Food courts: Are they gross and mall-esque? Yes! Are they awesome and gross and mall-esque? Probably!* Are they super-annoying when they try to transcend their essential fluorescent dinginess and become “gourmet” and “high-end” and “fancy”? Definitely!
Along with these thoughts on food courts that give themselves airs, we also have a skeptical eyebrow kept on perma-raise for in-store dining (remember when the Old Navy on State opened, and it had a sandwich shop in it? That was the one exception to our eyebrow, because it was so cool and also we were like twelve years old, and thus too young to feel jaded), so the seventh floor “chef-centric” food court at Macy’s is a double-whammy for us. Add to the mix that recently slammed carpetbagger-celeb-chef Marcus Samuelsson has just opened his booth there, and we are just brining over here in a vat of our own vinegar.
But we are nothing if not generous! The Stew and TOC have eaten there — or more likely, have received press kits, since they don’t opine on the taste of the food in their posts. Though to hear The Stew tell it, it sounds mighty nice:
There’s the BBQ burger ($8.50), seasoned with smoked paprika and topped with applewood-smoked bacon strips and a chunky, mild barbecue sauce. The meat is from grass-fed Black Angus cattle and is juicy enough to make the potato-bread bun a bit soggy. Six other burger choices ($7.95-$12.95) include a turkey burger option. The grilled chicken breast is seasoned with garlic and parsley, drizzled with an avocado sauce and placed on a bun. Very nice. Fish lovers, try the miso-soy marinated mahi mahi sandwich. For dessert, nothing beats the frozen vanilla custard cup ($2) or the much more decadent frozen custard milkshake ($2.95).
But we will be the first to tell you that reading a menu holds nary a candle to actually putting burger to stomach. Has anyone actually eaten this food? Can someone tell us if it’s any good? We’d go ourself, but we live in the internet.
First Bite: Marc Burger [The Stew]
Just Opened: Marc Burger [TOC]
[Photo: Prof. Dr. Marc Burger, Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik, Zürich, Switzerland, via his faculty page]
*Bourbon chicken. We love it.
