Mac Bar

You know when sometimes you simply crave macaroni & cheese?  I get those a lot.  Last week, we had a quick dinner at MacBar, which is an offshoot of Delicatessen down on Spring Street and Lafayette.  MacBar is kind of a hole in the wall with really yellow, bulbous furnishings: just like macaroni & cheese!  How d'you like that.

The menu looks and sounds really cool and yummy and intriguing.  "Mac quack"?  Macaroni & cheese with duck confit.  "Mac lobsta'"?  Macaroni & cheese with lobster and cognac.  I know what I'm getting next time...

This time, we had "Mac 'shroom" and "Cheeseburger Mac".  The medium-sized "Cheeseburger Mac" came in a tupperware-looking container shaped like an elbow macaroni (super-cute; I'm stealing one next time) and my small-sized "Mac 'shroom" came in an unadorned metal take-out container.

The "Mac 'shroom" was topped with curlicues of shredded raw scallion.  It was an interesting garnish, but I didn't really relate scallion to mushroom (and very pungent; definitely not date-food...or, first-date-food).  The mac itself was very good and definitely tasted like mushrooms: very earthy and wild-mushroomy.  For me, the only downside was that it wasn't exactly...cheesy.  I know people have different tastes when it comes to macaroni & cheese, but I do like mine to be gooey and cheesy throughout.  My "Mac 'shroom" was topped with a thick bubbly cheese top, but the rest of the oodles of noodles were ever-so-lightly touched by cheese sauce.  The overall effect was that my mac got kind of dry as I kept eating it.

The "Cheeseburger Mac" tasted a lot like a cheeseburger: cheesy and beefy.  This one was more cheesy throughout, but I found it somewhat unremarkable and the cheeseburger flavor didn't really stand out that much.

Overall, I still really love the idea of MacBar.  Their menu is very impressive, and I'd really be up for trying other things there.  With fall upon us, I can definitely see a season of mac & cheese coming up.

Mac Bar
54 Prince Street