Midtown Lunch

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.

When I heard Bierhaus was opening this past weekend (on 3rd Ave. btw. 44+45th), I was stoked to slip on my Gretel dress, tie some blue ribbons in my pigtails and have some lederhosen clad Kraut slap some wurst on my plate. Biergartens, once all but extinct in the city, have been enjoying a resurgence as of late. It used to be you had to travel all the way to Astoria to find the real deal. Since we are talking Midtown, Bierhaus doesn’t have seating for 800 people and there is no garden to speak of, but hey, we’ll take what we can get.

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We’ve seen a lot of DOH sign shenanigans.  Cover ups.  Camouflage. Comedic acceptence. But making up your own sign and hanging it in the window?  This is new even for us.  Luncher “Ambitious Delish” tweeted us this photo yesterday from S. Dynasty (on 48th btw. Lex+3rd).  “Is this allowed,”  she asked.  Honestly?  We have no idea, but utilizing our skills of judgement and basic common sense we’re going to go with…. no.

Anybody ever been to this place?  We couldn’t find it on the DOH restaurant inspection site (which can provide hours of fun, I assure you), but found A grades at three different restaurants in this building – including a Chinese one called Lo.  But nothing listed at all for S. Dynasty.  Then again, the 2 1/2 stars on Yelp worry us a bit more than the letter in the window.

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. So far you’ve met the first few hires here and here and seen what it takes to get your paperwork in order to become a licensed mobile vendor. This week the crew begins to ready the trucks to hit the streets. Take it away Miss Softee!

Hey kids!! The RollingCones team has been busy applying for their badges (which we’ll tell you all about next week), but that hasn’t stopped the returning ice cream truck vets from hitting the streets along with this gorgeous weather! Read more »

The ML Team’s Cucina & Co Chef’s Table experience has been mixed. I enjoyed their pork tenderloin medallions with pasta, but Jeremiah had a less than satisfactory experience with their much hyped Friday sliders special. This week I noticed that the sliders were bumped to a Thursday slot in favor of a Tuna Burger special presumably for the Lenten lunch crowd.

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We here in Midtown have been big fans of the Schnitzel & Things Truck ever since its first appearance on our streets way back in August ’09, so naturally we’ve been super excited for their brick-and-mortar store to open in the spot that used to house the original Kushi-Q (on 3rd btw 45th+46th). If God loves schnitzel, the shop will be open in time for our Monday lunches. And since Schnitzel & Things loves Midtown Lunch, I got a little sneak peek behind the brown paper yesterday!

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes south of the ML boundaries in search of a delicious lunch. Sometimes it’s Murray Hill south or the Flatiron District, sometimes Gramercy and everything in between- but we just like to call it Flatiron Lunch.

Located on an otherwise deserted stretch on 31st Street, Ayza is a wine and chocolate bar that doesn’t immediately come to mind as a place to find a Midtown Lunch. In fact, that point may still be debatable. It’s sort of fancy. I know I walked past it dozens of time without giving it a second thought until I saw that they offer a $9.95 lunch special. Skeptical, I decided to investigate.

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Thanks to Lunch’er Wayne for sending along this news…

“In the time-honored spirit of Chinese restaurant tax-dodging, Ying Du (on 38th btw. 7+8th) has transmogrified into MING Du. Not sure but i believe it involves the principal fleeing back to china while holding unrecoverable debt (i.e. the business “lost” money) while the business reincorporates under a new name. cash kept, taxes forgiven, business stays open, roast pork gets eaten, everybody wins except the IRS.”

We have no comment about your theory, but the name change has been duly noted and we hope the food hasn’t changed.

If yesterday’s post about the Serious Eats review of Food Gallery 32 got you thinking about stopping in for dinner or an after work snack tonight, you might want to hold off. This afternoon, around 3pm, a sprinkler burst over O-De-Ppang! in booth 3 of the Koreatown food court. The FDNY was on sight in minutes to get things worked out. Don’t panic though, word is they should be up and running again in the next couple of hours.

• Toasties makes an excellent corned beef and cabbage!? [Midtown Eating]
• What’s a good place to watch the Final Four during lunch? [Midtown Eating]
• BOGO bubble tea? [Midtown Eating]
• The March ML Happy Hour meetup is less than one week away [Connections]

Back in January we told you that Schnitzel & Things would be opening a brick and mortar store on 3rd Ave. btw. 45+46th. Well, according to this they are hoping to officially open on Monday! (With a soft open as early as this weekend!?) We hear that the construction is not completely done yet, so nothing is guaranteed, but even if Monday isn’t the day… clearly we are only days away from stationary schnitz! Oh, and we’ve been saying it forever… but as Fork in the Road notes, food truck wannabes should take note of Gene’s comments.  Running a food truck is not as “liberating” as you might think. (Emotionally and financially.)  [via Eater]