Midtown Lunch

Who thought it would be a good idea to add Vietnamese food to a Thai restaurant that already serves sushi.  Seriously?  As much as I like pho (and bubble tea), I don’t think that this is going to be the thing to take New York Thai Grill and Sushi (on 54th btw. 5+6th) over the top. Has anybody discovered a dish they do well?  I can’t imagine there is anything that could get me to try a place that does Thai, sushi, and Vietnamese soups.  What’s that you say?  They offer a $23 all you can eat thai food and sushi dinner… uh, well I suppose I could be persuaded to check it out for dinner.  You know… for research purposes. Anybody been?

New York Thai Grill and Sushi, 37 W 54th St (btw 5+6th Ave), 212-581-8808

Related:
Asian Station Might Be the First Multi Ethnic Restaurant to Ever Be Good

I don’t know why I decided to eat at China Moon the other day. This Thai/Chinese combo (on 47th btw. Mad+5th) has been around forever, and while I’ve been tempted to try it on a number of occasions I’ve never quite pulled the trigger.  Anytime a restaurant serves up more than one kind of Asian cuisine it’s always a big red flag, but Asian Station turned out to be pretty good, and China Moon just went through some renovations, so I was feeling kind of lucky.

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Got this email from Lunch’er Nicholas last week:

A while back you made a very brief mention of just a out of bounds “Picnic on 57th” (57th just east of Lexington). Well it opened on Monday and I tried it out today. The place looked like a generic Deli walking in but i was hungry and running out of time on my lunch hour so i settled on their “Boneless Wild Berry BBQ Rib Hero” (that’s how it was written on their chalk board…no description otherwise….yes it was a gamble). Well… imagine my face as the sandwich guy (who had clearly never made the sandwich before) began assembling the baguette with (mostly) boneless BBQ riblets (shortrib i think), then roasted corn, grilled onions and finally french fries. He even had to incredulously ask the other sandwich guy if it really meant french fries! It was $8.50 before tax. I’ve attached a cell-phone photo for you…

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Our Downtown Lunchers have been eagerly searching for a Rosario’s replacement ever since the popular Italian deli closed last year.  But when Lunch’er “Goats” suggested in the comments that there was a Rosario’s-like option in Midtown, I had to check it out.

“My heart still cries when I think of Rosarios and how it was taken so quickly from me (after only 3 visits)…That was the first establishment I found via Midtown Lunch (and It was a downtown establishment!) .I was there the last day and was as close to tears as I get when a beloved food establishment shuts its doors. I have found 2 replacements in the last year as well, Milano Deli on 34th between Madison and 5th (HUGE Italian sandwiches for 7.75:get the Milano special and you will almost think you are back at rosarios) and Defontes of Brooklyn on 21st and 3rd.”

Defonte’s is well know, but sadly too far out of bounds for me… so I excitedly headed over to Milano last week to check the place out.

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Got an email from Blockheads Burritos the other day, which has one location in the Midtown Lunch boundaries (3rd Ave. btw. 33+34th) and two locations just outside of the ML boundaries (one on 50th btw. 8+9th, and one on 2nd Ave. btw. 50+51st).

“I am the Administrative Assistant over at Blockheads Burritos and I’m very interested in getting our locations on your map. How can we go about this? Can you send me some literature or a link? Maybe even a call? Thank you in advance!”

I’ll tell you how you get on the map… serve good lunch food, for cheap- and if the Midtown Lunch readers deem you worthy, then you get added to the canon of official Midtown Lunches.  I admit Blockheads is not completely off the radar…  it’s been mentioned by a few commenters and Profiled Midtown Lunch’ers (most notably Kristy) and I have considered crossing 8th Ave. on many occasions to try one of their burritos.  But part of the former L.A. resident in me feels a little bit of skepticism towards this after-work-party-spot.  They do have a $9 lunch combo (which includes chips, salsa, and a soda) which is intriguing. 

Anybody been?  Thoughts?  I’ll leave this one up to you guys…

A little over a month ago I started a new category of post called “You Decide”.  The thinking was, sometimes I find places where the menu is just too long to try everything, and rather then give an incomplete write up (negative or positive), I would turn it over to you, the Midtown Luncher’s.  First to the chopping block party was Good Portions, an everything but the kitchen sink, Asian take out place on Lexington btw. 39+40th.  I had a pretty mediocre pad thai and order of pork buns, but with all of the great Asian food on their menu I assumed that there had to be something edible.

Well, clearly I was wrong.  After 20+ comments nobody had anything positive to say about Good Portions- and my “You Decide” experiment was a total failure.  My intention was to take one of the recommendations, try the dish, and report back to everyone.  But with nothing to recommend, there was nothing for me to try.  So much for that.  But then something unexpected happened.  Last Tuesday, as part of Jennifer Lee’s profile, I asked lunchers to comment with their favorite Chinese food dishes in Midtown- and this was posted by “Cait”:

Tie between the roast pork lo mein and pork buns at Chinese Noodle House (down the street from Manchenko-tei) and Scallop Wonderland w/brown rice at GoodPortions on Lex between 39th and 40th. The sweetness and crunchiness of the scallions goes perfectly with the soft scallops and the chewy brown rice, and the sauce is to die for.

Now wait a second.  That’s not a “this dish is pretty good”, that’s a “This is my favorite Chinese food dish in Midtown” comment.  So yesterday, I trekked over to Good Portions to eat scallops, for only $7, at a take out place loathed by most of the Midtown Lunch’ing community.  Another example of me sacrificing my body for the good of this site, after the jump… Read more »