Midtown Lunch

Last week the Mexicue Truck exploded onto the Midtown Lunch scene, causing mayhem on Thursday.  Today?  Much of the same.  They were on 40th and 6th today, and by 12:40 the line was 30 deep.  Total pandemonium.  The Green Taste Truck, parked around the corner (on 6th btw. 39+40th)?  Not so much.  No love for the green-vegetarian option?! I guess vegetarian trucks just aren’t all the rage (or maybe all the vegetarians were trying to taste Mexicue’s awesome looking beet taco.) You’d think at the least they’d at least get a bit of spillover…

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 Emily, a fabric designer who wishes she could trade the garment district for the Mediterranean. (Go figure!)

Name: Emily

Age: 25

Occupation: Fabric designer and dork in the kitchen

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Broadway between 38th & 39th

Favorite Kind of Food: Foods I were raised on: Southern food (rare find here in NYC, especially good fried chicken and barbeque) and Arabic food (hummus, grape leaves, lamb). Greek and Italian food, and lots of seafood. Sushi out the wazoo, Indian, Korean, Thai (I’m a noodle fiend). Tex-Mex and Latin American foods. Oh and juicy burgers and fries. And lots of sugar to balance it out. I’ll be honest, most food makes me happy; especially if it’s well-made.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Chicken breasts, anything too heavy on mayo. Sandwiches have to be pretty special for me to be interested. Prepackaged sushi and cold bentos freak me out.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Crisp (on 40th btw. B’way+6th) and it’s African sandwich, most Ktown fare (dolsot bibimbap, spicy squid noodles at Kunjip.) Not quite lunch, but Happy Hour at Dean & Deluca on 40th and 8th (half priced coffee and sugar fix). Jing’s delivery chinese food is surprisingly delicious (on 9th btw. 47+48th).

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Last week, Lunch’er “uncledunkle” took to the ML forums to ask if anyone had ever tried the burrito from the La Baguette truck (SE Corner of B’way & 40th Street). I’d been wanting to try La Baguette myself and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to take a bullet for a good cause (too bad they answered their own question before I got a chance.  Oh well, I’m one day late!) Anyway, I too got the chicken burrito ($5) and was kind of happy to discover that it’s basically just another way to enjoy some delicious street meat.

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Curious if Kyochon or Mad For Chicken have changed since Clay did his Korean Fried Chicken Palooza back in March? Doesn’t sound like it based on reading this Serious Eats: New York “fried chicken face-off”. MfC is still delicious but takes forever, while Kyochon has its flaws but is cheaper and makes the spicier wing.  Of course it’s hard to take a fried chicken opinion seriously from a person who feels guilty about eating potato wedges… (we kid because we love, SENY!)  If you’re addicted to the korean fried chicken, however, we do recommend you read the comments of the post. There’s some real good stuff in there, including an intricate comparison of the different wing flavors, plus some Korean fried chicken cooking factoids from food genius J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.  Of course once the new Bon Chon opens on 5th Ave. btw. 32+33rd (this week hopefully!) Clay will most likely be holding a Korean Fried Chicken Palooza 2… you know… for “science”.

Related:
Korean-Fried-Chicken-Palooza: Kyochon vs. Bon Chon vs. Mad For Chicken

Got this message from Lunch’er Jeremy on Friday: “Have you noticed how hot it is inside Dishes (on 45th btw. Mad+5th)? This is no fluke; it was equally as uncomfortable last summer. For a place with a price point as high as Dishes’, they could stand to give customers the most basic requirement for 100-degree NYC summers… working air conditiong! Not too mention that any place with a buffet serving cold, spoil-prone food should do a better job keeping the environment suitable. You have the power to effect change! Please help, ML.” Coincidentally enough, Eater received the same complaint about Xie Xie (on 9th Ave. btw. 45+46th.) Hopefully this isn’t a trend…