Midtown Lunch

Thanks to Mr. Wilson for sending in this tip about Zocalo in Grand Central: “Shut down by the health department yesterday for at least 2 days due to ‘refrigeration issues’. Will be hosting a customer appreciation night this coming monday. A sign posted yesterday invited everyone to ‘come by monday for a margarita on the house’.” Nice! Now that’s how you handle a Department of Health closure properly.

As a luncher who likes having many a good amount of options for my meals, I was excited to make my own sushi at My Maki (43rd btw Lex+3rd), especially when it could involve junk food. I know junk food in sushi might be considered irreverence to Japanese culture, but it feels so rebellious. Seeing that they’re running a special “Midtown Lunch Promotion” getting you $3 off any roll this week, I made the time to head on over.

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Photo courtesy of SENY/Ben Fishner

It looks like Serious Eats New York has discovered something that our man Chris H has been saying for months and months… Pure Thai Shophouse (on 9th Ave. btw. 51+52nd) is one of the best (if not THE best) Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue.  They especially liked the green papaya salad with salted blue crab.

This was mentioned in the forums back in March, but we didn’t notice until just today thanks to Lunch’er Harry: the Sombrero Cart, which has been parked on 50th just West of 6th Ave. for as long as we can remember, has moved to 54th and Madison.  Hard shell tortilla and nacho cheese lovers, take note!

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 Lauren, a freelance writer who gets all tingly around injera.

Name: Lauren

Age: 28

Occupation: Freelance writer, photographer, trendsetter

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Restaurantgirl.com and bestfooding.com! My office is wherever there’s free internet and something to graze on.

Favorite Kind of Food: Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican-ese….basically any cuisine that ends in -ese and encourages eating with chopsticks or your hands. Forks are so 2010.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Ethiopian. The injera bread makes my fingers tingly, which freaks me out.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: SnAKs in Saks (on 5th btw. 49+50th) for quick shopping and lobster salad sandwich lunch break. Mooncake Foods (on 54th btw. 8+9th) broiled salmon over salad. Grand Central Market’s Pescatore Seafood Co tuna fish. Le Pain Quotidien’s quiche lorraine is killer, the ricotta and fig tartine if I’m not starving.

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In hindsight, it was unfair of us to post a mostly unfavorable write-up of Bai Cha, which opened on 9th Ave last August. We don’t call ourselves professional restaurant critics, but any professional food writer worth their salt will wait at least a month before visiting a restaurant with the intent to critique. So when I saw that Bai Cha’s bánh mì fell around the middle of the pack in Serious Eats’ recent assessment – earning a place right behind Bánh Mì Saigon, but besting Baoguette and Nicky’s among others – I knew it was time a for another visit.
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