Midtown Lunch

It’s a familiar story at this point: Another year, another Choice Eats that sadly neglects the restaurants of midtown. This was my first year attending and I was honestly surprised at how few Midtown offerings there were. In past years, Margon flew the flag for the underrepresented, but this year, the only restaurant to fall within Midtown Lunch boundaries was Toloache, with just out of bounds Xie Xie and Mantou Chinese Sandwiches rounding out the Midtown selections.

It was disappointing from a Midtown Lunch’ing standpoint, but there was plenty of other deliciousness to stuff my face with. After the jump, some of my favorites.

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Speaking of chicken soup, and lunch specials… Xie Xie (Angelo Sosa’s Asian sandwich joint on 9th Ave. btw. 45+46th) just emailed to let us know that starting today they’ll be introducing a new “Lunch Box Special”.  For $8.50 you get half a sandwich (the Fish Cha Ca La Vong or the Shredded Chicken), a pint of their new chicken soup, and a bag of chips. I could totally be down with that…

Related:
Xie Xie Redux
Midtown Happy Hour: Xie Xie is the Perfect Snack to Kick Off a 9th Ave. Pub Crawl
Xie Xie Would Be Amazing With a Little Less Mayo

Forgot to mention this last week… the ladies of Lunch Studio and I hit up Xie Xie (on 9th Ave. btw. 45+46th) on Wednesday and stuffed our faces with 4 of their Asian sandwiches. Still messy with sauces, but I’m pretty sure I detected less dill in the fish sandwich.  All in all, though, everything was pretty tasty. Check out what my lunch companions had to say about the sandwiches (and their post lunch ice cream sandwich!)

Related:
Xie Xie Would Be Amazing With a Little Less Mayo
Midtown Happy Hour: Xie Xie is the Perfect Snack to Kick Off a 9th Ave. Pub Crawl

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, 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. This week she visits Xie Xie, the great new Angelo Sosa owned sandwich shop on 9th Ave.

Zach did a full review of Xie Xie when it first opened, but it was only recently that they added a happy hour special to their menu. For $5 dollars, from 3 to 7pm, you get a bottle of “33” Export Vietnamese beer with a choice of one bun: Shredded Braised Chicken, BBQ Beef, or Sweet Glazed Pork. I’ve wanted to check out Xie and this was the perfect opportunity to try the food without having to committing to ordering a full sandwich. Plus it’s right next to Rudy’s, our favorite dive bar, so if one hot bun doesn’t do it for you, you can always wrap your lips around a free wiener later.

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You know how much I love the Asian sandwiches (I can’t get enough!) so there was no question I was going to travel the extra avenue outside the Midtown Lunch boundaries to check out Xie Xie– the newly opened sandwich shop from Angelo Sosa (formerly a chef at Jean Georges.)  You’ve already seen the menu, and heard the reports from the ML early adopters.  But the question still remains… for Midtown Lunch’ing purposes, are these freakin’ sandwiches worth the $8+ price tag.

In short, yes…. if you love Asian sandwiches as much as I do.  And provided that the chef makes one small change.

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Photo posted to the ML Flickr Pool by Chris6Sigma

Lunch’er Chris6Sigma descended on the two day old Xie Xie yesterday (on 9th Ave. and 45th), uploaded some photos to the ML Flickr Photo Pool, and had this to say in the comments:

Just got back – chicken and cilantro sandwich was tasty, nice fresh, balanced flavors. The baguette was a little tough to chew, and was stiff enough to have that annoying trait where all the innards of the sandwich squish out when you take a bite.

At $8.50, it is on the pricey side, esp for the size of the sandwich, though it is more filling than it looks. Maybe knock off a dollar off of each sandwich and it’s worth a visit.

I should also note that this particular sandwich was VERY messy. I wouldn’t order it if you don’t want to walk around the office with sandwich shrapnel on your Brooks Brothers shirt.

Check it out, after the jump…

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And now a Public Service Announcement from Captain Obvious:  “Asian sandwiches are blowing up people!”  And it seems like they’re all attracted to the outskirts of Midtown Lunch’ing. First, Baoguette brought the almighty banh mi to Lexington btw. 25+26th.  Then last week Mantao hit us with the mantou Chinese sandwich on 53rd btw. 2+3rd.  And now welcome the latest upscale Asian sandwich joint to (almost) land in Midtown: Xie Xie (pronounced Shay Shay), which will open on 9th Ave. btw. 45+46th today. Last night they had some sort of “let us know what you think by filling out these comment cards” soft opening that was by invite only, and “unless the place blows away overnight” it should be open to the public today at 11:30am.  So if you’re one of those “I want to be the very first ones to eat this thing that everyone will be writing about in a week”, and don’t mind the hefty price tag for a sandwich, today is the day.  (I’ll probably stop by… I’m sorry, I can’t help myself when Asian sandwich are involved!)

The 5 sandwich menu, which they were handing out on the sidewalk last night (and appears to be unchanged since Grub Street posted it last month, minus the wine)- can be seen after the jump…

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