Midtown Lunch

Without sponsors this site would not exist… actually, who am I kidding. Of course it would. Everyone knows Midtown Lunch is just an excuse for me to stuff my fat face. That being said, it is nice to have help paying for my weekly lunch bill.

This month that funding was generously provided by the Artisanal Cheese Center on 37th Street and 10th Avenue, which hosts Wine & Cheese tastings almost every night, and ships gourmet restaurant quality cheese (and paired wines) to your door. Plus for a limited time only they’re offering Midtown Lunchers 15% off their entire schedule of classes or any cheese purchase from their website. Just enter the Promo Code “MDTOWN” in your basket before checking out. Great for yourself, or as a gift for Dad (hint hint).

New York Times writer John T. Edge hit up the Waffles and Dinges Truck the other day and was incredibly excited about the kool aid pickle that came with his pulled pork topped waffle lunch special. A few years back he wrote a piece for the Times that is required reading for anybody interested in the bright red kool aid flavored delicacy!

Is this even worth posting? I don’t know… They’re free, but they’re supposedly "healthy". But they’re free. And chips are expensive. Get them for another few hours today on 47th btw. 6+7th, and tomorrow (Thurs.) in Bryant Park.

I can’t believe it has been almost 3 years since the first post went up on Midtown Lunch. The first lunch I wrote about was on June 7th, 2006, and Hing Won was the place. I’d like to say I started the site to help my fellow office workers find good lunch in this food wasteland we call Midtown… but truth be told, I only started Midtown Lunch because I wanted to have an excuse to eat gross, fattening food for lunch (and take pictures of that food.)  Now, three years later, what started as a fat man’s idea of the perfect hobby has grown into an amazing community of New York City office workers, sharing in the common misery we call lunchtime.

Without your tips, emails, suggestions, and comments the site would not be what it is today. So, with that in mind, I’m pretty excited to announce the launch of the Midtown Lunch Forums. Ideally this will be a place to make communicating with your fellow lunchers easier; an open place for you guys to ask questions and share recommendations, not just about eating lunch in Midtown, but also lunching outside of Midtown. There’s also a section for connections (if you want to find people to have lunch with) and a miscellaneous area for anything else you guys may want to talk about.  The only downside of the forums is that you will now have to register to comment.  It only takes 15 seconds, and all we need is your email address (which won’t be used for anything other than to verify that a real person is signing up for the account.) This measure is being done for two simple reasons: To ensure that the forum is kept spam free, and to guard against people posting under other people’s names.

You’ll also notice that the site has a completely new design.  Part of that new design is a brand new map, which is not only more accurate, and comprehensive than before, but also allows you greater control over the type of lunch you are looking for near the spot where you are going to be.  There’s also a new page that allows you to look for lunch alphabetically by restaurant name, and another page that allows you to search an alphabetical list of restaurants by food type.

As with any new site, there are bound to be bugs- so if you find any don’t hesitate to let me know in the forums, or by emailing me at zach@midtownlunch.com

Thanks for all your support-  and don’t hesitate to let me know what you think!  (You guys always do…)

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” will post about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

My intrepid search for Midtown’s best free-buffet happy hour lead me this week to “Broadway” Langan’s Pub & Restaurant. Langan’s free appetizers are not widely publicized, perhaps because they don’t want us freeloaders making a dinner of it? The claim is they have a free buffet for patrons drinking at the bar, but after that whole Channel 4 happy hour failure, I felt a bit of trepidation. Would they pull the bait and switch? I called and they assured me of the happy hour so I rounded up the troops and set forth to feast on free food and good drinks.

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Got this question from Lee, the guy behind NachosNY, a blog dedicated to finding… well… the best nachos in New York. Right now the only Midtown entry on his site is Tequilaville (on Vanderbilt btw. 42+43rd), but it would appear as if he’s looking for more.  “I’ve been scouring your Mexican food posts for great places to get nachos and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for me? We’re trying to really hit a lot more places in the next month. Let me know if you have any suggestions.”

I know Mamacita (our Happy Hour Correspondent) has tried the nachos at The Australian, and Lunch’er Liz loves the “BBQ Nachos” from Virgil’s… but beyond that, I’m not sure.  Anybody got a recommendation?  Put it in the comments.

And to think I was actually considering eating at Energy Kitchen
today. With only 30 mins left in the promotion the line at the 47th
street location is too long for me… Plus they have people jumping
rope for extra free goodies. Aside from the free food aspect, I am
morally against this on many different levels.

The Garrett’s Popcorn location on the SW corner of 46th and 5th, which hosted Top Chef Richard Blais and his frozen popcornsicles back in July, is now closed. I guess when the economy goes bad, people don’t spend as much money on fancy pants Chicago popcorn.  I never actually bought any popcorn, but partook in free samples whenever they were offered.  Oh… maybe that was the problem.  According to their website, the location on 34th btw. 7+8th is still open.

Agreed. Twittering or blogging your breakfast is totally retarded. Now, lunch on the other hand. That is completely acceptable.

The Serious Eats: New York crew attacked the $5 for 5 items lunch special at the Lunch Box Buffet (on 34th btw. 7+8th), awarding the Midtown branch of the cheap Chinese steam table chain a “B”. Ed Levine got two plates (10 items) and decided that three items were worth “at least double or triple the dollar they cost.”  Barbecued spareribs, chicken with oyster sauce, and the curried fried chicken drumsticks.

Related:
Fay Da Bakery Elevates the Lunch Box Buffet