Midtown Lunch

From Lunch’er “hightemp”: “I’ve been stalking the Macaron Cafe on 59th St [btw. Mad+Park] and am happy to report for us Midtown Northeasters that it is now officially open. The shop is much, much more elegant than the 36th st location. Definitely has a Paris boutique feel to go along with the new branding. They are only doing coffee, tea and Macs right now but the full lunch menu will be available starting on Monday. (And so far they are quoting the same prices as 36th st….we’ll see about that part though.)” Nice.

Related:
Macaron Cafe Brings a Bit of Paris to Midtown
Macaron Cafe To Open Second Location

For the vegetarians, the street food scene may sometime feel a bit boring, since it’s mostly all about street meat. And to meat eaters, vegetarian food can seem kind of boring. But every body loves a good dosa! So when we first heard about the newish Dosa Cart spotted in Midtown last month, it was a big deal. For people unfamiliar with dosas, they’re a South Indian specialty. It’s basically an Indian crepe, made from rice and lentils, that can be filled with many different fillings. We first heard about this cart parking on 39th and 7th, but it appears as if they’ve settled in at a spot on 39th and 6th- and for just $5, how could I not check it out?

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If you’ve been curious to try the Crisp Asia (or any of the strange falafel creations at Crisp) but didn’t want to pay full price, here’s your big chance.  Today’s deal over on InBundles gets you $10 worth of food at Crisp for just $5. The only downside?  The gift certificate is only good at the 40th Street location (btw. 6+B’way).

In case you missed the photo posted to NewYorkology on Monday (or the numerous mentions in the comments)… signage for the new Shake Shack on 8th Ave. and 44th Street has gone up.  Still not definite opening date, but according to NewYorkology the hotel that it’s located in will open on July 12th.  Feel that in the air? That’s called excitement people. (Special thanks to fatappel for posting the photo to the Midtown Lunch Flickr Photo Pool.)

Related:
Shake Shack is Coming To Midtown!

Yesterday, a new Five Guys opened on 48th btw. 5+6th and despite it being a mobscene the reports were pretty positive service wise. Today, not so much. From Lunch’er “Masto”: I’ve never seen a place go downhill so fast. Because I wasn’t very hungry yesterday and only had a hot dog, I decided to go back for the proper burger and fries today. The lines were ridiculous and they somehow managed to lose my order in the assembly line. While I waited and waited and then waited for them to re-make it, it seemed like half the people there were in the same boat. They kept grabbing the customers’ receipts to go back and start over. Occasionally they even screwed that up and had to try a third time. I guess everybody who went yesterday told their coworkers and they just pushed it over a critical limit of competence today. Or everyone just quit. It’s stressful enough to stand in the midst of that chaos and screaming while waiting for food, I can’t imagine what it’s like to work there.” Give it time. I’m sure they’ll settle in to a fairly standard 15 minute wait time.

After visits to the Bay Area last year, Zach came back first with five and then another three lunches that Midtown really needs to have. I was out there for most of last week and found even more delicious lunch goodness that I would love to see Midtown borrow from the left coast.

First thing we need is an amazing food court like they have at the Westfield Mall, San Francisco Centre. With more than 20 eateries in ML range, there’s Chinese, pasta, Korean Barbecue, Tri-tips, fish shacks and more to wade through. It’s enough to explore for weeks. See what I had and some of the other points on my wishlist after the jump.

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CNN’s “Best Jobs” video chronicling a day in the life of a Mister Softee truck sure did make the rounds on the old blogosphere yesterday!  We were slightly suspicious of its awfully rosy portrait of what it’s like to run a Mister Softee truck, and this morning everybody’s favorite Midtown Mister Softee vendor “Miss Softee” checked in to let us know that our suspicions were justified.

I just watched the video and wanted to expand on what she says, plus share a little more detail with the readers because to think that we’re making almost a thousand dollars a day in our pay is a bit absurd and is totally misunderstood!! I think that she gives a decent explanation of the job, including the long hours, the specifics of working for Softee (that they give you a route, a tune, and you have to use all of their product), but the whole ‘making 900 a day’ thing seems like it’s being misunderstood in this report. The TRUCK may pull in $900 on a really GOOD DAY. But, out of that sum, in addition to the truck startup fees (90K) there’s the ongoing costs: the products, the commissary/depot fee, the franchise fee, gas, incurred tickets, as well as any repairs of the truck, so, while $900/day in your pocket sounds great, that’s NOT what is actually going in!!

But wait, there’s more… Read more »