Midtown Lunch

I can’t quite figure out why more people aren’t buzzing about Bella Napoli and their pizza. It was Brownie’s pick (she’s into their vodka slice) for the 2011 readers’ poll, even though the ML community favored Previti and Pizza by Cer Te. But Bella Napoli’s pizza has been consistently good for years now, and even though it’s on West 49th — a street with a lot of really good lunch options — it’s definitely worth ducking into. More specifically, look past all the pies covered with fancy toppings and go straight to the simple grandma slice.
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Although the banh mi craze seems to be dying down, the French-Vietnamese sandwiches (or knockoffs might be a better word) are still all around us. The Boi restaurants kicked it off in Midtown back in 2007. By 2010, there was enough of it available to hold a banh-mi-palooza (Baoguette was the winner). All it took was Pret to release their rendition for our attitudes toward banh mi to quickly shift from fascinated to blasé.

I hadn’t had one in a few years, but I was reminded about them while reading the “A Sandwich a Day” blog from Serious Eats last week about the crispy pork belly banh mi at Hing Won, that linked back to a post about the duck version in June. Most people, including Zach, experience a WTF moment when they see a banh mi on the menu at a Chinese restaurant. But Hing Won has a special place in all of our hearts since it’s where ML started off back in ‘06. (Wow.)
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Do you wonder what the ML contributors do when they’re not eating lunch in Midtown? (We’re actually pretty easy to stalk!)

One of the many duck dishes at Rodded in Los Angeles. Photo by Zach.

Brian’s hot dog survey led him to Mile End, Blondie took a beach day and visited Rockaway Taco, Brownie tested recipes for watermelon agua fresca, Rachel had her mom’s hummus and I photographed Midnight Brunch at Nitehawk Cinema.

Elsewhere in the ML universe… Andrea is psyched that Tacos Morelos has become a downtown regular, Jamie follows up after a beloved Turkish spot in Philly changed its name and Zach discovers off-the-menu duck dishes at Los Angeles Thai spot, Rodded.

I always enjoy going to Grand Central Market (inside Grand Central Station, enter on Lexington and 43rd), but it’s usually more of a look-but-don’t-touch excursion. It’s nothing like the accessible-to-all Grand Central Market in Los Angeles I used to visit when I lived there and that Zach is lucky enough to be near. The one in New York is separate from the restaurants — you’ll find those in the Dining Concourse. But in the market section I almost never buy anything unless I’m looking for an odd ingredient or cooking something for a special occasion. Most of the stuff they sell at Grand Central Market is high quality, sure, but FAR more expensive than what I can get in my neighborhood. I’ve looked around for lunch there, and even tried a few things. But what can you get there for our $10 limit? It turns out, there are a few things… but usually in small packages. Here’s a sampling.

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Since their regular lunch sets have always been out of the ML price range, I’d only been to Iroha for dinner, mostly for sushi. However, back in April, Iroha launched take out bentos at lunchtime. While reasonably priced bentos that don’t compromise quality are found in abundance on 41st street between Madison & Fifth, they can be a little harder to come by in northern Times Square.

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Amid all the buzz about Nuchas Empanadas, I feel compelled to remind you that El Rey Del Sabor, aka The King of Flavor, serves some nice, cheap, and BIG pastelillos, or Puerto Rican style Empanadas. Even before the Nuchas truck opened, I was scoping out the Nuchas scene. I ventured down to Times Square to try an empanada at their kiosk. I’ve been eating empanadas from the delightful Empanadas Cafe in Corona for the past few years, so when I looked in the window at Nuchas and saw the size of those tiny little shits I spun on my heels. No way in hell am I paying $3.00 for something just slightly larger than my big toe.

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Filming food vendors in midtown this morning. Psyched it’s cloudy out!

— Liza de Guia (@SkeeterNYC) August 14, 2012

If you’ve been following the Vendy Awards as long as we have than you know that every year they film videos to announce all the nominees.  In 2007 the video got posted to YouTube a little bit early, but since then the Vendys have been pretty diligent about keeping the nominees under wraps until the official announcement.  But the videos have to be filmed, and occasionally word will leak out early (sometimes even by the vendors themselves!)  Well we can’t confirm it officially, but it looks like something like that might have happened today in Midtown…

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Every Tuesday we turn over the site to a different Midtown Lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Midtown. This week it’s Mike, a web guy who’d rather be stuffing his gullet with seafood in Spain.

Name: Mike

Age: 32

Occupation: Senior Digital Producer

Where in Midtown do you work? Bravo / 30 Rock

Favorite Kind of Food: Anything rustic/ethnic, but if I had to boil it down specifically in terms of items or cultures: Indian / Southeast Asian / Spanish, and items would be smartly made grilled sandwiches (my sandwiches must have a crunch element), any seafood and spicy noodle-based soups (ramen, pho).

Least Favorite Kind of Food: American-style ham. Not the fancy La Quercia stuff, which I adore, but salt-bomb grossly pink spiral ham or cold-cut ham. I just gagged writing that. I also continue to have a lifelong hatred of pancakes — see crunch necessity above.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Tina’s Cuban sandwich (on 56th btw. 5+6th), Menkui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) in the winter (Menkui ramen always), and was recently pleasantly surprised by Steak N Shake (on B’way btw. 53+54th).

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