Midtown Lunch

I was pretty excited when I saw the first reports of Mexicue bringing its Mexican/Barbecue fusion to the northwest edge of Flatiron Lunch bounds. The area, south of Penn Station and around FIT has precious little good or interesting food to draw lunchers so having a solid spot like Mexicue will be huge.

According to Fork in the Road they had their soft opening last night and the first day of lunch service is today starting at 11am!  Last week, they offered a preview of the new shop to friends and family as a test of the ordering system and we snuck in to get you a look.

Read more »

• Did anybody get sick from eating pizza on 54th yesterday? [Eating]
• When is the Bonchon on 2nd Ave. opening!?! [Eating]
• Plans for the July happy hour meet up are underway [Connections]
• Carnegie John has disappeared again [Eating]
• Piccolo Cafe makes a great lobster roll [Eating]

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 Jess, a marketing associate who loves breakfast and wants to give you lunchtime discounts.

Name: Jess

Age: 28

Occupation: Marketing Associate

Where in Midtown do you Work?: DailyGobble, a smartphone-based dining rebate program that exposes users to discounts at partner restaurants.

Favorite Kind of Food: Breakfasts of all cuisines… Croque madames and monsieurs, crispy fried dough (you tiao) dipped in sweet soybean milk, or just eggs, potatoes, and bacon with a splash of Tabasco or smothered in New Mexican green chile… Make it brunch and we’re golden.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Sea cucumber. Self-explanatory.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: Yagura (on 41st btw. Mad+5th) for chicken katsu curry on a rainy day, the Woorijip (on 32nd btw. B’way+5th) buffet for emotional eating, and Hing Won (on 48th btw. 5+6th) for a gustatory trip home. Nothing makes me happier than working in a mecca of stop-and-go Asian meals.

Read more »

Yesterday courtesy of the ML Twitter Tracker, I learned that Schnitzel & Things was throwing a a “Schnitz Happy Hour” from 3:00pm-6:00pm with 10% off any platter or sandwich. Seeing as I was already on track for a late lunch I decided to hold off to check it out… and also got to try one of their new sides. Read more »

Yesterday Cer Te (on 55th btw. 5+6th) introduced their latest sandwich of the month, and it’s a doozy. Designed by Lunch’er “Jeffrey”, it’s called the “Deep In the Heart ‘Attack’ of Texas” and features (are you sitting down for this?) chicken fried steak, creamed gravy, and layer of mac and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of Texas toast.  The sandwich is $8.95 and will be available until August 12th (or until it kills somebody.)

Eater reported on Friday that the health-focused Canadian chain Freshii closed their one NYC location. I walked by later in the day and, sure enough, the place is vacant – no salad or brown rice in sight. The lime green infrastructure remains, but the Freshii marquee is gone, as is most of the furniture inside. Their website no longer lists a New York location and a sign outside indicates that it is in fact closed but promises to return at an unnamed hour. I’d be surprised if Freshii did indeed show up again in Midtown. Aside from the opening week when they gave away quite a bit of free food, I don’t think it did too much steady business. Just below Times Square, it was probably not recognizable enough for tourists and it seemed a little too generic for us Midtown Lunchers.