Well, this is disappointing. On a recent trip to the 47th street Katsuhama, I ordered my favorite oyakodon but noticed a tragedy on the menu. $11. Plus tax. No longer a Midtown lunch? Sigh. (Just in case you’re looking at the website, the menus there don’t appear to reflect the change.)
Katsuhama, 11 E. 47th St. (btw. Mad+5th), 212-758-5909
I’ve eaten at Cafe Metro exactly three times. Once out of requirement – our admin had ordered a large number of sandwiches for a power lunch working session. Once out of desperation – a need for a greasy breakfast sandwich to fight a nasty Friday morning hangover. And most recently, out of curiosity – based on a helpful tip from John K who let us know that Cafe Metro was now selling “Num Pang style” sandwiches. Funnily enough, at 41st and Lex, the Num Pang and Cafe Metro are about 100 ft apart.
Love ’em or hate ’em, I’ll give Cafe Metro some credit for at least trying to switch things up a bit and earn some distinction over all of the other generic delis. You may recall the chicken tikka masala sandwich that received mixed reviews, and now they’re continuing with the Asian inspired theme, as enlightened or mis-guided as that may be.
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Every Friday we go 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.
Sometimes as Flatiron Lunch’ers, we feel like the forgotten child and no more so than during Street Meat Palooza (SMP). The nominations for the annual competition (Edition #5!), which will take place sometime in the coming weeks, are strictly limited to the normal Midtown boundaries. That didn’t stop a reader from writing to lament the restriction and wishing to nominate a cart in the Flatiron District. So in advance of the upcoming chow-down, I checked out this “nominated” cart on the southwest corner of 28th and Broadway. I am all for filling the comments field with other Flatiron “nominees”.
The first thing I noticed on approaching this corner was that there is no cart on the southwest corner of 28th and Broadway. After confirming the location on my email and with scaffolding on the southwest corner, I decided perhaps the cart, called City Halal, on the northwest corner was possibly my target. I asked the vendor if he always at this spot, and he confirmed. Of course, a shadow of doubt that I hadn’t found the right cart hung over my entire meal.
Mad. Sq. Eats Returns Sept 21 – Oct 19: Here's a little Flatiron News before we get to the big weekly review...the Marimekko umbrellas have reappeared, which means my stomach is oscillating between extreme joy for more Tostilocos and absolute fear for what I might do to it. New vendors include: Baby Got Back Ribs, Kulinary Kraft, Broken English, and Charlito’s Cocina. The games begin in a week!
Posted at 9:30 am, September 14th, 2012 | 0 Comments
Looks like Midtown ramen mainstay Sapporo has gotten another menu facelift (you may remember the last one was in 2010). Spotting the yellow and white “New Sapporo” posters adorning the windows this week, I grabbed the new takeout menu on my way back to the office from lunch. The new menu, which you can check out after the jump, takes an axe to the old ramen offerings and adds new — and some rather odd — dishes. Oh, and make sure you check the prices on your Sapporo favorites, as they might have changed as well.
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From Lunch’er Will: “This is next door to me. In a real business. In the real world. A business that accepts money from patrons for food.”
Should we do a caption contest in the comments? I say yes. Winner gets a Midtown Lunch t-shirt.
How lucrative is the $1 slice business? Are we really looking at something that, when monetized and capitalized, revenue-streamed and leveraged, packaged and branded, and delivered as an active service to energized customers, is a profit component well worth integration? Or, to translate from the business buzzword crap, is it worth making a pizza oven and valuable store frontage a $1 slice outpost? NYC Fried Chicken seems to think so, and with their only previous Midtown Lunch mention being a 2008 entry from the Brooks Era giving modest mention to the chicken-to-price ratio, could the $1 slice business give this prime corner a shot? With 2 Bros and the rightfully-panned Roll and Go within a stone’s throw and Port Authority in plain view, our northwesternmost $1 slice outpost now falls into our purview. Time to see if they can stack up – er, slice up – with the big boys or if they’re better known for cheap fried chicken.
If you were unhappy that the Nameless Empanada Cart disappeared from 34th and 8th, becoming invisible as well as anonymous perhaps through perfection of an optic camouflage empanada that covers the whole cart, rejoice! They have relocated from the southeast corner of 34th and 8th to just a bit west of the southwest corner, between the HSBC Bank and NYC DMV License Express. What better way to get a disappointing but not terrible nosh when you face losing a day to the DMV bureaucracy or if you have to take a break from laundering money to send to Iran?
The menu hasn’t changed but is now better mounted and a little more visible on both sides, and they had some fresh empanadas going into the fryer when I passed by at around 8 AM the other day. Could be a decent breakfast alternative if you don’t feel like going 1/4 block in the other direction – Lunch Box Buffet does their amazing steamed buns for breakfast, too.
Do you wonder what the ML contributors do when they’re not eating lunch in Midtown? (We’re actually pretty easy to stalk!)
Kelvin Slush waiting to be spiked. Photo by Blondie and Brownie.
Blondie and Brownie have been mixing booze with Kelvin Slushes in preparation for Vendy Awards fun… and they wrote a post about the slushes for the Vendy Awards blog. Andrea reports Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Truck is hitting the streets of Soho, while Brian tried black grape sorbet at Il Laboratorio Del Gelato and sampled fried pig tails at The Brooklyn Star.
Elsewhere in the ML universe… Clay has been taking pictures of Brisketlab’s meat, Zach has been enjoying brisket, steak, and banchan at Man Kang in LA’s K-town, Jamie ate the Blue Belly BBQ Platter in Philly, and Rachel cooked breakfast tacos.
Despite it being a little late in the season to begin selling ice cream sandwiches, Smush “The NY Deli of Desserts” (40th btw 5th+6th) opened its doors late last week. I was just as confused as you about what “deli of desserts” could possibly mean and whether or not it really involved penguins wearing hats, so I did what any rational being would do, I stopped by, hoping to eat ice cream while making penguin friends.
