Midtown Lunch

Every Tuesday we turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. This week it’s Chris, a Schnitzel Truck loving software developer who is probably eating the new schnitzel down while you’re read this…

Name: Chris

Age: 34

Occupation: Software Developer

Where in Midtown do you Work?: 48th & Madison

Favorite Kind of Food: To generalize, I suppose Japanese food is kind of the pinnacle of food-taken-to-perfection that blows my mind, but man, I’ll eat anything. My short, shameful addiction is buffalo chicken. Tassie’s Buffalo Strips at the Outback, of all places — I’m sure the sauce consists mainly of hydrogenated petrochemicals, but I don’t care. It’s a religious experience. And nice chunky bleu cheese. Anyway, forget you read that and pretend I said something about free range bacon with a salad of organically raised ramps and dandelion marmalade from Wind Rainbow Farms in upstate NY. I don’t want to get kicked out of the foodie club.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: I don’t generally care for olives. But I do like a good tapenade. Damnit, now I really want a muffaletta. Oh, and I’ve never tried coffee or alcohol. Not because I’m a Mormon or something, I just think it’s fun to maintain a small, pointless eccentricity.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Schnitzel Truck (pork or veal). Katsuhama: I love me a good katsudon. Tri-Tip Grill (in Rock Center) has got my attention, because it used to be a once-a-year treat to go to Buckhorn when I’m in California. Kati Rolls from the Biryani Cart. At the risk of being excommunicated, I like to get the Santa Fe salad with fried chicken and tex-mex dressing from Chop’t. It’s a man’s salad.

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Grilled cheese with tomato holds a nostalgic place in my lunchtime heart–it was my tried and true high school cafeteria lunch option and the only good thing that our cafeteria made with the exception of fried dough pizza (yes, in my school district fried dough pizza somehow got the pass as a “nutritious meal”). When I first read about the Eggs Travaganza Cart’s new lunch time offerings, my attention went straight to the Grilled Cheese with Chorizo, Tomato and Bacon. Hello, lunch!
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Ask and ye shall receive. Ever since we asked the Schnitzel & Things truck to create their own version of the KFC double down the Schnitzel Lab has been hard at work at a sandwich creation that uses veal chicken schnitzel instead of a bun.  Well, the testing has come to and end and today the truck will debut the Schnitzel Down! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the crime against nature that is the KFC double down, the schnitzel down is two piece of wiener chicken schnitzel sandwiched around cheese and bacon (no bun.)  They’ll only have limited quantities, and it’s definitely not going to be a regular item (and for good reason)… so if you’re excited by this, you might want head to the truck early today.  They’ll be parked on 46th btw. 5+6th.

Related:
When Can We Expect the “Schnitzel Down”?

The new Vendy Award website went live this afternoon, which means tickets are on sale and nominations are now open for the 2010 Vendy Awards. Governor’s Island is the place, September 25th is the date and if you buy your ticket before Wednesday at Midnight and you’ll be entered to win a pair of tickets to Taste of the Nation NYC (to benefit Share Our Strength.) But your ticket before May 31st you’ll be entered in a raffle to be this year’s “Citizen Judge”. Uh… what are you waiting for? Buy your ticket now (you know it’s going to sell out), and nominate your favorite (ahem) Midtown (ahem) vendor.

See our coverage from last year’s Vendys:
Diary of a 2009 Vendy Awards Judge

And that’s only half of it

That’s right… today was the big day. Almost 40 Midtown Lunch’ers converged at noon today in Bryant Park to rate 15 plates of street meat nominated by you. It was looking dicey this morning, but apparently Jeebus likes street meat, because the clouds parted long enough for the chicken and lamb over rice massacre taste test to go down. If you didn’t score an invite this year… there’s always next year! As for the results, they’ll be posted on the site after our accounting firm has a chance to validate all of the score cards.

Related:
Street Meat Palooza 2: Our New York City Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown Crowns A New Champion
Street-Meat-Palooza: A 13 Cart Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown

Ecuadorian food options are few and far between in Midtown. The only places I’ve heard of are El Rincon de Sabor (on 47th btw. 5+6th) and the lady selling Ecuadorian food from a shopping cart that Zach wrote about a couple years ago. Neither are particularly accessible to me in the Midtown South area, so when Luncher “@stenro” tweeted the other day that El Guayaquileño, a new Ecuadorian food truck had popped up on 37th and 7th, I broke out into a jog to go check it out.

I was pretty excited because this was my first real opportunity to try out some Latin options more exotic than tacos and pernil. Interesting is definitely what this menu has to offer. See the food after the jump.

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