Ouch! From the looks of this photo emailed in by Lunch’er Harry, Gulluoglu’s closure earlier in the week wasn’t self imposed. The strange thing is, they had a DOH inspection less than a month ago and got a 7 (which is pretty stellar.) Maybe they really did just have a “sprinkler issue”. In any case, they plan on reopening tomorrow morning.
Posted by Zach Brooks at 4:00 pm, November 12th, 2009 under Closed by Health Dept., Gulluoglu.
More on MomoMidtown: For those of you who want some play by play Ma Peche action, Eater has been liveblogging the scene since 11am (spoiler: their intern got my bill, but sadly didn't pay it) and TONY's Feed Blog is live twittering (they ran out of banh mi at 1:50pm!)
Posted at 3:00 pm, November 12th, 2009 | 5 Comments
Keeping in mind that I hate hyberbole… TODAY IS THE GREATEST DAY IN MIDTOWN LUNCH’ING HISTORY. If you missed the news this morning, Ma Peche (aka Momofuku Midtown) is now serving a limited Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner menu in the Mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel (on 56th btw. 5+6th.) That’s right. Momofuku has finally arrived in Midtown.
I’ll be completely honest, when Momofuku announced they’d be opening a quasi-Vietnamese Midtown restaurant helmed by Chef Tien Ho, I was ready to blow up the Midtown Lunch $10 price limit. Fuck it. I love Momofuku, and I ain’t missing out on the Midtown restaurant opening of the century just because normally, for lunch, I’m a cheap bastard. The actual restaurant will most likely take another few months to build and open, but Tien, Cory and the gang were getting antsy to start making some food. So… enter the limited menu, served in the mezzanine of the hotel. All of the dishes on the Lunch/Dinner menu look amazing (hello pork & porcini terrine!), and they’re all over $10. But I was ready to splurge.
And then… the skies parted, and the sun shown down (even on this rainy day), and the MomoGods delivered a miracle that rivals turning water into wine… MomoMidtown (aka Ma Peche) has a $10 “Midtown Lunch” specials menu.
It’s only eat in for now (no takeout), so I headed over just before the lunch rush to order the entire menu. Check out the four dishes after the jump…
My love of Chinese buffets is pretty well documented, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a non-Asian buffet from time to time. In fact, you could say my buffet chops were sharpened over many trips to the now closed Sizzler on 104th Street and Dixie Highway in Miami (circa 1988). It’s my earliest memory of crafting a strategy for attacking a buffet, and also the genesis of my buffet onion ring obsession (aka I always eat at least one onion ring from every buffet, even if it’s Asian.)
So on Tuesday, when I stumbled across Greenhouse 36 (in the Wyndham Times Square Hotel on 36th btw. 8+9th), I was naturally intrigued. Situated in a hotel, Greenhouse 36 seems like any other crappy-hotel-lunch-spot-in-a-garden, except for one thing. From now through the end of the year (it expires on December 29th, 2009), they’re offering a lunch buffet for $9.50.
How could I not?
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:30 am, November 12th, 2009 under Buffet, All You Can Eat, Greenhouse 36, Out of Bounds.
Free Brownie Samples Alert: Noticed this on the ML Twitter Tracker this morning... Street Sweets will be on 50th giving out brownie samples starting at 11am and Wafels & Dinges is on 45th with hot cocoa. Nice.
Posted at 11:00 am, November 12th, 2009 | 0 Comments
Have gotten multiple reports this morning that the Midtown location of Piada, the Italian flat bread sandwich chain, is now open. You may be familiar with their Lower East Side location (I’m not); their Midtown branch is in the basement of the Citicorp Building on 53rd and Lex.
Update… a good friend of mine checked it out yesterday, and her report is after the jump.
Holy smokes Batman! Ma Peche (aka Momofuku Midtown) has quietly started serving food in the mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel this week (on 56th btw. 5+6th). And… wait for it… wait for it… there’s a freakin’ “Midtown Lunch Special”. I am not shitting you. A Momofuku restaurant, situated in the Chambers Hotel, in the most expensive, touristy, part of New York City, is offering a lunch special for the Midtown Lunch friendly price of $10.
If you can still move your trembling hands, the menu is after jump. (Spoiler Alert: The Momofuku Banh Mi is back!)
Flatiron’s Answer to In N Out?: Grub Street has more info on Fresh N Fast, the coming soon to the Flatiron District burger spot that Midtown Lunchers have been talking about in the forums for the past week. Of note... they're using LaFrieda beef, Martin's potato rolls, and there will be a "secret sauce".
Posted at 3:30 pm, November 11th, 2009 | 6 Comments
With the exception of Whole Foods, and the take out window of Bouchon Bakery, most of the restaurants in the Time Warner Center are outside the Midtown Lunch price range. But that doesn’t mean we’d turn down free food, right? The TWC in Columbus Circle has just launched a culinary club called “Circle of Taste”. Become a member (it’s free to join), and you’ll get special access to free events and exclusive tastings, like a smoked meats tasting at Porterhouse (on 11/16) or a mussels and beer thing at Landmarc (12/3).
The kick off event is a free dessert tasting this Friday at 5:30pm with free desserts from Bouchon Bakery, A Voce, Landmarc and more (hello double truffle brownies!) That one is completely open to the public, but in the future events will only be open to members. You can get more info and sign up now at www.circleoftaste.com
Posted by Zach Brooks at 2:30 pm, November 11th, 2009 under Columbus Circle, Contest.
