Midtown Lunch

When it rains it pours, eh?! Sad news from the forums courtesy of Lunch’er whiskeyfrisky: “Teriyaki Boy on 7th bet 48th and 49th is closing its doors for good due to high rent. I’m sure going to miss their chicken curry soba.” And I will miss their $3.99 lunch special. Big loss for Lunchers in the notoriously overpriced greater Times Square area. Most importantly what is Stanley T. going to do? The closest other Teriyaki Boy is their just out of bounds location on 9th btw 57th and 58th.

Well, it looks like our days of defending Manganaro’s, and the two crazy sisters who run the place, are numbered.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the building that houses the 100+ year old Italian grocery store and restaurant is being sold, and once the deal goes through Manganaro’s will be no more.  We can take a little solace in knowing that Manganaro’s Hero Boy isn’t going anywhere, but anybody who has been to both knows there is little consolation in that.  Say what you want about the sisters, Manganaro’s is irreplaceable and will be missed. [via Eater]

At Midtown Lunch HQ, we get a lot of press releases on a daily basis. The majority come from chain restaurants pushing deals, such as ‘buy one get one free burritos’, or ridiculous concepts that most Midtown lunchers would never visit. But every once in a while, a reputable restaurant or vendor will give us a heads up on a new menu item or special, such as when Mexicue emailed us with the subject line of “Burnt Ends Chili” special. I would do a disservice to burnt ends trying to describe them and summarily why we got so excited about this email – so check out Serious Eats’ excellent description of this dish and you’ll understand why we dropped everything and hustled over to Mexicue for a try.
Read more »

I’ve been patiently waiting for Dee Daa Balanced Thai (44th btw Lex+3rd) to open, so much so that I even braved the opening day crowd shenanigans! One of our main questions was “What is balanced Thai?” According to them, it means “tastes good” and “good for you.” With all this talk of the newish Pure Thai Shophouse, I’d been craving some good Thai worse than ever- and quite frankly could care less whether it is good for me or not. Dee Daa may not take the best Thai in Midtown prize away from the west side, but with some work it could fill our east side Thai food gap.

Read more »

In the months since the Korilla BBQ truck first hit the streets they’ve revamped their menu to make the truck more efficient. You still have the option of mixing and matching toppings but they’ve put together some “best of” combos. I liked the Pork Chosun Bowl I first tried in the fall, so I decided to go with their Wild Child combination ($8) with their house made tofu and a more than liberal dousing of their k’lla sauce. Read more »

The Newly Open Pop’s Dollar Shop. Photo by DNAinfo.

• Pop’s Dollar Food Shop has opened in the back of Gyro II [DNAinfo]
• Gazala Place has a $10 lunch special [Food in Mouth]
• Desi Food Truck’s vegetarian platter looks terrible, but tastes delicious [Ramen & Friends]
• 4Food makes some of the craziest fries in NYC [Eater]
• Best sandwiches under $6 list includes Margon [SENY]
• A look at more of Food Gallery 32’s offerings [Feisty Foodie]
• Tulcingo del Valle makes a good cemita [Fork in the Road]
• Schnipper’s is Midtown Lunch’er approved! [Tasty Eating]

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so 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.

NYC’s own prognosticating groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, might have predicted we’re in for an early spring, but the cacophony of clanking from my radiators say otherwise. In any case, I hope he’s right because tornados, blizzards, and howling winds have had me dreaming of sipping a wheat lager as I brown in the sun at my favorite watering hole as opposed to seeking cover in the winterized bunker I call my apartment at the end of day. So this installment of ML Happy Hour is a bit more PSA then AA, with a look at Irish Exit and some booze news for spring.

Read more »

Becoming a mobile vendor is not quite as easy as ehow would have you believe. So in anticipation of Softee Season 2011 we’ve asked Chrissy (aka Miss Softee) to show us the process of what it takes to become an ice cream vendor in Midtown. We’ll meet the potential new vendors, and track their progress through the selection and training process as all of the candidates make their way towards being a full fledged Mr. Softee vendor. Last week you met the first few hires, this week Team Softee 2011 adds more drivers to the crew. Take it away Miss Softee!

This week all of the new midtown Softee crew headed down to the Department of Health to register to take their Mobile Food Vending classes. Most of the group will go through the actual class in early March, but in the meantime, they’re getting more and more excited to meet you all and are imagining all the ways to bring something unique to their trucks!! I’m pleased to introduce you to a few more drivers that were hired last week. Read more »