At Lunch Now: Boulud Says “Shake Shack Has Nothing On My Burger!”
The first reports are pouring in from NBC’s fancy food truck promotion today. You had to win your way in… and it looks like a lot of Midtown Lunchers took advantage. Blondie and Brownie are on line right now at the Boulud Truck in Midtown (on 48th btw. 5+6th) and they will be sending live reports from the scene (apparently he is serving burgers!), but to tie you over here’s a report sent in by Lunch’er Jill from the Liebrandt truck, which was parked from 10-Noon in the Flatiron District.
Due to my strange talent for being able to tell the location of pictures taken around NYC, we landed a spot on the fancy food truck express today. An email told us to go down to the Flat Iron district, where Paul Liebrandt was going to be serving fish and chips. Yum! I was excited! Exclusivity in New York is a very heady thing, and I was all excited that we didn’t get one of those obnoxious ACCESS DENIED emails. But, honestly, leaving work for lunch at 10:30 and spending $4.50 for the trip made me hope that the food was going to be worth it. ACCESS GRANTED read the little card we were handed at the start of the line. Then they checked our name, our password, and stamped our hand. First of all, it seemed like there were many more NBC staff standing around the cart then there were lucky winners. We grabbed a little cone of food and barely walked four steps before we were stopped by a camera crew and interviewed about the experience. Everyone, the chef, the staff, the camera crew, could not have been nicer. But we were served one tiny fish croquette type thing and a few chips. A magnificent, delectable fish and chips combination, but it was practically a thimbleful. The fact that they called this a lunch was very misleading.
Check out the cone, plus live reports from Midtown, after the jump…
It wasn’t even cocktail party food. It was a taste. On the subway ride back uptown I told my husband “This was a publicity stunt gone awry.” He said, “Well, so was the Hindenberg but at least no one at the food cart said ‘Oh, the humanity.’” Then we started laughing because we remembered, at one point wind blew down an entire rack of the fish and chip cones that scattered all over the sidewalk, and my husband saw the mess and said “Oh, the humanity.” When I arrived back in midtown I went to the Jamaican Dutchy and got a real lunch.
It seems like Blondie and Brownie are having a slightly better time on 48th.
12:15 – The line is already stretched down to Pronto Pizza, but you get a choice of three things: burger, sausage, or croque.
Photo courtesy of Aesis from Flavorize
12:30pm– From Lunch’er Evienyc – “I had the Frenchie Burger & my friend had the lamb sausage… both delicious & the dessert was to die for!! So completely awesome! And Daniel is so nice!” It’s starting to look like the Flatiron District got screwed…
12:55pm – The line moved really fast, and is almost finished. Boulud is in good spirits and wearing a shirt that says “Eat My Sausage”. Awesome.
12:57pm – “Shake Shack has nothing on my burger!” – Boulud
1:05pm – Lamb sausage delicious. Burger cooked perfectly if you like it rare (and topped with pork belly!) Croque monsieur… one of the best we’ve ever had. I don’t see how Ducasse and White are going to top this!
3:00pm – Lunch’er “Adam Prato” just sent in this report from the 2-4pm truck parked on B’way & 13th: “I got a pass for the event from StreetMeasOnsumer3000 for the 2pm slot. I wasn’t told the location so I assumed it was on 48th st but it was on Broadway and 13th, so I wound up taking a cab there and a train back ($11.50) for a free lunch :) Anyway the 2pm chef turned out to be Ducasse. The food was good. On the menu was tarte flambe, charcuterie, and a merengue. Unfortunately the food was cold and didn’t stand a chance with today’s weather, and I question the rationale of the organizers for scheduling a street food event in mid-winter. Cold sausage doesn’t win me as a fan of his work, but I don’t blame him. The portion was decent, generous considering the whole meal. Next time they really ought to do this in the spring or
autumn.”
Posted by The ML Team at 12:36 pm, February 8th, 2010 under NBC.
52 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
52 Comments
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@stevenp: Bingo!
Buncha ‘foodies’ who probably turn their nose up when they walk by a real street cart, mugging for the camera, twits reveling in the “exclusivity” of their food cart invite…WTF?
It’s ML.com, not “MyInviteGetsMePastTheRopeAndMakesMeImportantAndYouNotSoImportant.com.”
Marketing hype, pretty pics of $5 cookies, out of bounds reviews left and right… uh, yeah. Sure. That’s not why I used to start my day with ML and reload about a hundred times before lunch. Used to. It’s nothing I decided to do – I just noticed I’m not really feeling like coming here so much.
Do what you guys want with the site, it’s yours, this is just one fat guys opinion. But I find myself less and less drawn here. It’s only been a few days, but I don’t feel the laser-like focus anymore.
I don’t know what it means when you go from checking a site hourly (“minutely?”) to not even realizing you haven’t checked it in a few days, but it means something. It might have something to do with this blatant NBC cross-promotion, but not totally.
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Stevenp, SMO3K gave me his tickets, and I couldn’t find someone to go with. I thought about you but had no idea how to get in touch with you.
(this website needs a way to share eachother’s contact info).
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I agree with Adam. I wish there was a commenter inbox-message system linked/notified to your email. Then you wouldn’t have to share anything personal with people but still be able to check messages and reply back to them directly on ML.
This reply feature is cool.
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Dude: try facebook. You’re right at the top of my (alphabetical) friend’s list. And, like most days, I was up for a 3-4 hour lunch.
Yes, you are retarded. (At least today!)
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My hand says “ocals onl”
I hope the 4 pm time slot people enjoy themselves. I had sausages with pork belly and sauerkraut. It got cold really fast!
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“adamprato” admits that he is retarded.
WOW!!! Another earth-moving confession from the ‘celebrity’ set!
Next thing I can expect is Obammie admitting that he is not intelligent enough to be President (or a Chicago dogcatcher, for that matter).
P.S., I hope that you can find ‘someone to go with’ — wherever it is you need to go, adamprato.
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The only thing that would be more earth-moving is when we discover the true identify of whoever is trolling as “DocChuck09”.
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@MikeNYC – you’re not alone, I keep hoping it’s growing pains but sadly each article posted leads me closer and closer to the conclusion that you can’t go home again. The “voice” of the authors is just way off, apart from Mama they’re uninteresting and without any ML cred, the only time there are any comments is when they involve contests and free food, and the quality of those comments diminsh daily.
I do have to say that I agree with adamprato, though:
I had him pegged for a retard from his first comment.
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Ouch – two internet tough guys making fun of me. I’m gonna go home and cry now :(
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I think bossman was agreeing with you?
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Yup, he’s agreeing that I’m a retard…
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I was at the 4pm Chef White slot. TINY porchetta sandwich, no dessert. Ended up going to pinche taqueria for tacos. Zach said he’d post my camera pic when he gets back from lunch. HOWEVER, meeting Chef White was AWESOME, even if I only got to say hello and thank you.
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was it a great porchetta sandwich though?
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Yeah, it was pretty damn good! Moist warm roasted pork with skin (skin lost alot to being premade and waiting in a truck), some sorta creamy dressing, spicy arugula, and a tiny bit of julienne beets.
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I too was there for the 4-6 slot. Got there around 4:30-ish and they were feeding anyone who came along. I did get to have a nice talk with Michael White and Jeffrey Gartner (cranky, gray haired, Iron Chef Judge) about pigs. Chef White mentioned there was all sorts of pig pieces in my sandwich. He actually pointed out a piece of kidney.
The sandwich WAS quite good but what a major bummer to get a 3″x3″ sandwich. But hey, free food is free food!
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This was a scam! I received an email last week saying that I had won, “Access Granted” and that my time slot was 4-6 and that I’d receive an email today with the location. No email arrived. Now that I hear that the food wasn’t all that, I don’t feel so bad, but I’m still pretty angry that I got left hanging. Did any one else have this experience?
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Boulud Says “Shake Shack Has Nothing On My Burger!”
Yes, the Shack has one BIG, IMPORTANT THING: I don’t need to enter a friggin’ lame contest and get a secret password e-mailed to me to get a Shack burger.
Oh, one more thing: I can get a Shack burger tomorrow, too. All day.
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…and I can get a Shack burger without having my damned hand stamped! :^)
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Uh, Boulud serves his burger at his restaurant.
THE FRENCHIE 17.
6 oz beef patty with confit pork belly, arugula, tomato-onion compote & morbier cheese on a peppered brioche bun with cornichon, mustard & fries.
You can get it today if you want. Probably won’t be the tourist lines or baby carriage traffic jam you’d get at the Shake Shack locations, either.The above comment comes across as sour grapes, not real criticism.
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@adam:
Sorry, son, but I do not “TROLL” — I comment. If my comments strike you as “Trolling”, then I am deeply sorry (but, only for you, adamprato).
P.S. Everyone on the internet knows my ‘…true identity…’, except you.
Maybe you need to check out my ‘MySpace’ nonsense, or sharpen your ‘Googling’ skills.
Carry on, adam
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Yah. Right. Whatever you say. I believe this, because as you noted, I’ve stated that I am retarded.
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Yes, adam, you did. But as a Doctor of Psychology (University of Texas), I really would encourage you to seek professional counseling since you have at least acknowledged your problem.
You have made a VERY important first step, in my professional opinion, in seeking the help that you may need.
Best wishes to you, adamprato
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Have you heard that Boulud has 6 nipples??? http://cheapdigest.com/Daniel_Boulud_Has_Six_Nipples
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Where’s stevenp to flame this shill? Oh yeah, he’s at 3rdfloor…
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Uhm, is it me or did you create some sort of weird midtownlunch/yelp hybrid/ripoff?
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Holy fuck, what’s this a megalomaniac convention?
Seven comments? I guess if he can’t find someone to join him for a dB lunch finding a girl/boy friend to keep him busy would be totally beyond the realm of possibilities.
Epic fail.
Zach, pull the plug before what was ML becomes a distant memory.
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Here are some more pics from the event, including Mike White’s truck, Jeffrey Steingarten (judge on ICA and author) at his truck and the pig ear chef white gave me.
Wow. My suspicions were confirmed. This whole thing was an overhyped ‘gourmet foodie’ clusterf***. What exactly was the point of it again? I’ll stick with the tried and true vendors and recommendations from ML, not these marketing shams. (I’m right around the corner from the Flatiron location and wasn’t even tempted to step out to see this.)