something is really good (hello homemade gyro!) and I know there are a bunch of Midtown Lunch’ers who work in that area that will be pretty excited for this news. (You just might want to skip the vindaloo.) Anybody else eaten in this place yet? Let us know what you think in the comments…

Tawa Tandoor, 371 W. 34th St (btw. 8+9th), 212-502-0082

It would be virtually impossible for me to try every single dish at every single spot in all of Midtown (although I’ve clearly spent the past 3 1/2 years trying).  So that’s why I love getting crazy recommendations… and not just places, but specific dishes as well.  Normally I go for Asian food on the Monday after Thanksgiving (four days of turkey and stuffing makes me crave something sweet and sour) but for some insane reason I decided to get my lunch based on this email from Lunch’er Robert:

I know it is just outside the boundaries and it is just outside the price range… the location is 34th and 2nd and the place is called Rosa’s pizza. Order either chicken or veal parmesan platter with pasta. The servings are absurdly large and the meal tastes delicious – for chicken parm it is only $10.50 and veal is like a $1 more. Trust me when I tell you this is the best deal for chicken/veal parm in the city.

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Midtown Lunch has always prided itself on finding “hidden” gems in our part of the city (after all, you don’t need a blog to tell you where the nearest Cafe Metro is.)  And there are some truly hidden treasures, none more so than the spots that operate out of freight elevator hallways. The most famous one is El Sabroso, the Dominican/Peruvian 6 seater inside the freight hallway on 37th btw. 7+8th.  But there’s also Nick’s Place (on 39th btw. 7+8th), and of course Pick a Pita made a name for themselves in a hallway on 38th btw. 7+8th, before moving out into the open on 8th Avenue.

There’s something fun, and slightly subversive, about eating in a hallway beneath a building, dodging giant dollies full of lord knows what, as you navigate the bustling hallway to get to your lunch.  So, when I read in the ML forums that there was another one of these places on 37th btw. 8+9th, I wasted no time.

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My love of Chinese buffets is pretty well documented, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a non-Asian buffet from time to time. In fact, you could say my buffet chops were sharpened over many trips to the now closed Sizzler on 104th Street and Dixie Highway in Miami (circa 1988). It’s my earliest memory of crafting a strategy for attacking a buffet, and also the genesis of my buffet onion ring obsession (aka I always eat at least one onion ring from every buffet, even if it’s Asian.)

So on Tuesday, when I stumbled across Greenhouse 36 (in the Wyndham Times Square Hotel on 36th btw. 8+9th), I was naturally intrigued. Situated in a hotel, Greenhouse 36 seems like any other crappy-hotel-lunch-spot-in-a-garden, except for one thing. From now through the end of the year (it expires on December 29th, 2009), they’re offering a lunch buffet for $9.50.

How could I not?

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It’s been a duck kind of a week. Yesterday I wrote about the Thursday duck pancake special at Yushi… and then subconsciously (or consciously) I felt a sudden urge to try the duck soup from Aura Thai. I’ve seen the soups at Aura mentioned a bunch of times on Midtown Lunch (most notably by Lunch’er “Nantini”) but the place is out of bounds (9th Ave. btw. 35+36th) and there are plenty of good soups in Midtown. We don’t need to be hiking out to 9th Ave. just for soup.

Now that I’ve tried the soup, though, I think hiking out to 9th Ave. is exactly what we all need to be doing (especially now that’s it starting to get colder.)

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