2 days ago
A Fast-Casual Taiwanese Spot Joins the Midtown Lunch Fray
Yumpling, a Taiwanese fast-casual food business, began as a flea market stand before expanding with a Midtown food truck under the same name. In 2020, owner Chris Yu and partners opened a full-on takeout restaurant in Long Island City, which, over the past five years, has cemented itself as a standby in the Queens neighborhood. Now, he has returned to the neighborhood where it all began, opening a new outpost of Yumpling that joins the Midtown lunch fray, a couple of blocks from where the food truck launched.
First announced in 2024, Yumpling Midtown is finally open as of this week: 'Truck days have proven that our food will do well in the city and, since we are more fast-casual than dine-in, we are hoping the young millennial work crowd will treat us well,' Yu told Eater upon initially announcing the expansion.
The menu is similar to the LIC restaurant: their pan-fried dumplings (pork, chicken, veggie, or a mix), rice bowls (with fried pork chop, crispy chicken, lou rou fan, or basil eggplant), and noodle dishes, such as the classic beef noodle soup. There are a few seats, but the intent is to keep things moving.
It follows on the heels of another Taiwanese spot that opened in the neighborhood last month, Jabä, over on East 58th Street, which showcases the cuisine in a sit-down environment. Yumpling Midtown is nearby at 16 E. 52nd Street, near Madison Avenue, accessible to office workers farther east and those closer to Rockefeller Center.
Yumpling's set-up brings to mind spots like Milu, the fast-casual Chinese American bowl spot that debuted in Gramercy from Eleven Madison Park alum, Connie Chung, during the pandemic (it opened and then closed in Williamsburg, and there's a second remaining outpost in Battery Park's Brookfield Place). In the past five years, there have been several new bowl spots diversifying office lunch options in Manhattan, taking it to far more intriguing and personal places than your average Chipotle. These include the Indian-leaning and well-financed Inday, which has rebranded and cannibalized another bowl spot; Dùndú, just south of Grand Central, with Nigerian bowls; Sopo, a Korean bowl spot near Penn Station; and ThisBowl, a poke-ish bowl spot hailing from Sydney, now with two Manhattan locations, that has managed to make fast-casual cool in a chrome setting that could be a fashion boutique. See More: NYC Restaurant News
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