Fans of Magnolia Bakery’s famously sweet cupcakes, rejoice. Now you no longer need to schlep downtown for a dose of that toothache-inducing buttercream frosting. Magnolia has just opened an under-the-radar outpost (no signage yet?) on the corner of 49th street and 6th avenue–tourist central and spitting distance from about a million snackish office workers.
There’s a bit more selection here than I remember in the West Village location, and I’ll probably check out the promising-looking cheesecake, cookies, and various other treats when I’m craving something sweet. My peanut butter bar with heath candy bar crumbled on top ($2.50) was a delightful, if intense, post-lunch pick-me-up. But unsurprisingly, all the action here is around the cupcake window. I have to be honest: I never understood what made these cupcakes so damn special, besides the shout-out on Sex in the City, but at least here they are behind a pane of glass. In the downtown location, shoppers graze their coat-sleeves through frosting as they serve themselves in a kind of dog-eat-dog cupcake frenzy. Also, there wasn’t a line out the door in the 49th street spot–not yet, anyway. I think that is what bothered me about Magnolia in the West Village; not that people were eating those cupcakes, but that they would stand in a line wrapped around the block for half an hour in the freezing cold to eat those cupcakes. I was fooled once; I got in the line, thinking there might be something unbelievably delicious hidden under all that pastel frosting; there wasn’t. It was a cupcake, no more, no less. Needless to say, I haven’t recovered from my disappointment.
Magnolia Bakery 1240 Sixth Avenue, at 49th Street
Today Dessert Truck posted this notification on Facebook: “Our daytime spot will be Park Ave between 51st and 53rd Sts. We’ll be somewhere along the two blocks. We’ll be serving our regular menu and will be open from 11:30AM – 4PM. In case we have any parking issues, please bear with us as we work out the kinks for daytime service. If you’re working in the area, do stop by, even just to say hi! Also, if you could let anyone else who works in the area know that we’ll be there, we would really appreciate it.”
I came down kinda hard on Dessert Truck, because of the weird cake-batter texture of their chocolate bread pudding, but after I wrote about it they started adding a few chunks of bread onto the top of each cup, which kinda won me over.
Update 8/17/08: I haven’t seen the Wafel & Dinges guy in his usual spot for over a week; Midtownlunch says the city has put up No Parking signs. I did spot him one day on 44th St. between Sixth and Seventh Avenue, so perhaps a new locale will be announced soon.
Street-fare Belgian waffles have arrived in Midtown! The Wafels & Dinges truck has migrated uptown to 46th street between 5th and 6th avenue, brightening the days of office dwellers with its bright-yellow-truckness. The menu lists both the puffy, breakfast-style Belgian waffles, as well as liege waffles, in both cinnamon or vanilla flavors. I advise on getting your liege waffle ($4) simply dusted with sugar, but you can upgrade to something called the Waffle of Massive Deliciousness and pile on as many dinges (Belgian slang for toppings) as you like for $7.
The liege waffles were chewy and delicious as they should be, but fell short on the caramelized coating that you get at Le Petit Belge. Still, they were better than those at the lookalike Waffle Truck sighted around Astor Place–photo to the right, for your dossier. And the waffle man was nice, but a bit non-committal about how long they’ll be parked at the new locale. It sounds like something they’re trying out for a bit.
Wafles & Dinges Truck, South side of 46th St., between Fifth and Sixth Ave, closer to Sixth.
Around from about 9am-4pm. Check the web site for other locations
My life seems to be missing snack variety lately. It must be because of that passionate secret lunch hour love affair I’ve been carrying on with a certain chain of midtown sandwich shops.
How did Pret a Manger, a UK-based company nurtured by McDonald’s that’s expanding at Chipotle speed capture my heart? Especially in a part of town clogged with ‘Wichcrafts and Cosis, with the ever-interchangeable, always forgettable Metro and Europa Cafes? I typically resist analyzing the magic too closely during the honeymoon phase but inevitably my nerdy nature takes over, poking for correlations in my love-drenched brain. On examination it seems this place has my needs nailed down to a science.
Clearly the marketeers at headquarters recognized the impulsive, impatient, non-comittal, germaphobic, health-conscious luncher with a sweet tooth. Pret a Manger has takeout portions positioned temptingly near the door, ushering one inside along a wall of freshly-made salads and sandwiches. Everything is neatly boxed, all ingredients are clearly labelled, and I’m free to pick up, examine, and put back; I can even buy half a sandwich if I’m feeling porky. I never wait in line to pay more than twenty seconds, which is about the limit of my line-waiting patience, and which passes in an eyeblink as I ogle the sweets arrayed along the registers.
But even more curiously, Pret a Manger seems clued in to my less obvious desires. What healthy-seeming pseudo-vegetable does Sara hanker for endlessly (avocado–and they always have something with avocado). What all-natural sugar-charged beverage did she comfort herself with in college (bottled raspberry smoothies). What no-guilt treat does she find irresistible (individually packaged mini brownies–I simply won’t allow myself near a normal-sized brownie). The trouble is, after a week of seven-dollar egg salad sandwiches, accompanied with peach iced teas, blueberry-pomegranate yogurts and bite-sized brownies, I’m staring at the lining of my wallet, realizing that THIS is where the money’s been disappearing to.
It’s a total buzzkill, but I’ll go back. I mean come on, there’s a Pret a Manger one block from my workplace. And in love and lunch, proximity is key.
Find yourself some Pret a Manger lovin.