Midtown Lunch

Free Sample of “Gateway Haggis” from the Scotland Week Cart in Midtown (51st & B’way)

• After being spotted by our “At Lunch Now” Photo, Lauren Kreuger gives us an early look at the food from City Burger [AHT]
• Fig & Olive is coming to Midtown, and will feature “‘takeaway’ and prepared items… including freshly baked olive oil bread… warm paninis… as well as FIG & OLIVE’s signature salads” [Citysearch Blog]
• Eater introduces a new columnist and her first takedown is buffets! It’s just not right… [Eater]
• Michael Psilakis, from the much praised Midtown Greek restaurant Anthos, has just been named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2008 [Eater]
• Stay away from Franchia on Park Ave. [NYCNosh]
• Chef Yu is a solid alternative to Szechuan Gourmet [Food in Mouth]

A little confusion as to the placement of the free haggis cart. As of 11:30am it’s at 51st and Broadway but it may or may not move to 52nd…  also- it’s not haggis hot dogs, it’s small portions of haggis wrapped in puff pastry, which is sort of a cop out if you ask me.  You wrap anything in puff pastry and it’s going to be freaking good.  I want my sheep’s stomach!  This is more of a gateway haggis… so if you are scared but intrigued, this might be your best chance of enjoying it.

Birthday lunch for me is all about reckless abandon. So what better place to go crazy then the By the lb. Buffet. A perfect blend of variety and gluttony, the only downside being the concern that builds as you move your way down the buffet, stacking your tray. What will the outcome be? How much will I owe? Last year, I hit up Cafe Duke (with my favorite fake shrimp), this year it was Sun Yip (formerly Ho Yip) on 45th btw. 5+6th.An all chinese food by the lb. Buffet, Sun Yip is $5.19 per pound, unless you go after 2:15, when the price drops to a special $3.99/lb. But today isn’t about savings, it’s about reckless abandon. So we headed over at a very early 12:45, and I began to load up without any regard to how much it was going to cost.Here’s the damage… Pork fried rice, flat rice noodles, 3 kinds of fried and sticky chicken (the general, sesame, and something else), salt and pepper chicken, roast prok, two kinds dumpling (two steamed, two fried), string beans (gotta do one vegetable) and fried plantans (I don’t know why they’re there, but I had to take them, right?)

Total cost… an embarassingly cheap $7.49! Amazing. I’m pretty sure I was over $13 at Cafe Duke last year. With “reckless abandon” costing a mere $7.50 this may be the greatest midtown lunch of all time.

I just wanted to quickly post and apologize for all the downtime on the site the past few days.  I think my hosting service is in full meltdown mode, and it has pretty much caused Midtown Lunch to be down or super slow for most of the past two days.  Luckily we were up long enough to get over 40 recommendations for my lunch with Ralph Brennan– which, God willing you will get to read about at some point on Wednesday.

I’ve never used this blog to vent against anybody who has personally wronged me (not counting Yolato of course), but if this keeps up, I might be forced into revealing the horrible hosting company I am currently dealing with.  (If you use them, then you know who I’m talking about, because chances are your website/email/ftp is not working either.)  Hopefully it won’t come to that.  In the meantime, I will continue to sob uncontrollably to myself, and hopefully the issue will be resolved soon…

Had an errand to run at Macy’s, so where better to eat lunch than on
32nd btw. Bway & 5th. With lines out the door at Mandoo Bar and Pho 32,
we fell back on goo old standby Woorijip, which never disappoints.
People complain that prices have gone up, but all that food for $16 is
still a relative bargain…

Some ideas just refuse to die. The Bulgogi Sandwich has returned to the cart on 49th btw. 5+6th, this time on a Croissant?!?

• This is what happens when you drink a ton for St. Paddy’s Day, and end up in Herald Square [Salty/Savory/Sweet]
• “Superman” disses Tehuitzingo, praises Pampano Taqueria and gets in argument a valid discussion with regular Midtown Lunch commenter DDR (in the comments) [NYC Food Guy]
• San Domenico Will Be Moving From Central Park South to Midtown [Eater]
• Buttercup Bakeshop was giving away free cupcakes on Monday, after the crane accident on the East Side [Umamimart]
• Top Chef contestant Manuel is out at Dos Caminos in Midtown East [Eater]

Cheap steam table chinese food is what I normally treat myself to when
I’m having a tough day at work, but today felt more like a street meat
kind of day. Currently consoling myself with a platter of chicken and
lamb over rice from the cart on the SE corner of 53rd & 6th. For $5 is
there a more soothingly masochistic lunch in all of midtown?

An interesting article was printed in the New York Times yesterday discussing the trend of proudly fat food writers and bloggers, some of whom have come to realize that their lifestyle is becoming dangerous to their health.  On one side, there are the “adults”, trying to balance their profession with unbridled love of food- heroes and good friends of Midtown Lunch like Ed Levine from Serious Eats, and Jason Perlow from Off the Broiler.  On the other side, you had your unrepentant fat guys like Josh “Cutlets” Ozersky from Grub St. & Seven Shaw from eGullet, unwilling to sacrifice one bit of their daily intake of burgers and pork fat.

As you can imagine, this article hit pretty close to home.  Can you guess which side of the argument I fall on?  The piece probably should have been a wake up call for me, a realization that there are others in the same predicament, who are working to balance being healthy with their love of chicharrones, for example.  Instead, I found myself thinking, “Why aren’t I in the fat pack?”  Like Ralph Wiggum wanting to attend “Bovine University” after watching the Beef Council video, I was left to wonder why nobody called me for this article.  I mean, what am I doing here people???  If eating disgusting lunches in Midtown can’t get you mentioned in an article about fat people who write blogs, I must be doing something wrong.  Am I not fat enough?  Do I need to start eating more?  Because, I can…

I admit that I’m not a tall man, and nobody would accuse me of having a “ex-football player” body (it’s more like an “ex-debate team member who ate too many doughnuts sold by the football players to pay for their jerseys” kind of body).  But I humbly ask that you allow me to join your club anyway.  I promise, I can do better.

It’s always nice to learn that you’ve inspired others to harm their body with food.  Apparently my piece on Serious Eats about DJ Grocery’s General Tso’s Philly Cheesesteak, inspired the DJ to set up his own food blog.  And while I can’t take credit for his eating (he clearly was doing this long before I wrote about him), I’m glad I inspired him to share his ridiculous creations with the world.

The site already boasts a plethora of amazing creations, like the kool aid pickle (“these bitches sat in the modified brine for over 4 weeks”), bacon ice cream, jalapeno/bacon infused vodka, pulled pork pancakes, a “meat house”, and beer battered deep fried white castle burgers. 

His latest post could be a Midtown Lunch, involving 1 big mac, and 3 chicken sandwiches.  DJ Grocery’s Big MacChicken, after the jump… Read more »

At the beginning of December I reported that the “chef” of the Chapati Roll Cart on 46th & 6th Ave was on vacation until the end of January, but the cart was still there serving its regular menu. As of last week, he hadn’t returned and even worse- now the cart is gone entirely.It is 47 degrees below zero today, so one can understand if he took the day off, but I even had reports that the cart had gone missing at the end of last week. Anybody have any info? If he’s still missing tomorrow, we may have a serious problem. Don’t know if 46th street can take losing Kati Roll and the Chapati Roll cart in one year…

UPDATE (2/12):  According to a commenter the Biriyani Cart is back today.  Thank god!  Now if only we could get those new menu items we were promised by the sign back in December…