Midtown Lunch

Fat Annie’s Truck Stop (on 33rd btw. 6+7th) during the Inauguration. Photo by presley 

• Does eating at City Burger too much give you the gout? [The Feedbag]
• Dave Cook checks out the kashiwa mochi at Dainobu [Eating in Translation]
• A rundown of the different flavors of Mitzy’s macarons at Tafu [A Passion for Food]
• The steak may be fine, but skip the burger at the Midtown Smith & Wollensky [AHT]
• The oatmeal chocolate chipper from the Treats Truck [Blondie and Brownie]
• Ed Levine calls the just out of bounds Baoguette, the best banh mi in New York [SE:NY]
• The inventor of the doner kebab passed away [The Local]

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” will post 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.

The first time I went to the Judge Roy Bean it was a holiday weekend and the place was mostly empty, save for a few guys eating at the bar and a family of tourists seeking rest at a table. I ordered a well drink. My friends got a beer. In general, I was not really impressed. There wasn’t a happy hour, prices were in the $6-$8 range, my drink came in your usual medium sized glass and was just right, but not potent. The place was ok, but somewhat lacking. I couldn’t get past the fact that I was drinking in Midtown. Now let’s fast forward to this past Wednesday.

I needed a bar to review and I figured I’d give the Judge a retrial. I called upon a couple of single girlfriends and some pals and we met up after work. I was the second to show up. By then my blonde friend had an Orange Stoli and soda half finished and was telling Derek, the Irish bartender, how cute he was. I got a black and tan and soon realized that, “Wow, there’s a bunch of hot guys here!” You see babes, I’m not calling this review ladies night at the JRB because it was the bar’s theme night. Oh no, as the night drew longer it was obvious by the healthy dose of young man-meat that filled the bar that this was the place to be if you were a single lady.

Read more »

Photo courtesy of Occam

Wednesday morning, there was a fire in the building that houses Menchanko Tei on 55th btw. 5+6th, forcing them to close along with Onigashima and the Five Guys Burgers and Fries on the same block.  Menchanko Tei says they’re hoping to be back open in a week, while Five Guys is not answering their phone.  Five Guys is always packed on Fridays, so I’m guessing there will be a lot of disappointed people today. Another prediction: Burger Joint (on 56th btw. 6+7th) and Men Kui Tei (on 56th btw. 5+6th) will be mobbed…

All grievances are valid, even when they are aimed at yours truly…

Photo courtesy of Blondie and Brownie 

I was hoping that my post about not eating the sandwiches at Walgreens after being dared by a reader would elicit sympathy from the Midtown Lunch commenters… but clearly not. I thought turning my nose up at shrink wrapped sandwiches, shipped from Massachusetts to giant pharmacies would increase my cred- not destroy it!  Boy was I wrong…

You buy food from anonymous unlicensed people standing on the street selling shit illegally that they made in their home with no idea about the sanitation, storage, source ingredients or skill….people who just randomly show up on a sidewalk every now and then with a stack of styrofoam containers…..and you balk at sandwiches made by a company that is accountable to health inspectors and other governmental agencies, giant corporate customers (Walgreens in this case) not to mention shareholders/investors. ???????????? Obviously a company can screw up just as easily as an individual, but your risk/reward paradigm has gotten severely messed up. -Ben

Yes! Exactly! In fact, when you consider what the Government allows our corporations to get away with-and conversely, the hoops they force street vendors to jump through- I am much more comfortable eating street meat. Not to mention, I didn’t welsh on the dare because I was afraid of getting sick, I welshed because the sandwiches had no chance of being something Midtown Lunch readers would want to eat.

Or so I thought…

Read more »

While many places are struggling to remain open, it looks like Crisp the overpriced (but admittedly pretty tasty) falafel place on 3rd Ave. btw. 43+44th is expanding.  They have a second location opening up in March on 40th Street btw. B’way+6th, in what seems like a microcosm of what’s happening more and more these days in Midtown. While this overpriced falafel place (which clearly has hopes of becoming a larger chain) expands, just one avenue away an old school Midtown falafel/kebab institution shuts its doors. If the current trend holds, it will probably be replaced by a Chiposimetromcpaxuropamanger.

The New Year’s carnage continues, as we receive word from the “Bronx Briner Gal” that Sahara Grill, the small Turkish take out place on 7th Ave. and 40th Street, has closed. Known for its doner kebab and falafel, the Sahara Grill is a place that you may not have eaten at- but you’ve definitely walked by. It will be missed by many.

Photo by Food in Mouth

I had a couple of stupid titles ready and waiting for my post about Danku, the new Dutch/Indonesian fast food place on 57th btw. 5+6th. I narrowed it down to “Danku But No Danku” and “Danku Shame”, but sadly it looks like I won’t get to use them. Is Danku good? No. But it’s also not so bad that I feel the need to publicly humiliate them on the site. How good or bad it is will also depend on who you ask, and what you order. After my first visit to Danku, on their opening day, yielded pretty terrible results, I decided to step back and give them some breathing room. Let them work out the kinks before returning to give them their full +/-.

Well, 6 weeks is plenty of time and last week I returned with a serious group of Midtown Lunchers, waiting to pass judgement on this new fast food chain: Danny from Food in Mouth, Blondie and Brownie (from the blog of the same name) and Bartender Extraordinaire Don Lee. I was actually surprised Don was willing to come, since he accompanied me on the first trip to Danku- and was less than thrilled with his decision.

We were able to try most of the menu, but with eaters like this Danku would have to bring their A game… and I’m not sure they were up to the challenge.

Read more »

Photo courtesy of Word of Mouth

You know we love their super cheap, and super large burger. And their corned beef sandwich is my go-to St. Patty’s Day lunch.  But apparently the brisket sandwich is the way to go at the Blarney Stone (on 3rd Ave. btw. 44+45th) according to Peter Cherches:

The corned beef is good, but it’s cured Irish style, and I prefer Jewish deli style. But the brisket, now that’s my weakness. A brisket sandwich for $7 may not be the humongous monster you’ll get at Katz’s or the 2nd Avenue Deli, but it’s more than ample and less than half the price of those establishments.

This might have to be my new go-to Rosh Hashanah lunch… that’s a good brisket holiday, right?

Being a man of my word, I headed over to the new Walgreens in Times Square to try one of their *ahem* sandwiches.  Now, let me just say this: on the walk over there, a lot of thoughts went through my mind.  “How do I get out of this?” “I don’t really have to do this, do I?” “There are good excuses I could make”  But I finally settled on this… I was going to do it.  Why not?  Sure, daring me to eat a sandwich at Walgreens is kind of against the spirit of my initial deal to eat anything in Midtown I was dared to eat… but that’s ok.  My stomach has been through worse… it could handle a crappy, pre-packaged deli sandwich from a pharmacy. Right?

That of course was before I knew what I was up against…

Read more »