Midtown Lunch

Excuse me. You’re not selling Indian food out of that grocery bag, are you?

This comment was posted on Friday by “Lunch’er Nancy” to my piece about the Ecuadorian lady who sells food out of a grocery cart on 46th btw. 5+6th:

There is a random woman selling homemade Indian food in plastic containers out of a shopping cart on 58th between Madison & 5th… had curry chicken which she serves with roti, remember it being extremely oily but also tasty. She is near the Apple store plaza.

Well, naturally I camped out next to the Apple Store yesterday from 12:30 to 1:30 and not surprisingly there was no sign of this magical sounding lady.

Has anybody else had this food? Is she in a particular spot or does it vary? Does she only come on certain days? And what time can we find her? Please help!  Post as comments, or email to zach@midtownlunch.com

Jerk Chicken at the Jamaican Dutchy

Julia Moskin has a great Jamaican jerk feature in this mornings New York Times and guess who should pop up, but our good friends at the Jamaican Dutchy (on 51st & 7th Ave.)  She interviews owner Oneil Reid and calls his jerk chicken one of “the best truck lunches in the city.”  No argument here.

But the most interesting part to me is what the article had to say about jerk pork, and why Oneil doesn’t offer it at the Dutchy:

He said that he would like to make jerk pork sometimes, but that many of the other food vendors, and the taxi drivers who inch past his cart in Midtown traffic, are Muslim, and the pork smell bothers them.

That’s a bummer, although entirely commendable.

By now, if you’re a regular reader of this site then you have pretty much figured out my rules for what qualifies as a true Midtown Lunch.  The most important rule is probably the one about the meal costing under $10, but I fully admit that sometimes this rule isn’t always clear.  Does that mean with tax it has to be under $10?  How about drinks?  Or chips? Or french fries?  What part of the meal must be $10?  For example alot of people will email me and suggest a sit down restaurant with an $8.95 or $9.95 lunch special.  Sure technically, that could be considered a Midtown Lunch- but I tend to shy away from those places, unless they are doing something that you can’t get anywhere else in Midtown.  After all, once you add tax and tip and everything- it ends up being over $10, and not necessarily a great value.

On the other hand, when the bar menu loophole was discovered at Del Frisco’s I immediately blogged about it.  $9.95 got you high quality steak tips and mashed potatoes at a sit down restaurant, where lunch normally costs $40.  If busting into a super fancy steakhouse, dressed like a schmuck, and eating the cheapest (but totally filling) thing on the menu isn’t the epitome of Midtown Lunch’ish behaviour, then I don’t know what is.  They raised the price two weeks later.  To some, it may still be worth it- but it’s no longer a Midtown Lunch.  In the end, sometimes the whole price thing just comes down to a gut feeling.

So a few weeks back, my gut and I headed over to Beacon, an upscale (read: expensive) American restaurant on 56th btw. 5+6th to check out their “Burger Bar”- which has an under $10 loophole of their own.   Read more »

You know what I say… the only good Chipotle is free Chipotle, and two more Chipotles opening soon in Midtown should mean two opportunities for free burritos.  The first one is on 45th Street btw. 5+6th and is tentatively scheduled to open on Monday July 14th.  Usually free burrito day is the day before the grand opening, but that would be a Sunday and very disappointing.  I’ll confirm as we get closer to the date… but let’s hope July 14th will bring gratis burritos.  Maybe that will make up for their grossly misleading calorie postings.  Signs for the second location have gone up on 50th and Park, but no date has been set for an opening.

In other chain burrito news, if you work on the west side and were jealous of the east side Qdoba alternative- the west side will soon be getting its very own Qdoba on 50th btw. 6+7th.  Huzzah! 

Have you seen a new place set to open up in Midtown?  Email the news, with or without a photo to zach@midtownlunch.com

This amazingness is no more.

This is the part of my job I like the least… much like a cop telling a parent their kid is dead I have the unfortunate job of letting everyone know that Goodburger has discontinued selling breakfast.  This means no more breakfast burger over a bed of hash browns topped with an egg.  Goodburger now opens at 10am everyday, only serving their lunch menu.  I… promised… myself… I… wouldn’t… cry…

Goodburger… I begged you to have egg topped burgers added to your lunch menu, and this is how you respond?  Getting rid of them entirely?  It’s almost as much of a slap in the face as not being on your wall.  I resubmit my plea.  Please don’t let the egg topped burger go by the Midtown wayside.  It’s the only way you can distinguish yourself from the Five Guys/Burger Joint onslaught.  Pretty please with an egg on top?

Le Pain Quotidien, the bread/sandwich/salad/bakery chain from Brussels, quietly opened its second Midtown location back in October on 40th St. btw. 5+6th, across from Bryant Park.  It probably wasn’t all that quiet to LPQ fans in the area, but for this hater of expensive Midtown bread/sandwich/salad/bakery chains it went virtually unnoticed.  After Profiled Midtown Lunch’er Janine mentioned it last Tuesday, I thought maybe it was time to go check it out.  While I normally detest paying over $7 for a sandwich, if it’s done right- with really nice ingredients, I will occasionally splurge for something really good. ‘wichcraft  has managed to rope me in despite having tiny sandwiches.  LPQ will have to a little better to lure me away from my goto Bryant Park lunch.

Two sandwiches attempt to be worth $9, and the biggest cookie in Midtown- after the jump…  Read more »

When the Caribbean Spice Cart popped up at the end of April on 46th Street btw. 6+7th it had a pretty tall order: to operate a cart selling Caribbean food just 5 blocks away from the Jamaican Dutchy– what I consider to be one of the best carts in Midtown. Sprung from the ashes of Caribbean Spice, a Hell’s Kitchen restaurant that had closed down at the beginning of the year, early reports from the cart were mixed. The first meal I had there was decent, but not great, and Danny from in Mouth reported that the oxtails were just mediocre. Now, with actual signage (when they first started it was just a cart with a piece of poster board) the cart is finally hitting their stride, and while it’s pretty clear they’re not going to unseat the Dutchy, there are two items on the menu that set them apart. Read more »