Midtown Lunch

The Fried Chicken Grilled Cheese from Melt Shop (on Lex btw. 53+54th)

Eater compiled a list of New York’s Biggest, Baddest Gut Bomb Dishes and 5 out of the 15 are in Midtown. Taking home top honors were dishes from Melt Shop, The Counter, Lavo, Bierhaus, and a sick sounding meatloaf from the Stadium Grill at Bowlmor Lanes. Not all are in the ML price range, but sometimes you’ve got to pay extra to get gross.

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so 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.

Father’s Day is a time to give righteous props to the guy that got lucky with your mom and how better to celebrate your dad then in the way it probably all started -over a drink. Now we all have our family traditions; some like a serene family dinner, some a picnic with the relatives and uncles, others, well others might like to take pops’ away from it all and remind him of his bygone youth. Yes, friends, I’ll start off these father’s day suggestions with this year’s winner: Rick’s Cabaret, just tell mum you went to the MET.

Rick’s Cabaret has 2 for 1 Sunday’s: Bottles and appetizers are buy one get one free (4pm-4am) and admission is gratis till 7pm. Of course, if that’s too rich for your blood or your dad has a bad heart maybe Hooters is a better choice?

Looking for something that won’t get you disowned? Check out some other local picks and some great old man bars after the jump…

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Last week’s lunch time wanderings brought me to 56th street (btw. 5+6th) where I noticed that in addition to the Frogurt, generic deli Printon 56 has a full case of chilled English candies–we’re talking Mars Bars, Flake, Maltesers, Aero Bars, Lion Bars and more. The bars are $1.95 each plus tax (pricey for a candy bar, but not so bad considering that a regular candy bar goes for around a dollar these days at drugstores).  Candy loving anglophiles, rejoice!

We’re coming down the home stretch!  Only 4 more days until the Midtown Lunch 5th Birthday Party to benefit the Street Vendor Project.   If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, please make today the day.  Not only are you supporting a great cause, but you’re also going to get to hang out with the entire Midtown Lunch crew, enjoying great food from 4 Vendy Award winners, NYC’s very first pizza cart, Cer Te, Tri Tip Grill, Food Gallery 32, Momofuku Milk Bar, the Rolling Cones and more.  (Did we mention Momofuku’s Ma Peche is making a special banh mi just for the party?!) Plus all you can drink from Brooklyn Brewery and GuS’s.  And prizes!  Did we mention the prizes?  Everybody who buys a ticket to the party is automatically entered to win a ton of prizes- including gift certificates to all sorts of amazing Midtown restaurants.  Just today we gave away a $100 gift certificate to Bon Chon to Allison R. just for buying her ticket early.  And we’re not done…

Everybody who has bought their ticket to the party before Friday at 6pm EST will be entered to win a Sweetery NYC “Sweet Stop” for you and up to 100 of your co-workers!  Be the hero of your office when the truck pulls up with free sweets for everybody.  (Some restrictions apply.)   And all you have to do to be eligible is buy a ticket to our party.  Seriously, what are you waiting for?  You don’t even have to come if you don’t want.  Buy a ticket, support the cause, and win prizes.  Do it.  Do it.

If our favorite Mexican dishes were not enough for you, there are always happy hour specials tonight to fill the void. Almost every bar will have some drink specials but here are two that caught my eye.

Wharf Bar will have a large list of Mexican food and drink specials all night, but I’d head straight for their fish tacos. As close to Baja on a budget as you can get in Manhattan, their battered and fried fish fillets wrapped in a steamy corn tortilla and topped with cheese, pico de gallo, and tomatillo salsa really hit the spot during happy hour.Want to avoid the drunken crowds today? Just visit on any Wednesday for $1 chicken, beef or fish tacos from 4pm-2am with $3 shot specials.

Over on the Westside, Blue Ruin will have $2 tequila shots, plus free chips & salsa. Owner Michelle promises not to slap anyone who asks for a margarita during happy hour. Ain’t she sweet.  ¡Salud!

From storefront to food truck and back again, it looks like Rickshaw Dumpling’s business is strong enough in Midtown to do this… Lunch’er Epcol spotted this on Lexington and 45th. No word on when it will open or what this means for their Midtown truck schedule.

In my humble opinion, one of the best parts of Schnitzel & Things’ new storefront, aside from the obvious copious amounts of schnitzel, was that you could also get Treats Truck treats for dessert. Well, tomorrow they’re bringing in a new dessert, Midtown’s Best, Robicelli’s cupcakes! Schnitzel & Things will be getting all the flavors, a definite plus for Midtown East. But that’s not all the cupcake news going around, there’s finally a pulse again with Cupcake Stop.

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If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so 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.

Our existence is fraught with great but nigh unanswerable questions. “What is the meaning of life?’ “Is there a God?” “Will Jennifer Aniston ever make a watchable movie?” And here at Midtown Lunch the question is: “Why the F*%@k do you need three Yum Yum storefronts in a row?” I mean, this ain’t no hot asian threesome. We’re talking basically some generic Thai food with a decent happy hour. Well, I was forced to delve deeper into this quandary when a coworker choose this place for an after work bite.

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• There’s a Pio Pio on 10th Ave, and they have an $8 lunch special [Eating]
• If you hate your co-workers, eat the brussel sprout sub at No.7 Sub [Eating]
• Au Bon Pain sucks more than it used to [Eating]
• The Cucina on 56th btw. 5+6th has closed [Eating]
• Anybody need tickets to Choice Eats tonight? [MISC]

Just in case the name “Mamacita” didn’t tip you off, I’m not Irish. My knowledge of St. Patrick boils down to two things. First, he rid Ireland of snakes. That’s right he had enough of those mutherf**in’ snakes on his mutherf**in’ island. So, he went all Samuel L. Jackson on a geographic scale! That’s pretty badass. Second, It’s a time for the millions of Irish expats and their descendants to celebrate their heritage and remember the motherland –preferably by getting stinking drunk. The Irish loom large in the history of this fine city so consider it your civic duty to raise a glass or five to the Emerald Isle.

This here concludes your history lesson now on to the boozing.

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