Midtown Lunch

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

This is the scene outside of Lily O’Brien’s (on 40th btw. 5+6th) right now. Wow… cutting it a little close aren’t we guys?  (Apologies in advance if your girlfriend/wife sees you on this line.)

For those of you who forgot that today is Valentine’s Day, you can still save your you know what with some treats for your lady. Lily O’Brien’s (on 40th btw. 5+6th) will be getting their Monday delivery of Robicelli’s with special Valentine’s flavors:

• The L’Amour: Chocolate Chambord cake, Chambord & raspberry buttercream, chocolate shavings, wildberry drizzle
• Strawberry Champagne: Champagne cake, strawberry champagne buttercream, strawberry reduction, edible gold dust
• Dark Chocolate Dulce: Dark chocolate cake, dulce de leche buttercream, dark chocolate drizzle, Maldon flake sea salt (seen above)
• The Eve: Walnut cake, pomegranate cheesecake buttercream, roasted walnuts glazed in pomegranate molasses.

Additionally Treats Truck will be making a special Monday appearance in midtown on 45th & 6th Av from 12:30-3pm with heart shaped sugar cookies, chocolate heart cookies and raspberry linzer heart cookies. Keep track of the Treats Truck’s location on the ML Twitter Tracker or via Twitter.

Lily O’Brien’s (40th btw 5+6th), 212-575-0631

For those of you interested in checking out the cupcakes that were voted midtown’s best by your fellow readers as well as the People’s Choice on Serious Eats New York, today’s Robicelli’s delivery at Lily O’Brien’s includes a brand new Pecan Potato Chip cupcake: Pecan & potato chip butter cake, vanilla buttercream, roasted pecans, crushed potato chips, salted butterscotch. They are also packing one of my all time favorite flavors, their Chocolate Orange: Chocolate orange cake & buttercream, hand candied orange peel. They even made a believer out of my normally citrus/chocolate hating husband. Rounding out today’s offerings are The Duckwalk: Vanilla cake, blueberry port mascarpone buttercream, port infused wild Maine blueberries and the Tiramisu: Espresso cake, espresso ganache, mascarpone buttercream, cocoa powder.

Lily O’Brien’s (40th btw 5+6th), 212-575-0631

Cupcakes can be a bit of a contentious subject here on ML. I happen to enjoy a good cupcake every now and then, but if I step back and look at it objectively, I can see where the haters are coming from. When cupcakes became trendy they became ubiquitous and as such there are a lot of mediocre (not to mention overpriced) ones out there. When Lunch’er Felicia recently asked for cupcake recommendations more than a few readers gave a shout out to Robicelli’s cupcakes available at Lily O’Brien’s off of Bryant Park. I’ve had Robicelli’s plenty of times back in ye olde Brooklyn*, but hadn’t yet had a chance to try them out in their midtown location. Meeting up with a cupcake loving friend for lunch last week, gave me the perfect reason to swing by and try several of their brand new flavors.
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Thanks to Lunch’er Emily for passing along this info…

“I heard [via Twitter] that Robicellis was selling their cupcakes in midtown starting yesterday. Happened to be near me, so I went and got one. They’re being sold for less than $2 (I think it was $1.65?) at Lily O’Brien’s chocolate shop (on 40th btw 5+6th) right across from Bryant Park, obviously. I don’t know if you report on cupcakes, but these are my favorite in the city, so I thought I would share. (A million times better than Crumbs.) This is their Butterbeer cupcake-butterscotch through and through (or their description: butterscotch soaked cake with butterscotch buttercream & edible gold dust.)”

In related (?) news , or not, a women is suing Lily O’Briens after being kicked out of the store for breast feeding. As a result there is now a sign in the window saying that breast feeding is ‘welcome’.

Thanks to Lunch’er Dan for passing this (strange) one along:  “Lily O’brien’s [the Irish chocolate shop on 40th btw. 5+6th] has just started serving empanadas and they are delicious.  My midtown coworker, Andrew Flynn, a bonafied food snob, refuses to believe that Lily O’Brien’s could possibly be serving empandas (much less good empanadas), and I’d love to be able to prove him wrong on the scale of hitting him with a Midtown Lunch post.”  Uh… consider your friend proven wrong…?…we guess?

Lily O’Brien’s, 36 W 40th St. (btw. 5+6th), 212-575-0631