Midtown Lunch

There are a lot of reasons I choose to write about a place.  Being “Cheap” is a given… but other than that the first, and most obvious is the food.  A lot of the places I write about do something interesting- something that isn’t available everywhere.  Whether it’s the Indian Burritos at Kati Roll, the rice balls at Oms/b, the various ramen places, or the meat pies at Tuck Shop– these postings are most popular because they are destination lunches- worth walking that extra 5 or 10 minutes if you don’t work right near the place.

I write about carts because there are so many of them, and it’s hard to know which ones are good and bad.  Plus, a lot of people are scared of them… and would rather read about my suffering after eating at a bad cart- then experience it for themselves.  I don’t usually write about the deli/salad bar places, because there is one on every block of Midtown- and they bore me.  I will, however write about one if they are doing something different or interesting… like the Korean Food at Cafe Duke, or the Soups @ Dishes. 

I very very rarely write about fast food- so the next question is obvious… Why the hell would you write about KFC???  Well the answer depends on who’s asking.  If you haven’t heard yet, New York City is considering banning artificial trans fats from all restaurants in the city.  In light of this possible ban, KFC has taken preemptive action, phasing trans fats out of the fried chicken at all their Manhattan restaurants (it’s still in the biscuits) as of the first of this month.  They plan on rolling out the change in all of their restaurants Nationwide by April of next year.

Clearly this is topical.  People need to know if this new KFC, fried in trans-fat’less soybean oil is as good as it used to be!  Right???  I’m doing a service to the community.  How does the new chicken compare to the old chicken.  (The real reason I’m writing about KFC, pictures and a less than helpful +/- after the jump)

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I love burritos, and have often lamented about the fact that there is not a good one in Midtown (here, here, here and here).  More than anything that comes from past experience, and experiences.  I have had some truly great burritos over the years, that hold special places in my heart…  the Carnitas Super Burrito at Anna’s Taqueria (Boston), the Chicken Mole Burrito at Casa Diaz in Los Feliz (Los Angeles), the Baja Chicken Burrito at Baja Fresh (locations everywhere in the U.S. except Manahattan!), the Huarache I had two weeks ago at the Ballfields in Red Hook, and finally, the gigantor Carnitas Burrito at La Costena (Mountain View California)… it’s what all carnitas burritos aspire to be.

Erasing all of those delicious burritos out of your mind, there is another category of Mexican food, or tex-mex, or whatever you want to call it that is a decent meal as long as you don’t compare it to the top of the heap.  For example, the Chicken Gordita Supreme at Taco Bell.  A tasty concoction that is perfectly good, and with none of the “side effects” commonly associated with eating at a place like Taco Bell.  It’s a deliciously soft and squishy pita type tortilla, with plain grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream on top.  No fake ground beef, no weird refried beans that send you to the toilet 15 minutes later.  I wouldn’t call it “great Mexican food”, but it’s a decent meal if you have to eat fast food.

A few months ago I discovered the world of Midtown “Taco” Carts when I ate at the Sombrero topped cart on 50th btw. 6+7th.  A world where nacho cheese reigns supreme, and ground beef and stewed chicken are your only two meat choices.  Soft corn tortillas are nowhere to be found, replaced by those crunchy yellow things that I’ve only seen at Taco bell, and in Ortega boxes in the Supermarket.  There are a lot of burritos and tacos I would choose above this type of place… but that doesn’t take away from the fact that if you are into hard shell tacos, and ground beef and nacho cheese- than this kind of place is going to be perfectly satisfying.

Thanks to an email tip, I discovered another Taco Cart (sadly, with no sombrero) for eastsiders looking for a lunch of nacho cheese and ground beef… with a surprisingly decent “chicken burrito”.  Pics and the +/- after the jump….

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Here we go again.  I love the buffets… and on Friday I visited another one (with my wife and a few of her co-workers).  I had actually been to this buffet back in March for my brother’s birthday- when it was known as Minado.  We went for dinner, and it was pretty good.  Decent sushi, some good hot things, not too crowded- but things were still fresh, and a huge selection.  A couple of months later, I had read that it was sold to Todai, a Japanese buffet chain with locations mostly in the west coast, Texas, Illinois, Virginia & New York.  My one previous visit to a Todai (in Los Angeles) left me with a bad taste in my mouth (literally).  The rice they used to make the sushi was disgusting, and the warm food was not so great either.

With that in mind, we went to the New York Todai, hoping that some of the Minado goodness was held over in the transition.  Todai is what is known by buffet aficionados as a “Super Buffet”.  It’s a very technical term, and might be difficult to understand for the buffet lay-person.  “Super” refers to the awesome size and nature of the buffet in question.  Most Super Buffets have many stations, and at least 50 items (I just made that up… I don’t think there is any real measure). 

Super Buffets also require a totally different technique from your small scale and regular size buffets.  With the small buffets it is easy to load your plate up with the 10-20 items they have available… but with a Super Buffet you need to be more cautious.  I like to take small bits of as many items as possible, scope out the real winners and then return for larger portions of the 3 or 4 things that I really loved.

Tackling Minado, the food porn, and the +/- after the jump…

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After snapping the picture of the new Sophie’s Cuban Cuisine set to open on 56th St. I happened upon a place that caught my interest.  What appeared to be a generic middle of the road Midtown sushi joint, had placed a cooler/glass case in front of their restaurant and were selling pre-made little boxes of sushi and other Japanese food… and there was a line.  I love sushi, and am always looking for good, cheap sushi at lunch, but I usually avoid the restaurant places because they are a little bit more money then I want to spend, and I don’t really eat at sit down places for lunch.  I’ll make exceptions for buffets, and really good ramen places… but sushi restaurants, I tend to avoid.

But this one was selling boxes of sushi out front, and that makes it exciting!  I don’t know what it is about setting up shop on a sidewalk that makes something more appetizing to me, but it just does.   Sell fresh made delicious sushi (or BBQ, or falafel, or gyro or teriyaki for that matter), in a restaurant where I have to sit, order, wait and then tip, and I’ll hesitate.  But take the same food, put it in a to go container, and sell it on the sidewalk for the same price- and I’ll be the first one on line.   

What they’ve got, the pictures, and the +/- after the jump…

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***THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CALLED KANAAT AND THE LUNCH BUFFET IS $10.95***

I’m a big fan of the buffet.  Not any particular buffet… just buffets in general.  I like the style of eating.  I like the variety.  I like the extent to which I can embarrass myself by eating a ridiculous amount of food.  Chinese would have to be my favorite kind of buffet, because I find it very hard to order just one thing at a Chinese food restaurant.  I’m actually a huge fan of any kind of Asian food in buffet form.  Sushi is not ideal (because of the freshness), but I have found a couple that I enjoy (like the Korean/Sushi buffet Arang, in Koreatown).  Indian buffets are great.  All you can eat Naan is an added bonus… and the only time I will lower my “don’t eat the bread” buffet rule.

American buffets are ok, but they are definitely my least favorite.  The buffet that a pregnant Frances McDormand ate at in Fargo (with the meatballs) looked pretty sweet… but unfortunately fictional buffets don’t count… and even if it does exist- I doubt I’ll ever be in that small town in Minnesota.  I love the buffets in Vegas- but I usually end up eating the Asian food- so that doesn’t really count as an “American” buffet.  I haven’t been to Charles Southern Kitchen (a Soul Food Buffet in Harlem) but it’s pretty high on the list.  Fried chicken on a buffet is the greatest and worst thing of all time… but I did survive a KFC buffet off I-95 in Florida once, so I’m sure I’ll be ok.

So on Friday, I was walking in an area of Midtown I had never been before and stumbled upon something very exciting (to me, because I’m fat and love buffets).  The place was called Al-Baraka, and it was something I had never seen before in all my buffet eating… a Turkish Buffet.  It passed the price test ($9.95), and the look test (the best part about eating at a buffet is that you can go in and take a peek at what you’re paying for) so I decided to check it out.

What I ate, the food porn and the +/- all after the jump…

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Being from a Jewish family, I’m a big fan of the smoked salmon.  Lox or nova… doesn’t matter which one, just slap it on a bagel with some white fish, cream cheese, onion (and sometimes tomato) and you’ve got one of the greatest meals of all time.  Thank you to the Eastern European Jews who brought this delicious food over at the beginning of the last century… 

Flash forward to the 80s, and Jews all around the country (actually it was probably just in New York and Miami) were trading in their parents’ smoke fish for raw fish.  Sushi was the new “it” food, and Jewish kids everywhere must have been thinking the same thing I was thinking the first time my Dad took me for sushi (“This is the weirdest chinese food I’ve ever had”). 

Now, I don’t know what genius came up with this one, but I’m guessing at some point one of these Japanese chefs said “Hey… Jews seem to love this bagel with cream cheese and salmon thing… let’s add cream cheese to our salmon maki!”  And thus, the “Bagel Roll” was born… also known as the Philadelphia Roll or sometimes the JB Roll (the Philadelphia I understand- because of the cream cheese, but I’m scared to know what JB stands for.  Could it possibly be Jew Boy???  That would be insanity…)

Anyway, flash forward another 20 years and it looks like Au Bon Pain has decided to take this marriage one step farther… reclaiming the salmon & cream cheese bagel- but keeping the Wasabi.  What the hell kind of craziness is this?  I don’t normally eat at chain sandwich places like ABP, but I could only manage walking by the sign 3 times before finally breaking down and trying this “Salmon & Wasabi Cream Cheese Sandwich” at Au Bon Pain.

What the actual thing looked like (nothing like the sign of course…), and the +/- after the jump…

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In my quest to search out the best Ramen in Midtown, I feel like I’ve gone backwards… Sapporo was first, because it was right next to my office building.  A longtime favorite of the area, the Miso Ramen is delicious- but the quality of the ingredients (especially the pork) I found to be less than great.  I followed that up with Men Kui Tei, which I found to be a notch above Sapporo.  The Miso Ramen was also delicious, but the pork and other ingredients in the soup were of a much higher quality.  It probably worked out better this way- because if I had gone to Menchanko-Tei first, I might not have enjoyed the other two as much…

Menchanko-Tei has two locations in Midtown (one on 45th btw. Lex & 3rd and the other on 55th btw. 5+6th) which have a few differences, but are essentially the same.  They both have a small front room with a bar, and they both have a second small room… the one on 55th is in the back, the one on 45th is an upstairs balcony.  Much like Sapporo & Men Kui Tei, you have to get there early or you are going to wait.  By 12:30pm, both locations are full.

But enough about the similarities.  The differences that set Menchanko-Tei above the fray, more food porn and the +/-, after the jump…

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This Sunday is the Vendy Awards, and in light of that fact, here’s some news about Midtown Carts that you might be interested in:

1.  The guy in the Jiannetto’s Pizza Truckon 47th btw. Park & Madison told me on Tuesday that the truck that used to be on Park and  51st will be returning in the next week and a half.  Look for it next Friday or Monday to be back… no word on the whether the truck that crashed was fixed, or they bought a new one.

2.  For those of you looking for your BBQ fix at one of the three Midtown Daisy May’s BBQ carts, you may have been very disappointed this week.  Two of the three Midtown carts have been packed up and stored away for the winter (the one on Park & 47th and the one on 55th btw. 6+7th).  The one on 49th btw. 6+7th will remain open… (thankfully it’s the one outside my building!).  Look for more carts to pop up in the spring.  (For those of you Downtown, the Wall St. cart is still open as well.)

Finally, we saved the most shocking news for after the jump… best not to scare the young children.  It’s terrible, and it involves last year’s Vendy Award winner for best cart…

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Food carts are a funny thing.  Some people love them, some people hate them.  They are universally accepted for some things, like hot dogs, or pretzels but seem mysterious for other things (the term “street meat” comes to mind).  I’ve seen very few restaurants that specialize in the “Halal Food” you get at a cart, and there are not many carts that stray from serving some form of Gyro, Falafel, Hot Dog or Pretzels.  You’ve got your breakfast carts (bagels, donuts and coffee) which are popular for their price, and the fruit carts, which offer people who love to be healthy a chance to eat at a cart.  (Those people don’t tend to enjoy skillet fried lamb, covered in white sauce.)

Some carts are destinations (Hello Berlin Cart, Daisy May’s BBQ Cart, The Arepa Lady in Queens, or the Carts at the Ballfields in Red Hook), while others remain nameless, taking advantage of a highly populated corner of the city.  I love eating at carts.  It’s not because the food is so great, but it just seems like more fun.  There something about the immediate gratification, the fact that their kitchen is on the side of the road, and of course- weird meat sort of excites me (that didn’t come out right).  (My favorite street meat ever… the lady on the right selling street meat on a stick- in Bali)

A little over a month ago, I walked by a new cart near my office… Happy Teriyaki BBQ on 50th between 6+7th.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Teriyaki Cart before in Midtown… and because of my love of Asian food I was immediately interested.  Shortly after, I started to receive the emails… the first one said it was terrible.  Worst food ever.  But then I got two more, one that recommended the spicy pork and another that swore by the BBQ Tofu.  I’m always up for trying a new cart… so yesterday I headed over with my reluctant wife to check out this new cart.

What we ordered, the pictures and the +/- after the jump…

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The complaints against eating in Midtown are many… but the one thing you can’t complain about is a lack of good Indian food.  There are tons of Indian places for every appetite and price range.  Expensive sit down restaurants, expensive buffets, cheap buffets, cheap take out, and even an Indian food cart.  When you look at the cheap options, it seems as if there is one for every neighborhood.  If you work on Park in the 50s, there’s the super cheap Indian food cart on 53rd.  If you work on the East side of Midtown in the 40s, there’s Hurry & Tasty Curry.  If you work on the west side there’s Minar.

Everyone who reads this blog knows how much I love Kati Roll (the “Indian Burrito” place)… but sometimes you just want the real thing.  And when that urge hits, Minar is right next store to feed my Indian food fix.  The one thing I’ve realized about these Indian food places is, you get what you pay for.  You pay $4 for Indian food out of a cart, it’s going to taste like $4 Indian food (it’s good, but not the best).  Minar costs a little more then that, and it’s a little better.  Not as good as a nice Indian restaurant where you are going to pay $10+ an entree, but if you are looking for some quick and tasty Indian food for lunch- and you work in this area of Midtown, you can’t do better then Minar.

What I got, pictures of the food, and the +/- after the jump…

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