Midtown Lunch

For many reasons, it was probably a bad idea to eat at Academia Barilla. It looks like a poor man’s Eataly or a rich man’s Sbarro (however you want to look at it). The restaurant, which we told you about last year, is owned by the same company who manufactures DIY pasta in cardboard boxes and whose CEO may or may not be homophobic.

But I noticed the menu and the prices seem right – most of the dishes live under the $10 mark. Plus I had a serious pasta craving. My big concern was that I’d be paying $10 for a dish that I could do myself at home and probably better.

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Back in October, Midtown Lunch reported the future opening of New York Kimchi. We didn’t have much in the way of details, but we did know they would be selling kimchi, and that the space was over 7,000 sq. feet. This, to me, seemed like a huge store simply for selling kimchi, but what the hell do I know? A fellow Midtown Luncher sent us an email letting us know New York Kimchi had opened, so I made my way over to, what I could only imagine would be, kimchi paradise.

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Many food trucks seem to like to travel in packs. Historically, we’ve seen when food vendors congregate together, the customers come. Unfortunately in today’s heavily regulated (and practically illegal) food truck industry, when food trucks band together it doesn’t always work out well (see last year’s shutdown of Vanderbilt and 47th Street). Let’s hope this situation is different.

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In case your resident holiday office lady didn’t make you aware, today’s St. Patrick’s Day. Let’s forget about the disaster that is the Fifth Avenue parade and discuss where you can get your corned beef on. Of course all of Midtown’s Irish/Scottish/English pubs will be partaking, but given the drunken crowds, your peaceful pub lunch could end go south real fast. Our old favorite, ‘wichcraft, does have an answer. For the past few days, they’ve been serving a corned beef and cabbage sandwich. It’s served on grilled rye with sauerkraut, Gruyere and Russian dressing, and the whole sandwich is (admittedly above our price ceiling) $10.33. No word on whether it’s worth it or no (or whether it comes as pretty as this promo picture.)

If anyone knows of a sure shot place for your Irish Thanksgiving meal, leave it in the comments.

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.

Zach Brooks:All you can eat Chinese buffet::Sarah Zilinski:Indian food. But…apparently the Flatiron Lunch readers are not as into Indian food as I am. And their complaints have been heard. I promise to try to cut back on the frequency of posts about Indian food, BUT I want to make sure you all know that I already hold back on how often I write about Indian food. It is a struggle. And Curry Hill makes it soooo easy. If we had three blocks of good Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood, you can be sure I would post about Mexican food all the time. But to keep the FL’ers happy – Italian Food!

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Good news for deli sandwich/Indian food enthusiasts of the eastern edge of ML territory! Hot Clay Oven (3rd btw. 44th+45th) has reopened after a slight revamp and addition to the menu (more on that ahead), and Sarge’s (3rd btw. 36th+37th) is back up and running  after a fire put them out of commission for more than a year.

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The Katz n Dogz Truck we reviewed last year is in some serious hot water. And I’m not referring to dirty dog water. According to an article in the NY Post, the legendary Katz’s Delicatessen has brought a lawsuit against the owners of the food truck (who also run a pastrami cart). The trademark-infringement suit seeks over $1 million in damages for the use of Katz’s name and brand. As many of our commenters had pointed out in the past, it was only a matter of time before this would occur. If this truck returns to the streets, let’s hope they don’t rename themselves “The Carnegie Truck”.

via MyBellysPlaylist.com

I like to think I am pretty well informed when it comes to new places to get lunch in Midtown. So, when Zach sent over the link to My Belly’s Playlist (MBP), I began browsing their Midtown menu and I was shocked that I had never ordered from here before. I was immediately impressed with the options, as they offered classics such as the Buffalo Chicken Wrap as well as more unique offerings, such as The Big Dipper. Needless to say, it was time to give it a try.

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When you walk into a place where baked goods and bespoke chocolate bars are displayed on a table, and there’s no menu board on display, it’s always a little suspicious, price-wise. Such is the case of the new Birdbath Bakery -a City Bakery offshoot- that opened a branch in the 2 Grand Central Tower atrium on 45th St. (btw. 3rd & Lex). I’ve eaten at the location in Tribeca a few times during my tenure as head Downtown Lunch’er and found the food mostly tasty, but with a high price tag that was hard to swallow.

I checked out a sandwich for you Midtown Lunch’ers, and you can hear the good and the bad of it straight ahead.  Read more »