Midtown Lunch

It never quite reached a MomoMidtown fever pitch, but the opening of Michael Huynh’s OBAO (on 53rd btw. 2+3rd) last week was met with a bit of excitement.  And why not?  Midtown is not exactly a hotbed of great Vietnamese food- and even though nothing Chef Hyunh does is straight forward, his twisted Vietnamese/Pan Asian sit down restaurant is bound to be better than the options we have now.  There were a couple of pre-opening reports that sounded positive, but you can’t be truly sure about a place until a restaurant is open and has paying customers.  They opened for dinner a week ago, and Friday was their very first lunch service.

I don’t think it’s fair to be critical of a place based on a meal you had during the 2 busiest hours of their opening week.  And not everything we ate was perfect, but there was enough there for me to know this is a place I’ll want to go back to. What we tried is after the jump…

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Speaking of chicken soup, and lunch specials… Xie Xie (Angelo Sosa’s Asian sandwich joint on 9th Ave. btw. 45+46th) just emailed to let us know that starting today they’ll be introducing a new “Lunch Box Special”.  For $8.50 you get half a sandwich (the Fish Cha Ca La Vong or the Shredded Chicken), a pint of their new chicken soup, and a bag of chips. I could totally be down with that…

Related:
Xie Xie Redux
Midtown Happy Hour: Xie Xie is the Perfect Snack to Kick Off a 9th Ave. Pub Crawl
Xie Xie Would Be Amazing With a Little Less Mayo

The NYC Cravings truck is getting into the Thanksgiving spirit this week by offering their signature Taiwanese fried chicken platter or fried pork chop platter for $5 each (it’s normally $7.)  They’re also serving fried chicken wings now… 10 pieces for $6.  They’ll be at their normal spots today (48th btw. 6+7th) and tomorrow (24th btw. Park+Mad), but because it’s a short week they’ve decided to spend Wednesday on 53rd & Lex.

Related:
NYC Cravings Brings Taiwanese Fried Chicken Awesomeness to the Mobile Food Scene
NYC Cravings Makes “Secret Menu Item” Permanent

This stupid cookie episode has proven one thing- everybody likes a different kind of chocolate chip cookie. (Photo courtesy of Food in Mouth)

• Danny questions the validity of Pret’s chocolate chip cookie victory [Food in Mouth]
• Le Pain Quotidien makes a great Belgian brownie [Dessert Buzz]
• Magnolia Bakery is now serving Rockette Red Velvet Cupcakes [Cupcakes Take the Cake]
• Rudy’s backyard is set to reopen in the spring! [Fork in the Road]
• Going to taxi school makes you crave the Famous Halal Guys [Taxi Gourmet]
• Some kind of Australian vegetarian restaurant is opening on 8th Ave. [Zagat Buzz]
• You can order takeout from Sapporo [Ramen and Friends]
• Another look at the Sichuan cuisine of Lan Sheng [Fork in the Road]

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” posts about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

Ever get a case of the Mondays? You know, that feeling you get when facing the beginning of a long workweek or just staring into the never-ending list of projects and errands for the day? Well, I had it bad on Monday and found a wonderful solution. Of course it involved beer and procrastination. Now I’m not condoning drinking liberally at the beginning of the week… oh heck, who am I fooling, you need it, get your drink on people! Here’s how I did it up this past Monday…

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