Midtown Lunch

Something shocking has happened since I started doing this blog almost two years ago.  People from all over the city are actually allowing these words to exit their mouth (without laughing hysterically)… “I wish I worked in Midtown”.  As good as some of the food that gets written about on this site looks, nobody should feel that way (have you walked through Time Square lately?).  In order to help alleviate the pangs of jealousy felt in other parts of the city (especially Downtown), I have tried to occasionally post lunches from other areas, like Feisty Foodie’s write-up of the Mobile Fried Chicken Truck on Water St.  Well, I’m extremely excited to introduce our newest Downtown correspondent, Daniel Krieger– an amazing photographer (you may have seen his stuff on Eater) and lover of all Midtown Lunch’ish foods.  He starts off strong, with the quickest way to make me jealous- a Chinatown lunch for under $5…

I remember back in the old days (that’d be about six months ago) when you could get 5 dumplings for a dollar. For two bucks a normal person would be full; for me it was more like $2.75 (I would round out the meal with a 75 cent Golden Pancake). But those days are behind us: Tasty Dumpling, (“The Real Tasty D” in Chinatown Lunch parlance), Mulberry Street’s battle-tested Chinatown lunch hole has recently upped its prices: a five-spot of pan-fried dumplings will now set you back an additional quarter, ringing in at a budget-stretching $1.25.

Small-framed gals and fancy belt-conscious boys can still do dim sum for under 3 bucks…For the rest (and notably, for your Downtown lunch correspondent) we’re feeling the pinch. But that doesn’t mean we’re skipping out.

What I ate (and some serious downtown lunch porn), after the jump… Read more »

For some reason there are a lot of lunch’ers outside of Midtown who read this blog.  And even more surprisingly, it has caused some people to actually say they wish they worked in Midtown, so they could eat at some of the places I’ve written about.  Let me speak for everyone who works in this hell hole when I say- you people are insane.  That being said, I’ve decided to allow some of these people to make us jealous, by writing about a lunch in a different area.  The workers of Downtown New York seem to be the most vocal, so this week I turn the site over to Yvo, a downtown lunch’er, and Midtown Lunch reader, who also has a blog of her own (The Feisty Foodie).

Reason for jealousy?  We’ve got a lot of carts and trucks in Midtown.  But none of them serve fried chicken!  Why don’t we have a fried chicken truck.  Wah!!!!!!

You Midtown Lunch’ers think you have it bad.  Try working Downtown.  Any small jewel found in the dregs of Downtown gets me excited… so I was delighted to finally try Mobile Fried Chicken.  What a genius concept; fried chicken in a truck.  Can you imagine anything better?  The execution is a little flawed, but who cares.  It’s fried chicken in a truck, and ever since I began working on Water Street, I’ve had to walk by that smell of delicious fried food every day.  I love fried pretty much anything, although I draw the line at deep fried Oreos and Twinkies.  Something about that skeeves me, but I’m sure one day I will give in…

I got there at a bit past 1, and there was a decent line- but it moves fairly quickly.

What Yvo got, and more Fried Chicken Truck porn, after the jump… Read more »