Lunch heaven

I have discovered a blog that is all about lunch options in Midtown, called, wait for it, Midtown Lunch. A guy dedicates his lunchtimes to visiting every street stand, cafe, hole in the wall, restaurant and everything in between to report on where its worthwhile filling your tum in your lunch hour.

Today I ventured into a very Tokyo place, full of Japanese=good sign, where I got a salmon bento box for $6, and happily discovered that they have the cutesy, ends-cut-off ribbon sandwiches and choux pastry that Jus and I fell in love with earlier this year.

Most lunch times I have been visitng the local halal street vendor cart where I get 'chicken rice salad' for $4. It's huge and hot and tasty. There are street vendors selling hot dogs which you'd be familiar with, but you can also get giant pretzels, baguettes, curry, ribs, cakes & bagels, nuts, ices, gyros, wraps...pretty much anything. I don't know the halal dudes cook chicken in the sun on an open griddle without everyone getting Bali belly, but so far so good. Did I mention its $4? Ripper Rita.

Next door to the office, and coincidentally next door to my apartment, is a 24-hour mega cafe called Cafe Duke that serves everything you could ever want for lunch. The first time I went in there, with Bob from Flordia, we span around like children in a candy store oohing and aahing. You can get wraps, panninis, bagels, sandwiches made fresh or ready to go, udon, ramen and pho, sushi, pizzas, salads made fresh or ready to go or from a DIY salad bar, bain maries full of hot stuff like mashed potato, turkey, noodles, ribs, chicken, roasted broccoli, bok choy, any drink you can think of, any chocolate, cake, pastry, muffin, icecream you can think of, there's a carvery, burritos and quesadillas, burgers...the choice is overwhelming. It has all the options of a food court but in one restaurant.

Having it close to my apartment is dangerous as they have oversized cupcakes, with cute frosting that lures me to relive childhood birthday party bingeing.