Midtown Lunch

Since the first new school trucks started appearing in New York 3 years ago we’ve worked hard to shine a light on all the tough barriers to entry they face.  From cops to brick and mortar stores to other vendors, starting a food truck in this city is not easy. In addition to the finite number of permits (which are impossible to get without turning to the black market), current laws make it incredibly difficult to find a truly legal spot on the street, and inconsistent (and oftentimes incorrect) enforcement makes it hard for the vendors to know what is permissible and what isn’t. And yet, despite all of these issues, food trucks continue to operate and expand… and thankfully food trucks lovers (like us) haven’t seen the Government (or the police) take a hard line stance against these new trucks- that is, until now.

Tomorrow afternoon City Council members Jessica Lappin (from the UES) and Karen Koslowitz (from Queens) will introduce a new local law that will give the Department of Health authority to suspend any vending permit issued to a truck with two parking tickets (i.e. feeding the meter or idling) in a 12 month period, and revoke the permit of a truck that receives three parking tickets in a 12 month period.   The goal is to get trucks to not idle in parking spaces all day long- but the result will essentially be to put all food trucks out of business.

I spoke with Council Member Lappin earlier today to find out exactly what she hopes to accomplish by doing this…

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• Let Midtown Lunchers choose your meal today [Midtown Eating]
• When lunching in this heat, what do you eat? [Midtown Eating]
• Falafel cravings near Bloomingdales [Midtown Eating]
• Quinoa: Do you think it’s weird? [Midtown Eating]
• Let’s help luncher “ESNY” with some south of Grand Central recommendations [Midtown Eating]

Ahhhh shucks. Technically Las Poblanitas (38th btw. 8+9th) is out-of-bounds by a few feet, but we still claim it as a Midtown Lunch. And it definitely had all the attributes of a good ML joint: it was off the beaten path, not a salad joint, and served good, delicious Mexican food at great prices. So we were sad to hear from Lunch’er Rich this morning that it has been shuttered!  One of the windows didn’t have its gate down, but it didn’t look like there was a DOH sticker in the window (and their last inspection in March was passing.)  I wonder if business dropped off because of the 2 Bro’s pizza next door, which had a line 20 deep when I walked by.  Sadly this closing is only temporary… but it’s not looking good.

Related:
Las Poblanitas is the Perfect Place to Spend Cinco de Mayo

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 Wendy, a “fact nerd” (?) who would rather be lunching in Laos.

Name: Wendy

Age: 43

Occupation: Fact nerd

Where in Midtown do you Work?: Times Square

Favorite Kind of Food: Mexican, anything Asian (Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Thai, Vietnamese Filipino)

Least Favorite Kind of Food: Italian (yes, it’s true, but I’m not that weird)

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Midtown: El Ray De Sabor Mexican Cart (on 43rd st and 6th): Sopas with spicy pork and mole sauce; nachos with mole and green sauce, tamales. Cafe Zaiya (on 41st btw. Mad+5th): Spicy tuna rice ball, curry, the roll cake. Bon Chon (on 38th btw. 7+8th): spicy fried chicken. Kwik Meal (on 45th and 6th): Lamb and chicken combo with extra spicy sauce. Ying Du (on 38th btw. 7+8th): BBQ pork. Spice Fusion (on 8th Ave. btw. 47+48th): buffet. La Rosita (on 47th btw. 10+11th): sopes with guacamole. Yagura Japanese Grocery (on 41st btw. Mad+5th): Chicken Teriyaki. Indus Express (on 48th btw. 5+6th): Chaat

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Photo courtesy of Twitter

All this week the Bahamas tourism board will have a truck parked in New York City handing out free food to promote the Bahamas. Yesterday they were parked on 48th btw. 7+8th handing out mac & cheese, Junkanoo drumsticks and virgin Bahama Mamas. Today’s location hasn’t been posted on their twitter account yet, but as soon as it is we’ll post it here. Freeloaders, prepare to engage…  UPDATE: Booooooooooo!  They’re downtown today (although apparently they will be moving around throughout the day.)  Hopefully Midtown will be in their plans again before the end of the week…

Ever since Street Meat Palooza 3 I’ve been keeping tabs on the XPL cart on 48th & 3rd, hoping that each day will be the day I finally get to try their chicken masala.  They keep promising, and I keep showing up, only to be told “not today.” So yesterday, after being told once again that they didn’t have the chicken masala, I decided to suck it up and  see what their brand new eggplant and falafel combo is all about.

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Serious Eats: New York was (unsurprisingly) underwhelmed by a sandwich at Manganaro’s Hero Boy yesterday (on 9th Ave. btw. 37+38th), but our favorite part of the post was a comment by Midtown Lunch’er “exflexitarian” who asked “is this the restaurant where the FOH lady acts like she’s got sand in her vag? Or is it the other Manganaro’s?” Nice, dude.  But to answer your question, Hero Boy is not the one with the lady you’re thinking of. Manganaro’s Grosseria is the good one… you know… provided you don’t mind “the sand”.

God, I feel old- and it’s not just because I watched Twilight win everything at the MTV Movie Awards last night.  Midtown Lunch turns four years old today.  That’s right, it was four years ago today the very first post went up on this site (it feels more like 40, right?) What started off as an excuse for one fat guy to eat gross lunches near his office in Midtown, is now being used by almost 10 people as an excuse to eat gross lunches in Midtown, Downtown NYC, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.  So, after thousands of lunches, 3 Street Meat Paloozas, and zero cases of food poisoning (knock on wood!) we just wanted to say a quick thanks to all of you guys…  here’s to four more years!

It’s that time of year again!  Today from 5 to 8:30pm, 46th btw. B’way+9th Ave. will be shut down for the Taste of Times Square.  As horrible as a lot of the participating restaurants are (we’re looking at you Hard Rock, Planet Hollywood, and Applebee’s) it’s still a fun after work event… and it’s a great way to test out some of the tourist traps restaurants around Times Square, without having to commit to a full meal.  It’s free to get in, but you have to buy “tickets” good for food at each booth.  Get all the details here>>

Related:
Digging for nuggets of goodness at the Taste of Times Square