Midtown Lunch

Photo courtesy of Lunch’er Adam

I noticed a couple of things while walking down 46th street btw. 5+6th the other day… the first is Cafe Jia, a new place opening soon right next to Nino’s. Sadly it looks like another generic deli, but it does say tex-mex bar, a teppanyaki (think hibachi) bar and a gourmet coffee bar (I’ll believe that when I see it). You never know, this place could be good. (We’re not keeping our hopes up.) Regardless, it’s supposed to be open 24 hours, so they’ve got that going for them.

Remember Michelle’s on the same block?

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Thanks to Lunch’er Dan for passing this (strange) one along:  “Lily O’brien’s [the Irish chocolate shop on 40th btw. 5+6th] has just started serving empanadas and they are delicious.  My midtown coworker, Andrew Flynn, a bonafied food snob, refuses to believe that Lily O’Brien’s could possibly be serving empandas (much less good empanadas), and I’d love to be able to prove him wrong on the scale of hitting him with a Midtown Lunch post.”  Uh… consider your friend proven wrong…?…we guess?

Lily O’Brien’s, 36 W 40th St. (btw. 5+6th), 212-575-0631

The opening of the new Koreatown Bon Chon has been much more subdued than when neighboring Kyochon opened the door on its spaceship themed chicken shack. While the lines haven’t been particularly long, the wait is still classic Bon Chon. The new, faster frying process owner Simon Lee told us about last week doesn’t seem to have been implemented yet. As of 1:30pm, customers were being told that any order would take at least 20 minutes. My small, mixed order took half an hour to show up.

Also note that the entree options, which include tonkatsu and bulgogi tacos(!) are not available yet, but hopefully will be in the next day or two. With less than a week under their belt, clearly, this is all still a work in progress, so have patience and, if you’ve got the time, enjoy the leisurely pace by watching the Yankees game playing on one of the projectors.

Related:
Let the Fried Chicken Wars Begin: New Bon Chon Opens Today

The other week, we were tipped off by Lunch’er jchoi2106, that Bann Next Door would start selling Korean style tacos in August. Speaking as a Korean and a Korean food enthusiast, this simply required immediate investigation. I’d always viewed Bann and its sister restaurant in SoHo, Woo Lae Oak, with mild suspicion. Their relatively high prices and hoity-toity frilly plating was the exact opposite of the humble, filling, and inexpensive Korean food that I grew up with. But after reading Amy’s glowing review of Bann Next Door’s lunch specials, as well as admittedly buying into the Korean taco hype, I hurried over past 8th avenue for a first hand look.

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Since my initial write-up of Totto Ramen, I’ve become somewhat of a regular customer. Customer may be too light of a word – ‘devotee’ is more like it. At the ever so slightly out-of-ML price range, this ever so slightly out-of-bounds restaurant has enraptured me, besting my former #2 ranked ramen shop, Minca in the East Village (Ippudo remains steadfast at #1… for now).

While I was previously constrained to the plain bowl of chicken paitan ramen ($9.25), in keeping with ML cost guidelines, I found true love in the spicy chicken ramen ($10.25), made even more tasty with the added crunch of kikurage mushrooms (+$1), and the opulence of a seasoned hardboiled egg (+$1). Impossibly decadent and deliriously spicy, this nearly perfect bowl of chicken noodle soup is worth the >$10 splurge. They say that perfection has a price, but for $12 and change, I’ll buck the trend of being a lunchtime cheapass and indulge.

Related:
Totto Ramen Is the Closest Thing We’ve Got to the East Village

Lord, we want to stop talking about the new Pop Tarts Cafe that opened yesterday in Times Square but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it! It’s just too damn intriguing. The latest? As an encore to their review of Taco Bell’s Catina Tacos, Serious Eats tried every…single…item… on the Pop Tarts Cafe menu. Their verdict? It’s all pretty terrible… a conclusion they probably could have come to without spending the $40+. They should have had PR people send over free samples, like Gothamist did. Thanks to both websites for saving us from eating this garbage… (you know it’s bad when Gawker’s faux Pop Tarts ideas sound more appetizing than the real thing.)

Photo courtesy of Lunch’er “johnnybgood115”