Midtown Lunch

I’ve walked by Bombay Eats, the just out of bounds Indian restaurant on 52nd btw. 8+9th, a million times… but had only noticed this sign for the first time last week.  Indian pizza!?!  And not some strange Indian creation with some similarities to real pizza. This is real New York City pizza, with Indian toppings.  Tandoori chicken, minced lamb, chicken tikka, saag paneer (!?!)

I mean, how could I not right?

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It’s been awhile since we talked about the two Korean carts on 6th Ave… the Bulgogi & Kimchi Cart on 49th btw. 6+7th, and the newer Korean BBQ cart on 50th btw. 6+7th. Well, Lunch’er Chris6Sigma checked in in the comments last week with this report.

As a Korean, I love the fact that Korean food is becoming ‘mainstream’ enough to serve streetcart style in Midtown Manhattan. Will they ever become as popular as the ubiquitous chicken & lamb halal carts? Probably not, but all of a sudden, 6th Ave has drawn two unlikely and scrappy competitors to the street meat scene.

Enter the bulgogi and kimchi cart (I’ll call it B&K for short) located at 49th & 6th and the Korean BBQ cart (I’ll call it KBBQ for short) just a block away 50th & 6th, in the vacated Happy Well Being Cart space (not sure if they’re related? ed note: they’re not). The proximity of the two carts to each other of course warrants a comparative review, so here we go!

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Apparently Meze Grill was the last straw… my kid is retiring

• Did you want to buy a suit with that chicken over rice platter? [EV Grieve]
• Vote for Keen’s Steakhouse as Manliest Restaurant in America [Asylum]
• Times Sq. Hot Bagels is owned by the people who used to run Columbia Bagels [Bionic Bites]
• $2 margaritas at Toloache on Monday until 9pm [Eater]
• Stay away from Koryodang’s boba tea [Serious Eats:New York]
• Xie Xie has added salads and delivery [Fork in the Road]
• Houston’s Hillstone goes to court to avoid posting calorie counts [Gothamist]
• Minamoto Kitchoan sells sorbet [Serious Eats: New York]
• You know I love Pollo Tropical, but have I mentioned it would also be awesome if Midtown had a Chicken Kitchen? [JBF]
• If you have to work on Sunday, there is a Japanese street fair featuring food from Cafe Zaiya, Washoku Cafe, and Gyu-Kaku (as well as non Midtown restaurants like Hakata Tonton) on Madison Ave. btw. 43+44th [Japan Fair via EIT]

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.

I always wanted to go to Bellevue Bar (on 9th btw. 39+40th), but sadly I waited too long and never got to try their $1 sandwiches and cheap beer. However, just like Siberia (its former neighbor) made a comeback as “Manhattans” in Brooklyn, Bellevue Bar has found new life. Kal Narvilas, the owner of Kabin bar on the LES has partnered with ace bartender Michelle Gascoine (from Kabin and Hogs and Heifers to name a few) to revive the old space as Blue Ruin (which is slang for gin.)

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A little piece in the Wall Street Journal’s “Small Business” section today recommends three ways to make opening a food truck more profitable, including using twitter, finding a good location, and buying your truck secondhand. As examples it mentions the Treats Truck, and Spencer on the Go, a cart in San Francisco that makes a 50% profit margin selling takeway frog’s legs, escargot, and sweet breads a few blocks away from their restaurant, where the margins are only 10%. (Uh… can we get one of these carts please!?!?)  Of course if you’re thinking of jumping into the food truck business here in NYC, don’t expect your margins to be that high.  Spencer to Go owns the parking lot in SF where they set up shop, bypassing a huge expense to owning a food truck here in NYC: paying for parking at night, and finding a legal spot to vend during the day (where you won’t be ticketed or hassled by other vendors.)

Related:
So You’re Still Thinking of Opening a Food Truck!?!
How Twitter Actually Hurts Street Vendors
Rule #1 of Vendor Fight Club is You Don’t Talk About Vendor Fight Club

Fresh off my failure to procure an early lunch from the Eggs Travaganza cart, I decided to walk a few blocks south to the newly opened Jerk Pan cart (on 48th and Park.)  Their menu is pretty much identical to the Jamaican Dutchy’s (on 51st and 7th), which is not a surprise considering that I heard they consulted with the Dutchy for advice before opening their cart. And the menu isn’t the only thing that seemed familiar.  By 12:05pm, the line was already starting to form down the street, reminiscent of the early days of the Jamaican Dutchy cart.

We can joke all we want about people from the islands taking thing slow, but this is ridiculous. At least the Dutchy has beefed up their service in an attempt to speed things up a little bit. I only saw one guy working the Jerk Pan cart, and it took about 3 minutes to serve each person. I gave up pretty quickly (what can I say… fat man can’t sit in this kind of heat for 45 minutes waiting for Jerk chicken.)  I do really want to try this new cart.  Next time I’m going to get there at 11:30am… a lesson all the people in line ahead of me clearly have already learned.

Related:
Jamaican Me Crazy: New Jerk Pan Cart Hits Park Ave.; Caribbean Spice Changes Name
The Jamaican Dutchy… a Midtown Cart on Island Time