Midtown Lunch

You would think that all the stories of new food carts being intimidated out of their spots would curb the number of new mobile food vendors coming to Midtown, but nope.  The parade marches on.  The latest venture (which the owner claims has been in the works “for a while”) is Schnitzel & Things, a new truck that plans on launching in early July serving an Austrian style schnitzel and side dishes. They will be parking all over the city, but plan on splitting lunch between Midtown & Downtown (“with a focus on Midtown”.)  For those who aren’t familiar with schnitzel it’s a breaded cutlet, and Schnitzel & Things plans on serving versions made from chicken, pork and cod. The menu (which you can see here) also includes bratwurst, Austrian potato salad, sauerkraut, and various other salads and condiments.  The owner is from the Ukraine, but has lived in NYC most of his life.  The inspiration for the truck came from a year spent in Vienna where he was inspired to quit his banking job and come back to New York to cook.

If you can’t wait until early July, you can get Israeli schnitzel at Kosher Deluxe (on 46th btw. 5+6th) or Baguette Express (on 37th btw. 5+6th), and German Schnitzel at Hallo Berlin Express (on 9th btw. 50+51st.)  But for the Austrian version, you’ll have to wait for the truck- which you can follow (naturally) on Twitter.

This news about the new Street Sweets Truck and their feud with the building on 55th and 6th came in late on Friday: “Sorry to disappoint, but we’ve been forced to move because of the pressure that Bistro Milano & Pret a Manger exerted on the building & the NYPD.” According to the owner of the truck it turns out the spot was technically illegal (you are not allowed to vend from a “metered spot”), so despite the best effort of Midtown Lunch’ers to support the new truck and put pressure on Bistro Milano and Pret, the NYPD was forced by the building to remove the truck. This came a day after representatives from both the NYPD & the FDNY told the Street Sweets truck they were doing nothing wrong.

The truck is off today for a private event, but will return tomorrow to look for a new spot in Midtown.

My Kid w/ Top Chef’s Lee Anne Wong, the new Chef of Kogi BBQ’s East Coast Operations

• Look, it’s another fan of Cafe Zaiya’s fish sandwich [A Passion For Food]
• Coincidentally enough, Yvo also wrote about Gloria’s downtown Mexican cart [Feisty Foodie]
• DB Bistro is the only Midtown burger to make Robert Sietsema’s Top 10 [Fork in the Road]
• According to Cosmo Magazine, the line at Chipotle is a great place to meet dudes [Eat Me Daily]
• Midtown Lunch’er Ruth Reichl gets interviewd by TONY about her new book [Feed Blog]
• Chef Yu’s “tofu Szechuan style” is probably not as good as Szechuan Gourmet’s- but it’ll do in a pinch. [BLD Project]
• Remember the downtown lunch Sea World?  They’ve opened another location just outside the ML boundaries [Me So Hungry]
• Soho’s Lunch Studio discovers the “Magical Animal” at Murray’s Salami [Lunch Studio]
• The 9th Ave. Grand Sichuan might be returning to Hell’s Kitchen [Eater]

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. 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.

The Blarney Stone (on 3rd Ave. btw. 44+45th) is already well known among Midtown Lunchers for their great burger and onion rings during lunchtime. But I thought it was about time the other side of this hidden gem got its due. Blarney is also one of the best happy hour pubs in the area. If you are tired of the typical upscale Irish pub with expensive drinks, obnoxious corporate head honchos and overpriced pub-grub, then Blarney is where you can go and feel like you’ve stepped into your own neighborhood bar, where everyone slurs your name.

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Despite all the vitriol from ML commenters, it looks like the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck has found their audience. They’re on 45th btw 6+7th today, and completely mobbed.

Speaking of hipster trucks, I’m hearing the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck is in Midtown today parked on 52nd and Park. Enjoy!

After Wednesdays false alarm, I excitedly hit up the new location of Szechuan Gourmet (on 56th btw. B’way+8th) yesterday right at noon, only to find out they were still waiting for the city to give them the green light to open (it came about an hour later.) But they were willing to do take out orders- so I did what had to be done: double cooked pork belly with chili leeks, to go, with white rice and hot and sour soup. The version served at the flagship, two starred NYT, restaurant (on 39th btw. 5+6th) is quite possibly my favorite Chinese food dish in the city. But the question remained, would the version at this new location stand up.

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It sounds like 55th Street btw. 5+6th has been nothing but trouble for the brand new Street Sweets Truck since they popped up last week. On Monday, they complained that “politics” forced them to move to a different spot. Commenter “bm2e” seemed pretty pissed: “This is BULLSHIT. The carts on the block at 55th and 6th are a standard hot dog cart (pretty good, reasonable prices) and a mediocre halal cart that isn’t even there every day. Add to this poor showing the fact that the crap Italian restaurant in the first floor of 1350 6th Ave actually went and rented a U-Haul to prevent the truck from parking.” (I got confirmation that Bistro Milano, the Italian restaurant inside 1350, did indeed rent a UHaul and put it in the spot to prevent them from parking there on Monday.)

Well, it looks like it all came to a head yesterday when I noticed the scene above in front of the truck just before Noon. I asked one of the cops what was going on and he seemed all too excited to tell me.

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