Midtown Lunch

In yesterday’s hot weather I was craving some soft serve and decided to walk over to the Momofuku Milk Bar inside Ma Peche (on 55th btw. 5+6th) to see if they had changed up their flavors since they opened. They hadn’t, but I did notice a few newish developments. Cake slices are still out but now they are selling cake truffles. And midtown Milk Bar office catering is definitely in.

Let’s start with the cake “truffles” (but who are we kidding, they’re cake balls). There has been much bruhaha and sadness over Milk Bar ceasing cake slice sales. Their reasoning is that people don’t buy the slices enough and cutting into a cake and compromising its freshness for one person doesn’t make sense. So… now they are offering cake balls. The balls come in the same flavors as the cakes (chocolate chip cake, banana cake, birthday cake and chocolate malt cake) and go for 3 for $3. Sadly, though, you can not mix and match balls. You want chocolate malt? You have to go chocolate malt all the way, which is what I did. They should be consumed immediately because balls suffer in the heat, as evidences by these schweddy balls.

At 3 small balls for $3, I wanted to hate them. I really did, but they were actually really good. The price tag is a bit steep, but the dessert is rich enough that it will take the edge of your sweet craving.

Still if you are looking for value, pick up a compost or any of the other cookies for $1.85 and see if you can get someone else to pick up your cake tab–that’s where the Milk Bar catering comes in.

Anyone who’s had to order food for an office function knows that office catering is like the salad bars of Midtown. It tends toward the overpriced and not particularly delicious. If you have sway over your office party planning committee (and your company still has money to expense things like birthday cake or dessert for a meeting), the Milk Bar menu looks delicious. Their 6 in cake price ($38) isn’t that far off the price of a 7 in $42 cake fromi Mangia. And their baskets and sugar rush packages give you a decent discount off of the per item price. My philosophy is if you’re going to celebrate, it should be delicious.

Milk Bar, 15 W. 56th St. btw 5th+6th Ave, 212-555-1212