Midtown Lunch

If the commuter crowds in Grand Central aren’t bad enough, you can descend into the centennial festivities and get some free chow to join ’em! On April 10th, Grand Central merchants are giving away free stuff to the first 100 people in line. Of interest to the ML crowd: free spring rolls with any purchase at Pescatore, free vanilla cupcakes from Zaro’s (Shuttle Passage and Grand Central Market locations only) at 10 AM, free chocolate chunk cookies at Magnolia (2-4 PM only), free meatball slider with every slice purchase at Two Boots Pizza, and tons more from their full list. Freeloaders, watch the departure board for tracks and have your tickets ready!

Noodle fans REJOICE! Our dream has finally come true!!

Word just broke this morning via The Daily Meal that Xi’an Famous Foods’ newest location will open on April 22nd at 24 West 45th Street (btw. 5th and 6th) with TWO kitchens. Yes, you read that right – one kitchen for dining in and one kitchen for take out just to accommodate all of you crazy Midtown Lunch’ers. Make sure you like their FB page to get a coupon for a free Stewed Pork or Spicy Cumin Lamb Burger at their grand opening from 11am-9pm!

The menu will be the Xi’an we’ve all come to know and love, but owner Jason Wang has indicated that the pizza oven left behind by Karam Restaurant II, the previous tenants, may be coming in handy for some new experiments.

See you all at the opening on the 22nd with your coupons in hand!

Yesterday Bian Dang tricked some of us into thinking that they were closing down, but this sadly is no April Fool’s joke. We got multiple reports yesterday that Indus Express (on 48th btw. 5+6th) has been shut down by the Marshalls. This isn’t the first time that For Rent sign has been in the window of Indus Express, but it looks like this time it might be permanently gone.  Thanks to @nafmij for the photo.

Zach’s already given you guys the heads up, but here’s a little reminder that today is the official pub date our book, New York à la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks and we’re going to be signing our book in midtown at Posman Books in Grand Central with our awesome photographers, Donny Tsang and Clay Williams. Brian will be joining us, too! And we’re hopeful some other lunchers might drop by. Got a question about Midtown Lunching? Dying to know our favorite spots? Our best lunching adventures? Our worst lunching adventures? Drop by, pick up a copy of our book and ask us anything about lunch! We’d love to see you! Can’t make today’s event? We have a number of other events scheduled around the city including a signing at the Rock Center Posman Books on Wednesday, 4/10 at 1pm.

The future NAYA Express on 56th Street, previously Cucina.

As you know, we’re huge fans of Naya Express, the “Chipotle assembly line”-style Lebanese fast food place on 3rd Ave btw. 43rd and 44th, and we’ve just got word that they’re opening a SECOND LOCATION in Midtown West at 54 West 56th Street between 5th and 6th Ave!

We’ll keep you posted on the opening date, but the location is expected to be up and running in August.

I’d walked past Nirvana (Lex btw. 39th+40th) tons of times on the way to my office, but it never struck me as the type of place that would do take-out, let along the type of place that would have take-out deals for under $10. Then one day I happened upon a menu and discovered that, indeed, Nirvana offers several lunch deals at the ML price level.

As with most other Indian restaurants, the lunches at Nirvana included a choice of meat with a vegetable, rice, naan, and raita. I ordered the lamb curry for $8.95, but they also have seafood ($9.95), chicken curry ($8.95), vegetable curry ($7.95), and tandoori chicken ($7.95). Even better, you get 10% off when you order online.

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On 53rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, there’s an expensive Italian restaurant called Remi. The prices there are way beyond the Midtown Lunch budget, but just around the corner at Remi To Go, you can pick up some food from the same people for a fraction of the cost. Remi To Go is just north of the sit-down restaurant, tucked away in an outdoor atrium labeled “6 ½ Ave.” There’s some seating outdoors, which probably fills up during the summer, plus a few tables on the inside.

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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 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.

A few weeks back, we hit up Murray Bar, (34th St. btw. Madison and Park). A sports bar at first glance, Murray Bar seems to have something for everyone. I could just picture Stefon from SNL saying, “This place has everything…”

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How did we miss this one??? Well, perhaps the writers at Midtown Lunch are too busy watching food porn and forgot to set our DVR’s to catch some quality children’s programming.

But thanks to an email from Luncher Rachael (and her child’s Sesame Street viewing), we learned that Eddie Song and the Korilla Truck were indeed featured on Sesame Street. The episode aired back in November and has been in re-runs. Eddie teaches Murray (the Elmo-like puppet above) how to make Korean food from a truck- but sadly there is no video of the scene online. I’m sure this has given Korilla a new group of adolescent fans. Let’s hope they don’t add to the already massive lines at the truck.

And if anybody doubted Korilla’s ethics from their previous television appearance on the Great Food Truck Race, I think this has cleared it up.