Midtown Lunch

Apologies for once again writing about a food offering at Duane Reade, but after a surprisingly strong showing from the sushi counter at the Wall St. flagship I figured some people are viewing this drug store chain as a viable lunch option. They are slowly overtaking the Financial District with a giant new store opening on Broadway btw. Wall & Pine in part of the space that used to house Borders. A step inside immediately shows they’re really pushing the food here with a build-your-own salad bar, coffee bar and frozen yogurt/freezee station. I assumed the fro-yo was by-the-pound like most other places but to my surprise when I went to pay I discovered it was a set price for the two different sizes. This, of course, means you can and should cram as much into that cup as possible while still being able to get the lid on, which I tried to do yesterday.

There’s definitely a strategy you should employ if you’re going to try to cram as much fro-yo plus topping in the containers ($4.99 for a medium, $5.99 for a large), which I didn’t realize until it was too late. Really, you should put as many toppings as you can in the bottom of the cup and then put the frozen yogurt on top because otherwise you can’t really put too much on before it starts tumbling off onto the counter that was just cleaned by a dutiful DR employee.

While the topping situation isn’t as amazing as places like the Red Mango on Fulton St., there’s a good selection including brownie chunks, sprinkles, Fruity Pebbles, coconut, peanut pieces, Oreo crumbles, four kinds of berries and my personal favorite – chocolate chip cookie dough chunks. There are also bottles of chocolate, peanut butter and raspberry sauce if you want to up the glutton ante.

When I was there there were six flavors of yogurt on offer with the option of swirling the ones in the same machine (although the original tart was out of order). I went with a chocolate vanilla swirl with a little bit of coffee added to fill up the cup. There was also peach, blueberry and mango on offer.

In addition to my advice of putting the toppings in the bottom of the cup , I would also not recommend the coffee flavor. It was really icy and not at all enjoyable compared to the chocolate and vanilla. With the toppings in the bottom, you’re free to put as much fro-yo on top as you can and still have room for some sauces or sprinkles. Or cookie dough bits.

I’m not ashamed to say I ate a heaping cup of frozen yogurt from a drugstore chain as my lunch on a particularly hot day. It sounded way better than a plate of street meat and was the same price, too. And don’t worry, I won’t be checking out that salad bar at Duane Reade anytime soon.

Duane Reade, Broadway between Wall St. & Pine