Midtown Lunch

Got this question from Lee, the guy behind NachosNY, a blog dedicated to finding… well… the best nachos in New York. Right now the only Midtown entry on his site is Tequilaville (on Vanderbilt btw. 42+43rd), but it would appear as if he’s looking for more.  “I’ve been scouring your Mexican food posts for great places to get nachos and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for me? We’re trying to really hit a lot more places in the next month. Let me know if you have any suggestions.”

I know Mamacita (our Happy Hour Correspondent) has tried the nachos at The Australian, and Lunch’er Liz loves the “BBQ Nachos” from Virgil’s… but beyond that, I’m not sure.  Anybody got a recommendation?  Put it in the comments.

I very rarely post any of the crap sent over as “press releases” from PR people (because it’s kind of lame, and makes for lazy blogging IMHO), and this particular one has nothing to do with eating lunch in Midtown, but I just couldn’t resist (look at those lambs!)  Obviously none of us would ever want to come to Midtown over the weekend (M-F is quite enough thank you), but the 12 whole lambs that Estiatorio MILOS will be roasting in front of their restaurant (on 55th btw. 6+7th) this weekend for Greek Easter is making me consider it. Halal vendors take note… this is what real lamb on a spit looks like. What you serve is gyro over rice.

For more on the Greek Easter lamb feast go to TONY’s Feed Blog or Wined and Dined.

If you have always dreamed of being a competitive eater, and you love Japanese curry, there is finally an event for you. According to The Feedbag, last night was the first open-to-the-public preliminary round of the Go Go Curry Eating Championship.  Don’t worry if you missed it, there will be 7 more qualifying time trial events every five days between now and May 20th.  Qualifiers pay $20 to enter, and will be timed on how long it takes them to eat “two servings of the Original Walk (12oz) that is sold at Go Go Curry” cabbage not included.  The top 5 times across all of the qualifying events will make it to the grand finals on May 30th, which will also be broadcast on the internet.  If you’re interested, all the info is on the Go Go Curry Website– including a long list of pretty amazing rules involving shoveling (it is permitted), forks (they will provide a regulation fork), and vomiting (where you can and can’t do it).

If anybody thinks they have a shot, and wants to be sponsored by Midtown Lunch (UltimateBet style) shoot me an email.  I might be willing to put up the fee for somebody who is willing to paint MidtownLunch.com on the side of their body. [Official Contest Web Page via The Feedbag]

Related:
Go Go Curry Hits a Japanese Kare Grand Slam
Opening Day Means The Return of Free Toppings at Go Go Curry

Lunch’er Josh, aka NYC Foodie, tipped me off to a new cart called Aamir Halal Food- which is serving chicken tikka and lamb over rice on the opposite corner diagonally across the street from the Biryani Cart (on 46th and 6th). According to Josh, the new cart is run by Aamir Hussein- who just so happens to be the father-in-law of Meru, the owner/chef of the Biryani Cart. When I stopped by to ask Meru about it yesterday, he called the new cart “competition” and admitted that it was in fact his father-in-law running the cart, and serving very similar food. He stopped short of saying it was causing “a problem in his family” (my words, not his) but I could see he wasn’t too psyched about the whole situation.  If I had to translate the look he gave me into words, I think it would be: “it is what it is”.

Totally in the mood for some street meat (I’ve been on a street cart tear lately) I headed over to this new unauthorized copy of the Biryani cart to see what was going on.

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I’ve been made fun of a lot in the comments since I decided to not eat one of those terrible looking, shrink wrapped sandwiches from the Walgreens in Times Square. For any of you who may have missed it, I’ll briefly recap: awhile back, I posted that if there was something you were afraid to try in Midtown you could “dare” me to eat it, and I would be happy to oblige. Whether it was banana sushi from a generic deli, or steak from Tad’s, or a beef liver sandwich from a cart, the idea was that I would be more than willing to try something that a Midtown Lunch’er was curious about, but didn’t want to eat themselves.

I was dared to eat a sandwich from the new Walgreens in Times Square- and fully intended to eat it, until I got there and discovered that the sandwiches were actually pre-processed and shipped from Massachusetts. It was like being dared to eat a Lean Cuisine or a Stouffer’s Pizza, and I thought it went against the spirit of the original “service” I agreed to provide. I put my foot down and decided not to eat it.

Most of the abuse and jokes about my not eating the sandwich are easily laughed off (I’m a big boy, and this is the life I’ve chosen), but yesterday one comment really bugged me:

“Zach, it’s just a damn sandwich! : ) All right. I’m going to get on my soapbox now. (Violins playing in background) I get the whole thing of not eating anything that’s less than delicious. But there is something a wee bit spoiled about refusing to eat something that’s probably not super yummy because it’s shrink-wrapped and it won’t be as heavenly as Panda Express (which still stumps me). Maybe it’s because I’ve been to a lot of third-world countries where a lot of the people don’t have this privilege of choosing what and where to eat. At the end of the day, it’s just nourishment. We’re lucky enough to be in a position where we can make choices. End soapbox. So, Zach, I really think you shouldn’t have chickened out on the bet. –Boo”

Really? That’s where you want to go with this? Midtown Lunch is more of a fun site, and doesn’t really ever get serious (mostly because I don’t think anybody wants to hear about my political or social views about anything, you just want to read about places to eat lunch), but this one I had to respond to.

The comment I posted in response to “Boo” is after the jump…

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Every since Cafe Zaiya (on 41st btw. Mad+5th) severed ties with them we’ve been getting emails complaining about the decline in the quality of food being served at Zest (on 47th btw. Lex+3rd).  So it should come as no big surprise that they closed at the beginning of the month (thanks to Lunch’er Gaji for the tip.) I’m sure the opening of Dainobu, on the same block, didn’t help matters either. The awning has been changed to read Amakusa (the name of the restaurant that used to occupy the upstairs space) but according to a sign on the door new management will be opening a new restaurant soon.  A photo of that is after jump…

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