Midtown Lunch

After visits to the Bay Area last year, Zach came back first with five and then another three lunches that Midtown really needs to have. I was out there for most of last week and found even more delicious lunch goodness that I would love to see Midtown borrow from the left coast.

First thing we need is an amazing food court like they have at the Westfield Mall, San Francisco Centre. With more than 20 eateries in ML range, there’s Chinese, pasta, Korean Barbecue, Tri-tips, fish shacks and more to wade through. It’s enough to explore for weeks. See what I had and some of the other points on my wishlist after the jump.

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I was in San Francisco this past weekend, and discovered three more things that Midtown really needs to add to our lunching repertoire (to go along with the five Bay Area lunches I posted about back in March.)

We’ll start with the thing I was most excited to discover: a freakin porchetta/rotisserie chicken truck!  Holy mackerel.  Parked at a Street Food Fair thrown by Foodbuzz (as part of their First Annual Blogger Festival),  the Roli Roti Truck has been around in San Francisco for almost ten years, serving up rotisserie chickens and porchetta sandwiches made from sustainably farmed meats that are roasted on spits right on the side of the truck.  This thing was a pure feat of engineering genius, and we need one in Midtown… like… yesterday.  It can fit a couple of hundred rotisserie chickens, but the real star (for me) was their porchetta, which gets sliced hot and sold in sandwiches (crispy skin and all!).

Check one of these bad boys out, after the jump…

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Double Double w/ Cheese (and grilled onions)

I was in the Bay Area over the weekend, and was able to partake in five things that Midtown Lunch desperately needs! #1 is the most obvious… and has been mentioned a million times before: In N Out Burger!  Because everything is sourced fresh from the west coast, it’s unlikely that this will happen anytime soon- but there is no reason we shouldn’t be able to get the other four things!

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It’s time for another installment of everybody’s favorite game: “Make Midtown Lunch’ers Jealous!”.   Last time it was Yvo, taunting us with fried chicken from a truck in Downtown NYC.  Today, we travel all the way to the west coast, where it’s Nicole’s turn.  She’s a 23 year old Investment Management Associate who loves everything Asian, and is about to make us all very envious.

If there is one thing we are totally, 100% missing in Midtown, it’s some cheap Vietnamese food ($7 banh mi doesn‘t count).  A write up on that alone would be enough to make me jealous.  Tell me about some cheap Vietnamese food that is part of a *food court* in the Financial District of San Francisco, and you’ve got me looking for a new job in the Bay Area.

Downtown San Francisco is not much different than NYC when it comes to lunch.  Most people work the typical 9 to 5, so lunch options abound.  But just like in NYC, people seem all too content to settle for places that offer your run of the mill deli salads, sandwiches and soups.  I have one coworker whose favorite salad place costs her $10-12 everyday.  That is not the spirit of Midtown Lunch.  I read the site everyday and it has encouraged me to seek out the hidden lunch gems near my office. 

My all time favorite San Francisco lunch discovery is without a doubt “The International Food Center” or as I like to call it, “The Underground Food Ghetto”.  It’s pretty unassuming, with a slightly dirty looking green banner calling you downstairs from the sidewalk into an underground ethnic food heaven.  There is Japanese food/sushi, Burmese food, Filipino food, Mexican food, and the most popular: Pho Express, a place serving up French Vietnamese food.  It’s not the cleanest place, so it’s only for the lunch adventurous.  

Dirty Asian Food Court Porn, after the jump… Read more »