Midtown Lunch

The recent winner of the 2010 ‘Best Coffee As Voted On By You’ (and my personal favorite cup of Joe), Financier Patisserie recently contacted us to give a heads up that they’re now carrying retail tins of coffee at all nine of their locations. The coffee is roasted daily in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and is available in either their original blend, or their single origin fair trade espresso roast. Both flavors come in 8 oz tins ($8.50), and be purchased as either pre-ground or whole bean. Decaf is also available for the pre-ground versions.

To promote this new launch, they offered to give us free gift baskets to sample, but we’d rather hand these out to the loyal readers of Midtown lunch!  All you have to do is reply in the comments and tell us what goes wrong with your day if you don’t get your coffee fix?

The contest rules, plus a photo of what you’ll win is after the jump.
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Back in June we relayed the news that popular California based burger chain The Counter “Custom Built Burgers” was going to be taking over the old Juan Valdez space in Times Square (on Broadway and 41st).  Well, the sign is up and it looks like they’re getting ready to open.  We’re not sure the official opening date (Grub Street is saying Monday) but they’ve agreed to give 25 Midtown Lunch’ers and their guests a little sneak preview. The first 25 people to RSVP will have the chance to try a starter and a burger at The Counter for free this Friday, December 17 between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. To RSVP email your first and last name along with what time (has to be between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.) you wish to book your exclusive preview reservation to timessquare@thecounterburger.com. Winners will be contacted via email.

Keep in mind The Counter is a build your own burger situation (they boast 66 different toppings, and over 300,000 possible burger combinations) so you might want to study the menu before heading over. And if you need more guidance, Zach tried one of the Los Angeles locations back in June. (Spoiler: topping your burger with pineapple, cole slaw, brie, *and* onion rings might be going a bit overboard.)

The much anticipated Glaze Teriyaki (Lexington between 54th & 55th) is set to have their grand opening today, and will be serving their Seattle based Japanese and Korean inspired teriyaki dishes for lunch. In honor of the grand opening, the Glaze team wants to give 3 Midtown Lunch’ers free teriyaki for a year! All you have to do to enter is reply in the comments below and share either your favorite teriyaki memory or write an original teriyaki inspired haiku. The contest is open from now until midnight next Tuesday (12/14).  Limit one entry per person, winners will be selected randomly.

Curious to see what you’ll get if you win? We snuck into their soft opening/preview last night to give you a first look. And the early indicators are more than promising.  (In other words, you’re going to want to win this prize.)

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Last week marked the beginning of fall and for those of you who follow the ice cream truck trade, that means that fewer and fewer trucks are on the road these days. While the last official day of the season isn’t until October 31st, it’s pretty much going to depend on the weather; about 1/2 of the regular trucks (both Softee and non branded white trucks) have already stopped for the season. Miss Softee is still out there (when it’s not raining!) and is currently running an ice cream contest. Want free ice cream? Details after the jump.

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Earlier in the week, we told you how you could help your favorite food truck win $10,000 as part of the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race Giveaway. If you follow Cupcake Stop, Treats Truck, Mexicue, Calexico, NYC Cravings, Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, Bistro Truck, or Eddie’s Pizza Truck on Twitter or Facebook you know that everybody is lobbying hard for the win. But not every truck is planning on keeping the $10k prize for themselves. Eddie’s Pizza Truck has said they will donate the prize to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, while the Cravings Truck has vowed to give away free lunch for a week if they win (200 platters a day for 5 days.) Tough decision. Help a charity? Or help yourself get free food. Or just vote for whoever you think is the best! Either way, the current Top 10 doesn’t have a single New York Food truck. Clearly we need to change that… Vote now. The contest ends a week from today (on 9/10).

It’s been almost 9 months since we first discovered 4Food, the crazy new burger concept opening soon on 40th and Madison Ave..  They launched their website back in November of 2009 promising to offer a fully customizable, healthier fast food burger by cutting a hole in the patty and filling it with various “scoops” (think mushrooms and onions, or spinach and toasted pine nuts.)  With 8 different patties (beef, pork, fish, veggie, etc), 5 different buns, over 15 scoops, 7 cheeses, 6 other toppings, a ton of condiments, and the promise of seasonal specials, the permutations are endless… and as if the food itself isn’t crazy enough, there will be free wi-fi, the ability to order from an iPad, computerized ordering kiosks (for those who are iPad-less), social networking tie ins, and a giant menu board that will show Twitter info, Four Square check-ins and menu fun.  You’ll also be able to create your own burger, and then “advertise” it to friends using… you guessed it… social networking!

Horrible or horribly amazing?  Either way, we’re pretty excited to see how this madness turns out- and we’re guessing if you read this site, you feel the same way.  So, with that in mind, 4Food has agreed to let some of you get a special sneak preview.  The grand opening has been pushed back to September 7th, but they’ve agreed to allow 35 Midtown Lunch readers (and a guest) come in for a special preview lunch at the end of the month.  All you have to do to enter to win is comment on this post with the burger creation you’d want to try on your first visit. The best sounding burger (to us) will get to attend the preview, and their burger will be added to the 4Food menu as the “Midtown Lunch” special.  The rest of the winners will be chosen randomly and notified next week.  Good luck!  The contest closes on Monday, August 15th at Noon.

Check out the opening day menu of 4Food after the jump…

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FloFab reported it weeks ago, and we just got confirmation that the original location of Soup Kitchen International (the spot on 55th just west of 8th Ave popularized by Seinfeld as the “Soup Nazi”) will reopen on Tuesday at Noon… and according to their website, they’ll be giving away free t-shirts on opening day. The Soup Man’s people offered us a VIP pass to skip the line for free soup (and the T-Shirt as well) but you know we don’t like to do that kind of thing… however, we’ll gladly let them give it to you! Want to win the pass and the shirt? Leave a comment with either your favorite S.K.I. soup (or whichever soup sounds the best to you). We’ll randomly select a winner today at 5pm, so they have time to mail you the prize before Tuesday.

Want to see the opening day soup menu? It’s after the jump…

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Profiled Lunch’er, City Council liveblogger, and all around great gal “Miss Softee” emailed us today about a contest she’s holding to win free ice cream for a month.  “The inspiration just isn’t coming to me, so I need help naming my new ice cream mobile.  Submit entries via Twitter or in person at the truck (location can be found on Twitter or the ML Twitter Tracker).  All submissions must be received by midnight tomorrow (07/01) one entry per person, no profanity, and winner will receive one free ice cream a day for the entire month of July (good at my truck only). Winner will be selected by myself and a group of other ice cream drivers on Friday, July 2.”  Good Luck! UPDATE: Don’t use twitter?  Miss Softee says she will accept any submissions in the comments of this post as well.

Yesterday PR people from the newly opened Lena Latin Grill (on 35th btw. 5+6th) offered us a free $20 gift card, to “sample the variety of Latin-inspired dishes from [their] wood-burning grill”.  We have a general policy of paying for all the food we write about, and we just wouldn’t feel right keeping the free food to ourselves when we could give it to you instead! Want to try Lena Latin Grill for free?  We’ve got a $20 gift card for one lucky winner, and all you have to do to enter is post a comment below letting us know why it should be yours.  Limit one comment per person, and we’ll draw a winner on Friday (6/25) at 3pm.   Good luck!

Shilla, the Korean restaurant on 32nd btw. B’way+5th that has been known to offer $5 and $6 take out lunch specials, has been doing a little PR lately… inviting bloggers to come sample food for free so they’ll write about it. Their sit down lunch specials are $9.95-$14.95 and include kimchi jjigae, gop dol (a dolsot bi bim bap sounding kind of thing shown on the left), plus a galbi box for $11.95. As good as it looks– we here at ML don’t accept special free meals from the places we write about, but we’ll gladly give the free food to you! Shilla has agreed to let us give away the free tasting menu to one lucky Midtown Lunch’er and a guest. Just comment below and let us know why you should be the one, and you’re entered to win. Contest ends on Friday at 5pm. Good luck!

Photo courtesy of Ultraclay