Midtown Lunch

Sadly, another food truck bites the dust. Mexico Blvd who have been a regular Friday visitor to Midtown West announced on Twitter yesterday that they will be shutting down their mobile operation after four years in business. The reasoning given on their website is as expected: impossible permitting system and difficult parking laws among others.

This is the second hugely successful food truck to close this year after The Cinnamon Snail bid adieu back in February. And these are just the publicized closings. I can only imagine how many food carts in less explored neighborhoods close every day due to the difficulties of obtaining a legal permit. Street Vendor Project continues to campaign for lifitng the caps, in order to allow more fair opportunities for small mobile food businesses.

Today will be Mexico Blvd’s last day on the streets. They’ll be parked on 46th and 6th and if you’ve never tried their al pastor tacos with crispy cheese, then today’s the day!

My commute forces me to walk through the craziness of Broadway Bites. Sure, I could walk around the tents along Sixth Avenue, but sometimes I like to look to see if there’s anything worthwhile. Recently, I noticed a newer stall among the usual overpriced tacos and fancy macarons.

I had never seen Hai Street Kitchen before. Turns out this is a company based in Philly (where the rolls are cheaper) and this is their first venture with Urban Space. Since the lines weren’t too long and there was something to eat at $10 or under, I decided to bite.

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It never made sense to me that most of the Greek restaurants in Midtown are ultra expensive and cater to the expense accounts or splurging tourists. We’ve certainly not been lacking for souvlakis and gyros from trucks and carts (Uncle Gussy’s, Carnegie John’s, Lil Zeus Lunch Box, just to name a few). But sometimes it’s nice to sit down with your tzatziki.

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A few weeks ago, we told you that Biryani Cart owner Meru Sikder re-launched his fried rice cart Vooter-Adda. Now things have changed once again. The Chinese-Indian fusion cart didn’t work out so well, so instead, Meru has put a second Biryani Cart on 46th Street across the street from the original one.

The menus are exactly the same so if the line is too long on the west side of the street, you can cross over Sixth Avenue and get the same affordable kati rolls and biryani dishes on the NE corner. Now that most of the food trucks have been kicked out of this block, it’s nice to know we have one more option on this side of Sixth.

One of the most popular streets for trendy mobile food vendors is 50th Street between 6th and 7th. The good news is that since this block is mostly populated by food carts (as opposed to trucks), the danger of the police shutting it down is lower. So if you work near 50th Street, you won’t have to worry about going hungry anytime soon.

And that’s espeically since this street seems to be the most popular for new food carts trying things out in Midtown. We have Swami, Tuk Tuk Boy, Li-Sal’s, Lil Zeus Lunch Box, and Hyderabad just to name a few.

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In case you live under a rock, Chick Fil A finally opened up their first ‘real’ NYC location at 37th and 6th Avenue. Lines have been crazy long but well-organized based on some things I’ve seen on my Facebook feed, so I imagine the protesters and controversy surrounding the chain hasn’t really done much to dampen the enthusiasm for fried chicken sandwiches.

There was a crazy opening ceremony that included their giving away “Chicken For A Year” to 100 lucky winners, which is described in explicit detail over at Gawker. Be warned – that’s a super long story that is entertaining and fun to read, but the bottom line is: that Gawker reporter is a genius for masking his (her?) Maker’s Mark as sweet tea by using lots of ice, but that Gawker reporter is also a complete moron for ruining his/her $4000 Macbook by waiting in the rain to be a part of the contest and winning what amounts to roughly $400 of fast food fried chicken sandwiches.

In any case, any early adopters out there? Let us know in comments what you think about Chick Fil A, or where we can find really delicious fried chicken sandwiches elsewhere in midtown that are under the $10 mark… and I will eat them all.

Chick Fil A, 1000 Avenue of the Americas (and 6th Avenue), New York, NY 10018
Phone: (212) 704-9920

On my Midtown wanderings yesterday, I passed by Clarke’s Standard and was greeted by this horrifying sight! You guys may remember me battling it out with y’all for what really is in the spirit of ML – calling you complainers and whiners, and mocking you when my lunch went over the $10 limit by 7c.

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The best thing about food blogging is you get to straight-face talk about some really awesome stuff to the normies. It’s awesome to be able to kvell about Serbian kebabs back when Cevap Truck was still around, and even though we’ve reached Peak Korean Fusion, there’s few things better than describing Korilla or Kimchi Taco to non-Manhattanites. Now we get to throw another fun thing in: Venezuelan sandwiches. Cachapas on Wheels premiered in Manhattan earlier this week and they are making their way to Midtown. We’ve got the skinny on these super-dense sandwich bombs – check out below the jump for more.

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