Midtown Lunch

I’ve gotten a lot of emails over the past few weeks asking what happened to Kwik Meal’s Muhammed Rahman.  The cart is still there (on 45th & 6th), serving up their famous lamb and rice platters, but Muhammed has not been seen for awhile- replaced by a woman who now appears to be running the operation during lunch.  Rahman famously used to work at the Russian Tea Room, before starting up Kwik Meal, where he has become widely known for his lamb, which is considered some of the best street meat in the city.

It turns out Muhammed has gotten back into the restaurant business, in an incredily unlikely location…  Read more »

Midtown Truck Wars? Photo by nycblondieandbrownie

• Turf Wars: Wafel V. Treats Truck in Midtown [Eater]
• The mini panna cotta cups at Yushi are amazing [Umamimart]
• Cheap Ass Food hits up Taj Delhi Chat… [CAF]
• … and so does Danny from Food in Mouth (both agree it’s awesome) [Food in Mouth]
• Downtown Lunch’er Yvo is stalking our own Daniel Krieger [Feisty Foodie]

Fresh on the heels of yesterdays post on how to make a complete Midtown Lunch out of free samples comes this ridiculousness.  Free sushi samples, on the street, in the hot sun, from a pizza place.  No joke.  Yesterday, Madrit’s Pronto Pizza on 55th btw. 5+6th added a sushi bar to their establishment, and to generate interest they were giving away free samples today in front of the store. I’d like to pretend like I didn’t try it, but I’m a gross man, and couldn’t help myself.  Luckily I’m still alive to type this…

I don’t think I’ll ever be getting the sushi from Madrit’s Pronto, but they do have a pretty sweet outdoor seating area in the back, so I may have to go back for a slice.

Photo by seraphim1970

Thanks to Gen from Foodies R Goodies for passing this info along.  Naruto Sushi, the take out Japanese place on 49th btw. Mad+5th is now Shinbashi 49.  Operated out of the back of the upscale sushi restaurant of the same name, Naruto was originally designed to be its own separate store, with its own management.  The owners decided that wasn’t working, so now it’s being run by the same people who run Shinbashi on 48th btw. Mad+5th.

I may be on crack, but it looks like there may have been an improvement in the quality of the rice since I wrote about Naruto.  I didn’t try anything, so I don’t know for sure… but if you work in the area, and are looking for decent take out sushi, you could probably do a lot worse than this place.  If you check it out, feel free to comment below.

And for more photos, check out Gen’s post at FoodiesRGoodies

Wednesday I allowed a Midtown Lunch’er to air his grievance against Naples 45 (on 45th btw. Mad+5th), a restaurant that has raised the price of their after 2pm slice special twice in the past year.  The restaurant responded yesterday with an email of their own:

Dear Zach,

The article about Naples 45 posted [Wednesday] on Midtown Lunch saddens us, as the afternoon slice discount has always been a program of goodwill towards the community.The price of flour has gone up four times over the past 12 months, and the dollar is at a record low against the Euro — which means that the Italian ingredients that we import to make our authentic Neopolitan pizza (San Marzano tomatoes, Italian low-gluten wheat flour) have gone up multifold. We have been forced to raise the price of the afternoon special slice to $1.75 from $1.25 (available after 2 PM).

But we are still keeping the price at under $2 — whereas elsewhere in the city slices have similarly gone up and many charge up to $3 (see a recent article in The New York Times here.)

Patina Restaurant Group

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets saddened.  All Some kidding aside though, as much as I’d like to get sarcastic and tear this email to shreds, I do feel bad for these restaurants who are forced to find a balance between the rising cost of goods on one side, and cheapo bastards with blogs on the other side.  It also helps to know that commenters will probably do it for me. 

I love having guest writers on the site, so when this guy wrote in and asked if he could submit a post about making an entire lunch out of free samples in Midtown, I was like- uh… of course!  Nobody loves free stuff more than me… except maybe this guy.  Meet Jeremy, an employee of a PR agency on 45th & 5th, who has developed the “perfect” free lunch experience. (He may also be related to Profiled: Midtown Lunch’er “Jim”)

Like most of you, I’ve been looking to Midtown Lunch for good cheap food since I started working in Midtown late last year. When I’m feeling flush I head to Ambrosia (on 45th btw. 5+6th) for (runny egg on request) bibimbap, ‘wichcraft for the slow-roasted pork sandwich, or Chiyoda (on 41st btw. Mad+5th) for a taste of the sea. But the New Year brought crippling student loans and totally unreasonable spending habits (this summer I ate at James Beard and WD-50 on two consecutive nights), so naturally, I have started looking for low-cost alternatives.

It’s not that I can’t scrape together five dollars for lunch, or that I can’t cook for myself. As all Midtown Lunch disciples know, one of the few joys of working a serious midtown job is taking your one hour lunch break to walk around the neighborhood, get annoyed by tourists, play chess in Bryant Park, and think about getting on the downtown F train and never coming back.

First I started reducing the size of my meals, beginning with the “Master Cleanse” diet. “It’s about learning restraint, dude.” That ended on day four when I passed out in the shower. Then I limited myself to tiny lunches, like a small plate of kimchi from Cafe Manhattan (on 45th btw. 5+6th.) Incidentally, what’s on display in the cold buffet by the lb. trough is not the Korean staple, but some unfermented imposter. (Ask and you shall receive the real shit.) When it became apparent that my coworkers were starting to feel sorry for me (my supervisor still gives me her hard-boiled eggs, an edible symbol of life itself) I realized I had to create the impression that I was living luxe, but do it on the cheap.

So I devised a cheap Midtown Lunch walking tour: a multi course, totaly free, tasting menu that anybody can do (provided you are not easily embarassed.)   Read more »

Another Pret is opening up on 3rd Ave btw. 47+48th and they’re doing another one of those free sandwich days. It’s a little tricky though, so you may want to pay attention… On Friday morning from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. they’ll be giving out flyers for a free Pret goodie bag, which can be redeemed after 12:15 p.m.  At previous openings the goodie bag contained half a sandwich, a bag of popcorn, a brownie, and a coupon for a free cup of coffee. Not too shabby. If they haven’t given out all the goodie bags by around 1:30, they may start to give out more flyers at the door- so if you don’t manage to score a flyer on Friday morning, you can still try to snag your free food sans flyer.  Their main goal is letting people know the store is open, so people have been successful at getting free food without a flyer in the past, but there are no guarantees.   Good luck freeloaders!