Midtown Lunch

Variety is the spice of street food life. You’re probably reading ML thinking that you don’t want any more damn generic deli crap for lunch, and you’re through with Chinese food too. Mix it up a little – this is New York freakin’ City, and the world is your oyster (unless you wanted Balkan kebab – I miss you, Cevap Truck) with Sweet Heaven throwing their hat into the ring. With the 40th to 38th St. corridor swiftly emerging as the Restaurant Row of 8th Avenue, is Sweet Heaven really the pearly gates of creperies on this side of town? Or are we descending to the 9th Steam Table Circle of Hell?
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Because 9th Ave didn’t have enough Thai places already, Isan Authentic Thai Cuisine has swooped into the Fusion 9th space (on 9th btw. 36+37th). No longer an empty, abandoned shell, the insides had people swarming around and decorating. Unless the Fusion 9th people took out the appliances and kitchen equipment, it looks like Isan will be good to go pretty soon.
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After months of inspections and permit obtaining, the eagerly awaited Wafels & Dinges storefront (on 2nd Street and Avenue B in the Lower East Side) finally opened their doors this morning at 7am. Obviously this news doesn’t help us Midtown Lunchers too much but if you are as big a fan as we are of W&D and you get a chance to visit after work the full sweet and savory menu (including the savory Bastogne waffle) will be available. I recommend the speculoos shake, which we can only hope will find its way onto the trucks soon. Congrats to Thomas and the gang!

Sad news in the Midtown Lunch world; it looks like Oriental Noodle Shop (45th btw. Lex and 3rd) has closed for good. A Luncher contacted us this week letting us know that the storefront had a “for rent” sign up. No longer will we be able enjoy the buns or whole lobster; no longer will we be able to stage a wonton battle between Oriental Noodle Shop and Hop Won. We could surface no clues either from their website or DOH (it’s last rating was an A). Perhaps the politically correct police had something to do with it? If anyone knows the story behind the closing, please let us know in the comments.

I finally made it back to Fun Buns NYC to check out the baguette. After enjoying a trio of buns recently, I wanted to see if the expanded menu, which now includes sandwiches, is as good. Also, I gave the beef bao a second shot, and — spoiler alert — boy am I glad I did! But first, the sandwich.
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Every Friday we go south of the ML boundaries in search of a delicious lunch. Sometimes it’s Murray Hill south or the Flatiron District, sometimes Gramercy and everything in between- but we just like to call it Flatiron Lunch.

Back in February, I wrote about Gyro King which promptly closed and was replaced by Fava Grill (I have to keep telling myself that it wasn’t my fault). While I haven’t been back to try Fava Grill, several Flatiron Lunch’ers mentioned that Shawarama Grill was the best in the area. So here we are.

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Here at Midtown Lunch, we’re no stranger to how Zach feels about Chipotle. As one of the first places reviewed back in the day, the relationship was an instant “I Love Burritos I Hate Chipotle” roller coaster, which spawned the Midtown Lunch Ultimate Burrito Theory (and how it relates to Chipotle sucking), an in-depth look at Chipotle’s calorie math deception, and finally, a truce, aided by Jamie Oliver.

Last week on the Food is the New Rock podcast, our resident fat guy had Nate Appleman, Culinary Manager at Chipotle, former Next Iron Chef Contestant and founding chef at restauranteur Keith McNally’s, Pulino’s, sit down to talk 80s music, Robin Thicke, metal, hear out Zach’s beef with Chipotle’s quesarito, as well as speak at length about Shophouse, the so-called “Asian Chipotle,” whose awesomeness we would LOVE to experience in NYC (despite the fact that they made Pure Thai Shophouse change their name).

Stream the episode (plus find out how you can win free Chipotle for twenty years) after the jump…

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As you may recall, I’ve been known to partake in the occasional pretty much every single Toasties sandwich ever made so you can imagine my surprise when, walking through the 51st and Madison location the other day, I noticed the menu had been entirely redone. I don’t mean that they scrapped any items from the menu, but that the actual boards hanging inside had been redesigned and reorganized. Naturally, I scanned the new menu for any changes to its contents.

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Sushi aficionados of Midtown East, take heart. Bento Sushi, the new iteration of Sushi by Bento Nouveau we told you about back in April, is now open on 3rd Ave. btw. 43rd+44th. We’ll have a review up soon, but if there are any early adopters out there, let us know how it is.

Pizza places are ubiquitous in New York, and Midtown is certainly no exception. So it’s easy to walk by a pizza joint on an almost daily basis without giving much thought to whether it’s a good place to eat or not. That’s what Giuseppe’s Pizza (Lex btw 39th+40th) was like to me until I finally felt compelled to try it out. I was glad I did.

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