Midtown Lunch

And for the first time in the history of Midtown street food, a cart/truck has found a spot on Day 1 without any trouble whatsoever. The Dessert Truck parked on Park Ave. btw. 51+52nd and sold delicious desserts for 4+ hours today without any hassles. No trouble from the cops. No trouble from other vendors (despite a Mister Softee Truck being parked two blocks away.) And no trouble finding customers. In fact, co-owner Chris told me that sales today rivaled their regular nighttime business. Who said Midtown Lunchers wouldn’t want to stuff their faces with chocolate bread pudding on a Monday?!?

So, if everything goes as smoothly as it went today, The Dessert Truck will be parked in that same spot Monday-Friday 11:30 am to 4pm forrrrreverrrrrrrrr! Keep your fingers crossed…

This pretty much sums up Midtown 2008 to a T. Locally owned ice cream place (Blue Pig) gets replaced by a Subway; longest lunch line in the city is for 99 Cent pizza. 43rd Street btw. Lex+3rd

Craving steak on Friday I realized that you can’t just jump into a lunch at Tad’s Steaks.  Even on a dare.  Eating at Tad’s requires some training.  Like an Olympic Marathon runner, you can’t just start off by running 26 miles.  You’ve got to slowly build up to the big race.  So, I put my lunch at Tad’s on hold, and decided to slowly work my way into it.  (Yes, I am a wuss- but can you blame me?  It’s Tad’s we’re talking about here.) First stop on the training circuit?  The Steak Truck, to try out their steak and cheese sub, that I first noticed in July.   Read more »

Photos courtesy of Serious Eats

The Dessert Truck is beginning its daytime operations today, and will attempt to find a spot on Park Ave. between 51+53rd streets from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Treats Truck is awesome, and Wafels & Dinges are nice, but the Dessert Truck is some serious shit.  We’re talking chocolate bread pudding, molten chocolate cake, vanilla creme brulee, goat cheese cheesecake and more.  Restaurant quality desserts, out of truck, and everything is $5. 

As you know, finding a permanent spot is difficult, so I’ll keep you up to date on their progress. Welcome  to the neighborhood boys! To read more about the Dessert Truck, check out this post on Serious Eats: New York.

UPDATE: As of 11:07 a.m. the truck has found a space on Park between 51+52nd.

Macaron Cafe is Getting Crowded These Days (Thursday, 1:30pm) Photo by Food in Mouth.

• The guys who made the Food Cart Song video, have a follow up video filmed at Carnegie Deli [Rhett and Link] 
• There will be $1 tacos at Toloache on August 26th [Grub Street]
• Starwich files for bankruptcy [Eater]
• The Red Flame Diner on 44th btw. 5+6th has been closed by the DOH [Blondie and Brownie]
• The Burger King on 47th btw. Lex+3rd has closed [Eater]
• Once again Yvo stalks our Downtown man Daniel, following him to Sam’s Falafel [Feisty Foodie]

The Food Cart Song video I posted earlier in the week was fun, but this video that Sarah DiGregorio from Fork in the Road discovered this week about food vendors in Midtown is the real deal.  It aired on Al Jazeera earlier in the year, and actually delves into serious issues that effect the people who serve some of our favorite food in Midtown.  One of the issues, which rarely gets mentioned, is the “unwritten brotherhood” between vendors over who can park in which spots (especially in Midtown.)  In fact, one of hot dog vendors interviewed talked about how angry he was over the Steak Truck’s arrival on his corner back in August of last year. 

Here are some of the more interesting tidbits (but I would recommend watching the whole 12 minute video if you have the time:

• The hot dog vendor in front of MoMa paid $300,000 to occupy the spot for 3 years.
• Most vendors only make between $7000 and $14,000 a year
• Sean Basinski, the lawyer who runs the Street Vendor Project and Vendy Awards, used to sell burritos from a cart on Park Avenue
• Tony Dragonas took over his cart’s spot from his father 25 years ago
• In 1994, one street vendor went on a hunger strike for 3 days when then Mayor Giuliani turned his street into a “no food vendor parking” block

Watch the whole video here

I have no problem turning over the site to lunch’ers who want to write about favorite places of their own.  Lunch’er Grace put together that awesome list of Midtown Soups, and Lunch’er Kayoko introduced us to the Out of Bounds Chinese food in Midtown East.  Now, I’m excited to introduce the newest contributor:  Danny from the blog Food in Mouth.  He works near Madison Square Garden and is checking in with a report on Carribean Kitchen, a hidden fast food place in a Midtown South alley.

“You look like Harold.” Wait, what? My name is Danny. “You know, from Harold and Kumar.” I chuckled along with the friendly cashier lady at Caribbean Kitchen, but really all I wanted was to pay for the jerk chicken and be on my merry way. Actually what I really wanted was a substitute for the Jamaican Dutchy Cart because for those of us who work in the Southern part of Midtown it is out of the way sometimes. No worries though, Caribbean Kitchen to the rescue. Semi-hidden from foot trafic, Caribbean Kitchen is located in this alley in between 7th and 8th ave. You might think an ‘alley’ sounds shady, but as you can see from the map, it’s really quite close to Macy’s and Madison Square Garden.

The menu covers all the common Caribbean dishes like curried chicken, curried goat, oxtail, jerked chicken, jerked pork, stewed chicken, and escovitched fish. They have small portions ($7 to $8) or large ($8 to $10), but unless you have munchies like Harold and Kumar, you can probably get by quite nicely on the small. You get the standard option of white rice, or rice and peas, a little bit of vegetables, some plantains, and the meat of your choice. 

Read more »

I’ve never really met a bubble tea I didn’t like.  I’ve heard rumors of bad bubble teas;  gross powder mixtures, hard tapioca pearls, etc.  But I don’t think I’ve ever had one. There are varying degrees of good and great, but never terrible… until yesterday when I stopped at Grand Sichuan on Lex. btw. 33rd+34th.  Just inside the ML boundaries, it’s unclear whether there is a relation to the famous chain of Grand Sichuan’s (I’m inclined to say no.)  Either way, I thought I’d be safe getting one of their bubble teas.  And that’s when my streak ended.   The tapioca pearls were rock hard in the middle, dry, and they had a strong taste of prunes or raisins or something.  Disgusting.  2 sips later I threw it away, a once in a lifetime occurance (being fat *and* cheap means I never throw away food.)  I don’t normally write about stuff like this, but it was so bad I don’t want anyone to make the same mistake I did.

However, I will be back for one of their lunch specials. $6.25 and it comes with soup, egg roll, or soda.  Not bad at all. So cheap, and I’m sure their double cooked pork or Ma Po Tofu is better than their bubble tea.  Anybody been before?  Thoughts?

Grand Sichuan NY, 227 Lexington Ave. (btw. 33+34th) 212-679-9770