Midtown Lunch

A month or so ago, Sweetery NYC (formerly Street Sweets) begun carrying ice cream sandwiches. This ice cream sandwich expert saw the flavor combinations and knew that the sandwiches were coming from Melt Bakery. If any of you stopped by the Hester Street Fair last summer, you might have stopped by their booth. And even though the weather hasn’t fully turned to wonderful out, it’s always the time for ice cream. Even if that ice cream comes completely frozen and will set you back a pretty penny.

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This year tax day is a few days later than the usual April 15th deadline and if you kick it old school and mail in an actual copy of your return you may find yourself taking a trip to the James Farley Post Office (on 8th Ave. btw. 31+32nd). My last year’s recommendation of NY Pizza Suprema still holds, but if you need something sweet to dull the pain of having to pay more taxes (or celebrate your refund!) then you might consider a stroll down the block to D’Aiuto’s.

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For those of you who looked forward to Lily O’Brien’s Monday and Friday Robicelli’s deliveries, effective this week, the Robicelli’s have terminated their relationship. The  good news is their cupcakes are now available at Joe the Art of Coffee in Grand Central Terminal. Joe gets delivers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (so they’ll be fresher mid-week) and best of all, they are selling the cupcakes for $3 instead of $3.50 at Lily’s. For flavor schedule, you can follow Robicelli’s Tumblr, though be aware that because of space constraints Joe doesn’t get all of their flavors… so if you’re very particular about which one you want, you may want to call ahead.

Joe The Art of Coffee, Graybar Passage (off Lex.) in Grand Central Terminal, 212-661-8580

We get a lot of press releases in the ML inbox–most of which we ignore, especially if they have to do with “Sandra Lee, world-famous food personality”.  But I am a sucker for a bake sale, and tomorrow Pyrex is sponsoring the World’s Largest Bake Sale to benefit The Food Bank of New York. It will feature “sweet and savory baked goods from 30 of New York’s most well-respected chefs and restaurants, including: Ciao Bella Gelato, Junior’s Restaurant, Magnolia, Manhattan Chili Company, Murray’s, Zaro’s as well as Del Posto and Fresco by Scotto. The bake sale will be in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal from 11:30 to 7pm.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Timing for the eating o’ the green treats. If you’re courageous enough to brave the emerald clad revelers, there are some St. Patty’s Day treats awaiting you at Treats Truck including: cupcakes, crispy treats, and four leaf clover sugar cookies. And Robicellis is now delivering to Joe the Art of Coffee in Grand Central on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so Joe should have a selection of their holiday cupcakes: Irish Soda Bread (with a clotted cream buttercream & Drambuie soaked raisins), Irish Coffee (Bailey’s-espresso cake & buttercream, ganache, crushed white chocolate) and the Car Bomb (Chocolate Guinness stout cake, Bailey’s buttercream, Jameson whiskey ganache). Lily O’Brien’s will be getting a delivery of these flavors tomorrow for those of you still celebrating on Friday (or needing something to get over your hangover).

Also Shake Shack is serving up Mint Chocolate Chip Custard, and if you tell your server “Get Lucky” at The Counter in Times Square they’ll give you a green beer or green shake for just $3. “Like” The Counter on Facebook and show it to them (on your phone or a printout) they’ll give you the shake for free.

Back in November, a new cupcake truck, Cupcake Crew, was spotted on the streets of Midtown and most of us just though “Ugh, another cupcake truck. Can’t pies or doughnuts or whatever kill the cupcake already?!” I too was cupcake’d out for a while, but now that Cupcake Stop is possibly maybe gone (?) it’s a different story.  Well that, and I saw the flavors that Cupcake Crew was coming out with. Cupcakes with cannoli filling and shells! Ones inspired by my favorite Girl Scout cookie, the Samoa! Add considering that they tend to park next to savory trucks where I can score lunch, I had now choice but to be on it!

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Earlier this week I blogged about Late Night Snack, the newest flavor from Ben & Jerry’s, featuring a vanilla ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and chocolate covered potato chips. Yesterday when I was down in the Rock Center concourse, I noticed that the Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop had Late Night Snack on hand. Not terribly surprising since it was created in partnership with 30 Rock’er, Jimmy Fallon… but for those of you hunting around for the flavor, now you know where to go.

Becoming a mobile vendor is not quite as easy as ehow would have you believe. So in anticipation of Softee Season 2011 we’ve asked Chrissy (aka Miss Softee) to show us the process of what it takes to become an ice cream vendor in Midtown. We’ll meet the potential new vendors, and track their progress through the selection and training process as all of the candidates make their way towards being a full fledged Mr. Softee vendor. Last week you met the first few hires, this week Team Softee 2011 adds more drivers to the crew. Take it away Miss Softee!

This week all of the new midtown Softee crew headed down to the Department of Health to register to take their Mobile Food Vending classes. Most of the group will go through the actual class in early March, but in the meantime, they’re getting more and more excited to meet you all and are imagining all the ways to bring something unique to their trucks!! I’m pleased to introduce you to a few more drivers that were hired last week. Read more »

As New Englander from way back–let’s put it this way, some of my relatives were on the Mayflower and the others met the boat–I should probably hold Boston Cream with a certain degree of reverence. But frankly, I’m not the biggest fan of the vanilla custard, chocolate frosted donut (or the cake that masquerades as a pie for that matter). If you up the chocolate, well, then you might get me interested. Dunkin Donuts did just that with their new chocolate donuts. I can only pass their “new donut” signage for so long before breaking down. I’m just not that strong. So I decided to check it out. At least I could let my fellow lunchers know if it was worth it.

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Becoming a mobile vendor is not quite as easy as ehow would have you believe. So in anticipation of Softee Season 2011 we’ve asked Chrissy (aka Miss Softee) to show us the process of what it takes to become an ice cream vendor in Midtown. We’ll meet the potential new vendors, and track their progress through the selection and training process as all of the candidates make their way towards being a full fledged Mr. Softee vendor.  Here’s Part 1.  Take it away Miss Softee!

Everyone wants to drive an ice cream truck, but not everyone has what it takes to stick around and see the job through. While the joys of slinging the cream far outweigh the cons in my mind, the hours are long, the work can by very physical, and the midtown route is demanding!! So, this season, I’ve been given the opportunity to help bring on new drivers to our team, train them, and work as a day-to-day manager. I’m going to share my knowledge of the industry and business with them and they’ll all be working throughout Midtown with special toppings, happy hour, and more! Read more »