Midtown Lunch

The salad of my dreams at Coppelia. Photo by Blondie

Blondie finds a salad topped with a fried egg and chicharrones at Coppelia, Brownie suggests pie recipes for Thanksgiving, Donny checked out Greenpoint’s new Lobster Joint, Brian recovers from turkey trauma in his new thanksgiving video at Court Street Grocers, Chris wrote up the Italian sub at White House Sub Shop in Atlantic City and Rachel had a dinner of steak and kimchi at Prime & Beyond.

Elsewhere in the ML universe… Andrea splurges for lunch at The Bailey in FiDi, Jamie tries out Pakistani whole fried chicken and Zach ditches turkey in favor of a Hokkaido Seafood Buffet in LA.

• Do any brick and mortar restaurants serve street meat? [Midtown Eating]
• The portions at Korilla are getting smaller [Midtown Eating]
• DiFara’s not immune from the DOH either! [Eating Outside of Midtown]
• Apparently a Dylan’s Candy Bar has popped up near Bryant Park [Midtown Eating]

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 Alexa, a musician who wishes she lived in Japan.

Name: Alexa

Age: 24

Occupation: Music Publisher and Musician

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Midtown East – 51st and Madison

Favorite Kind of Food: Generally Asian – Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean – as well as Italian and Polish/Eastern European. And Tacos.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Salads (usually too boring), Nuts (most things are just better without ‘em)

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Schnitzel & Things (the truck, when it’s parked on 51st between Madison and Park): The pork schnitzel platter with spicy Sriracha mayo, accompanied with beet salad and potato salad. Yes, I have a Schnitzel & Things sticker on my electric stapler…it looks good on there. Hing Won (48th Street btw. Rockefeller Plaza and 6th Ave): Cantonese Wonton Noodle Soup with Roast Pork. I’m a noodle soup junkie from when the temperatures start to drop to the most humid days of the summer. Glaze (Lexington Ave btw 54th and 55th Street): Salmon Teriyaki w/ a side of pork gyoza. Every time I go to this restaurant, I’m bound to hear Phoenix playing on their speakers and it makes me even more pumped to eat my salmon teriyaki. And, as a transplant from Seattle, this place tastes like home – it’s the real deal for Seattle teriyaki. Bian Dang (last encountered on 46th and Vanderbilt): Fried chicken over rice!

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Photo courtesy of Lunch’er Peg

The second floor MoMA exhibit we told you about last month is open and serving free Thai curry from noon to 3 (except on Fridays when it will be served from 4 to 7.) Lunch’er Peg went on opening day (November 17), and reported back:

A few fellow freeloaders – I mean colleagues – from the office tried day 1 of free curry at MoMA. The good news: barely a line at noon for very tasty green curry! The bad news: the portion was small.

The exhibit runs through February 8th, so you have plenty of time this winter to check it out.  Of course unless you’re a member, entry to the museum will cost you $25, so “free” curry is a little misleading…

Photo by Donny T

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, all of the ML contributors have turkey on our minds. And of course this wouldn’t be Midtown Lunch if we didn’t try to think outside of the generic deli turkey sandwiches box (hello, Thanksgiving pizza anyone?). So we polled a few of our contributors to recall some of their favorite Midtown turkey dishes.
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Last month, Lunch’er NYCguy posted in the forums that Pret, of all things, would be taking over the space formerly occupied by the Judaica store that had been in that 45th street spot (between 5th and 6th) forever. Sadness! I passed by today and saw the coming soon signage still there, so I became curious. A quick call revealed they plan to open December 12. With 11 locations already open in Midtown West alone, I can’t imagine anyone’s clamoring for this one to open, but in case you are, there you go.

Kwik Meal appears to be making a foray into the beef market. With lamb prices on the rise (more on that in a sec), pricing the cart out of ML range for the lamb on rice, I usually go for their chicken kati roll. But today, my eyes wandered, and I saw something I hadn’t noticed before: beef sticks!

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When Feed Your Hole launched in January, they got an ear full from Midtown Lunch’ers in our comments. People had a problem with the name. And the logo. The random use of red words on the menu. The use of the Philly-style word “wit.” And, of course, there were accusations of shilling. Feed Your Hole’s Sean Sullivan got involved, stood up for their food and offered the haters free lunch (no word if anyone took him up on it). Clocking in at 133(!!) comments in just four days, it was intense.

After a recent mention in the forums, I figured it might be time to check back in with the truck and see what the food’s all about.

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