Midtown Lunch

‘wichcraft‘s new seasonal menu begins today. They’re serving the roasted chicken sandwich ($9.64) with tuscan kale, cannellini puree and mozzarella on grilled country bread. I’m happy to see the meatloaf sandwich is back on the menu too with tomato relish, bacon and aged cheddar served on ciabatta ($9.87). Of course there must be a frittata, and the new one includes pancetta, roasted tomatoes, rosemary and aged cheddar on a ciabatta roll ($6.89). And, the veggie option is a sweet potato sandwich on grilled country bread with black olives, basil, goat cheese and mozzarella ($7.35). In additional to the new seasonal items, ‘wichcraft will now offer daily specials as well. No word on the price for those, but I’m going to go ahead and assume they’ll be at the top end of their $7-$10 range.

‘wichcraft, multiple locations

If you’re a fan of Pizza by Cer Te‘s margherita slices, but don’t like paying full price, you’ll be excited to know that they’re doing another one of their Two For Tuesday specials today.  Starting at Noon today you’ll be able to get two slices of pizza for just $2 at their location on 56th btw. Park+Lex.  And that’s not all.  Over at sister restaurant Cer Te (on 55th btw. 5+6th) they’re introducing their Feb. sandwich of the month today.  It’s a pambazo, and features chorizo, potatoes, lettuce, caramelized onions, queso fresco, salsa verde and sour cream stuffed inside a torta roll that’s been dipped into Guajilla sauce. As always, the sandwich will run you $8.95.  Early adopters, let us know what you think in the comments.

An article in Gothamist on Friday revealed that Mayor Bloomberg is proposing to create a team of seven lawyers who will hunt down food vendors with outstanding violations. He’s willing to invest $580,000 in the program assured that they will recoup that money with the payment of tickets. I’m betting he’s wrong.

The reason why the majority of the millions of dollars in tickets have not been paid is because the fines are simply too damn high! The Street Vendor Project has been arguing this for years (since the Bloomberg administration raised the fines from $250 to $1000 back in 2006). They even held a hearing last year to get the $1000 fines lowered to a more moderate $250 and have been campaigning for City Council Speaker Quinn to call the bill for a vote.

SVP Director Sean Basinsiki responded immediately with an email blast to members. It’s after the jump…

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It’s possible to frequent Koreatown stalwart Food Gallery 32 and have no idea a top floor exists. Most of the food vendors are on the ground floor with a small seating area in the balcony. You have to venture even further up to the second floor to discover the newly opened Angry Chicken.

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We wouldn’t normally post something like this since frozen prepared food is generally not our thing. But this concerns one of Midtown’s favorite food trucks and it’s for charity, for Pete’s Sake! For the next few weeks, Eddie’s Pizza Truck is moonlighting as the promotional Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese Truck. They’ll be traveling around the city offering a few varieties of their mac and cheese for $4 for a 16 ounce bowl. On select days, they will welcome a celebrity chef/TV personality (like Amanda Freitag and Marc Murphy) to serve a specialty macaroni and cheese. According to their schedule, which can be found on their Facebook page, they will be on 48th & 3rd. Before you complain about pre-packaged or overpriced mac and cheese, you should know that 100% of the profits will be donated to the Mayor’s Fund in order to continue to help the victims of Sandy.

Photo Courtesy of Robert Sietsema

• Robert Sietsema tries the Mega Dog at Hello Deli [Fork in the Road]
• Mapo tofu > twice cooked pork belly at La Vie En Sichuan [Food in Mouth]
• A Thai food truck is trying to launch using Kickstarter [Grub Street]
• Your First Look at Pho 66 in Hell’s Kitchen [Grub Street]
• Pie Face’s chunky steak pie is THAT good [Feisty Foodie]
• There’s no stale greasy aftertaste at Steak N Shake [Pink Pig]
• A 3rd round of Choice Eats participants have been announced [FITR]

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent posts 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.

I’m just going to go right out there and say it so there’s no confusion. Annie Moore’s is too expensive to be classified as a proper Midtown Happy Hour. Most glaringly because there are no happy hour specials. But over the past few weeks for whatever reason, I kept getting invited to go there for drinks. I thought the stars were telling me I needed to write something up, because the bar does have a few pieces of interestingness I can report.

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Fans of the Bryant Park Holiday market pop up Mmm…Enfes rejoice! The owners of the popular seasonal kiosk have opened a small storefront just off the SE corner of 39th and 6th Avenue where they sell savory and sweet Turkish pastries from including bourek, gul bourek, baklava, and gözleme, a traditional Turkish hand rolled pastry along with other lunch time options. Look for the full ML treatment on Monday, in the meantime, earlier adopters, let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Mmm…Enfes 70 West 39th Street , New York, New York 10018

Every Friday we go 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.

I feel like I have been neglecting the readers in the northwestern corner of the Flatiron boundaries, so I ventured towards Madison Square Garden this week. On past walks through this area, I haven’t seen that many exiting options (sorry all of you who work up there!) But Urban Kitchen seemed worth a try, and the prices were good.

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