Midtown Lunch

We love Street Vendor Project here at Midtown Lunch. Not only do they throw one of the best food event of the year (the Vendys) they do noble work on behalf of our beloved street carts and food trucks. Amazingly enough they turn 10 years old this year and to celebrate they’ll be throwing a special party on March 27th! It will take place downtown at Judson Memorial Church, from 7pm to 10pm, with live music, drinks, and food from past Vendy Award winners. Early bird tickets are just $45, but are only available until tomorrow at 6pm, so grab one before the price goes up!

UPDATE: After this post initially went up we got word that Solber Pupusas and Paty’s Tacos will both be at the event… with more vendors to be announced soon.  Stay tuned!

Thanks to Lunch’er Mike for sending over this one…

“On my way to B&H I passed by this new looking establishment, Zoob Zib (on 9th Ave. btw. 36+37th), which made me think either it was Ewok cuisine or Bill Cosby might be the executive chef. No web presence yet, but it had tables and chairs on the inside and looks very close to launch. It’s literally right next door to Aura Thai, whose previous reviews speak very true about their noodle soups but mediocre to good for their Thai food.”

Just what 9th Ave. needs… another Thai restaurant! Although we guess the “noodle bar” part is intriguing? As soon as we know more, we’ll let you know- and if any early adopters manage to make it there before we do when it opens, feel free to let us know how it is in the comments.

We received sad news in the comments last week. Sam, the halal cart vendor on 35th Street, near 6th Avenue suffered a heart attack while setting up for business Thursday morning and died shortly afterward. Last year, his cart caught my attention due to his method of mixing the sauces in with the meat when on the griddle. The technique helped get him a respectable 7th place in last year’s street meat-palooza.

More importantly though, Sam was warm and friendly to all of his customers. During my visits to the cart, he flirted with the ladies, joked with the guys and put everyone at ease. Days after I wrote the post about his cart, he had it printed up and displayed it proudly for all to see.  His hospitality and pride in his work will be greatly missed.

In light of the recent difficulties plaguing food trucks in New York City, we thought it might be useful to take a look back at the history of vending in NYC. Our man Brian Hoffman gives street food tours for Urban Oyster both in Midtown and the Financial District, so we asked him to pull from his extensive research on past and present vendor regulations to give us some perspective on the current scene.

Photo Courtesy of Detroit Publishing, Library of Congress, Circa 1900

Yesterday we linked to a Crain’s report that has revenue from some food trucks down a whopping 70%, a fact that undoubtedly has to do with food truck owners struggling with unclear laws, a barrage of parking tickets, and other difficulties that make operating their small businesses much more difficult than it should be. Yet this is nothing new, just the latest batch of regulations and restrictions street vendors have had to overcome for centuries.

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It’s not all that uncommon that I run out the door without something to eat in the morning so I was pretty excited to see that Potbelly in Rock Center is now serving breakfast. And even more excited to see that they had steel cut oats. I’m a big steel cut oatmeal fan and I usually splurge for the oatmeal at Jamba Juice, so I had to see how Potbelly stacked up.

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Shorty’s pork and rabe sandwich. Photo courtesy of SENY

• This 30 Great Sandwiches list includes a few from Midtown [SENY]
• Tabata is the best of the latest NYC ramen newcomers [Village Voice]
• Five Guys’ grilled cheese sandwich is not bad [SENY]
• Margon puts potato sticks on their steak sandwich [SENY]
• Robert Sietsema doesn’t like MomoMilkBar’s Thanksgiving croissant [FITR]
• Hide Chan Ramen is almost just as good as Ippudo, without the wait and the noise [Gothamist]

Yesterday, more than 50 winning lunchers joined us for a free meal at Koreatown’s Food Gallery 32 provided by the fine folks at Google Places. Blondie, Brownie, Chris and I snacked on some great food and met more than a few of the winners.

If you didn’t make it, follow the jump for a few of the dishes that we ate there.

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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.  This week Brian H. is stepping in for Clay…

Back in August, Clay got a sneak peek at KalBQ, located inside the Atomic Wings on Lexington bw 23rd and 24th Street. Now that it’s been around for a few months, we thought it was time to check out some of the food and see how it stacks up against some of the other Korean fusion options out there.

I’ve only tried Korean tacos from food trucks, so I was excited to actually eat them sitting down for once. The atmosphere here is total fast food dive and the smell of hot sauce from the spicy wings pervaded the air. I almost decided to forgo the Korean food and get down and dirty with some atomic wings. Instead I checked out the KalBQ menu, which features traditional Korean platters of kalbi, bulgogi, or grilled tofu; a selection of bibim rice bowls; and a handful of ramen noodles. Yet I was most excited by their Korean Mexican fusion items – namely the tacos, sliders, and quesadillas.

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If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so every Friday afternoon our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” 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.

Ok you filthy alkies listen up! As you should know by now the big news this week is the
4th Annual NY Craft Beer Week. That’s right, I said this week, and since you are reading this on Friday I’m willing to bet a freshly pulled cask ale that some of you were ignorantly filing paperwork or screwing around on Facebook when you could have been drinking some prime shit! Well, all is not lost my friends. I have some end-of-beer week suggestions for you even if you’re stuck in midtown. So for God’s sake, put down that PBR tonight and clean your self up, it’s fancy beer time!

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Every Friday our man UltraClay goes 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.

The Limelight’s new incarnation of shopping destination and snacker’s paradise hasn’t quite worked out as well as I’d hoped. Grimaldi’s finally showed up, but the promise of pizza by the slice never materialized; the Limelight Grill, which served sausages, sandwiches and burgers made for a nice outdoor lunch at a decent price, but has since been replaced by Todd English’s Crossbar. Even most of the sweets stands that were inside have shut down. Still, I was in the neighborhood after dropping off film from my South America trip and decided to wander through to see what’s new inside. What I discovered was that Jezalin’s, the little gourmet deli inside is offering some lunchworthy options that either weren’t there before or I just never noticed.

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