Midtown Lunch

After a month of renovations, Sapporo (on 49th btw. 5+6th) came back with a vengeance last month, and was even crowned Midtown’s best ramen by the Village Voice. I tend to avoid the ravenous packs at places that have just made some arbitrary “Best of New York” list, but the call of crispy fried noodles with special seafood ANKAKE sauce was strong, so, last week, I stopped to answer it. Check out the dishes after the jump.

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In addition to Bann Next Door’s solid line-up of under $10 lunch specials, it appears that they’re set to start selling Korean style tacos this week (on 50th btw. 8+9th). The tacos are priced at $9, and diners will get a choice of proteins including garlic chicken, beef bulgogi, or spicy pork daeji bulgogi, which come with corn tortillas, “asian” salsa, spicy guacamole, and chips. Looks like Blockheads will have extra competition for taco seeking Midtown lunchers. Early adopters, let us know how they are in the comments.

Related:
Bann Next Door’s Lunch Specials Worth Every Penny

Sad news for central midtown coffee addicts/cheapos… the ING Cafe has moved their 49th street location to 3rd Ave. at 58th Street (Central midtown’s loss, is northeastern midtown’s gain I guess!)  I’ll miss having the ING’s discount lattes and free internets nearby, but it does give me another excuse to make a trip to try out Mia Dona’s new gelato sandwich. (As if I needed an excuse…)

Photo courtesy of The Girl Who Ate Everything

• The celery and tofu salad is Bittman’s go-to dish at Szechuan Gourmet [NYT]
• Miss USA eats at that random Korean restaurant on 56th!? [Grub Street]
• Totto Ramen and Hide Chan Ramen both get 4 stars [TONY]
• New York is getting a Korean taco truck [Eater]
• The Soup Man now has al fresco dining [Eater]
• The just out of bounds Zigolini’s Pizza Bar is serviceable [Slice]
• Another fan of the bureks at Djerdan [Always Hungry]
• So long Planet Hollywood Times Square [Eater]
• Profiled Lunch’er/Pizza By Cer Te owner Edward pops up on TV [I Dream of Pizza]

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.

There’s a man in Hell’s Kitchen name Dave. He’s a peculiar person with a flair for entrepreneurship, but you won’t see him on The Apprentice, no, you’ll see him walking 9th Avenue going from bar to bar, his white hair looking months too late for a cut his outfit taking a page from The Dude. You wouldn’t know it, but he’s one of the kings of NY dives. His moniker is in neon over at his first bar “Dave’s” and he seems to have an zest for taxidermy as Dave’s has a mounted wild boar head, his other bar Port 41 sports a one eyed hippopotamus head, and lastly Bull Moose Saloon (on 44th btw. 8+9th) has a majestic big horned moose to tie the trinity together.

Recently Dave decided the Moose needed a face-lift. This worried me. While Bull Moose Saloon might not have the character of his other ventures, I still enjoyed the joint. I mean, if it isn’t broke don’t fix it, right? Needless to say when they closed for renovations I feared the worst. Now many weeks later they have opened their doors and taps to the locals again and I was there to get a first look at the new Moose.

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What do you think about when you hear “Fish and dumplings”? For an Asian guy, my mind automatically veers toward dumplings like jiaozi or mandoo or gyoza. But having lived in the South for a little bit, I know that the dumplings you find in a “Chicken and dumplings” dish is not quite the same… Googling tells me that dumplings are simple boiled dough of some sorts, and some variations of dumplings have fillings. Basically all the awesome versions have fillings… As for eating fish from a street cart?  I generally view it as a test of character. Sure, you can eat all the street meat you want, but at this point, it’s not even that crazy to be a street meat lover. You only show your true colors when you’re willing to fish from a cart. So, when the Trini Paki Cart mentioned their new Friday special of fish and dumplings last week, I knew that it was time to test my worth as a street meat eater.

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