S’Mac – New York, NY

Come for the macaroni and cheese and stay for . . . well, stay until you finish the macaroni and cheese.

I wasn’t so excited about this place. This was one of the midday stops on day two of my East Village gastrointestinal tour and I have to say, my high hopes were dashed on the sidewalk of 12th street when I took my first melty, burn-the-roof-of-my-mouth bite.

I wanted to love it, I really did. I wanted to be excited about the fig/brie combination in the gluten-free macaroni. I wanted to tell all my Boston friends about the place that only served muffin tops so they would say “Ahh, the beauty in the simplicity. Let us open a muffin top franchise together right here in Beantown and you shall be the tenzo.”

What I got was someone’s culinary ego overstepping its bounds onto my taste buds. A little bit pretentious with the combination there, or maybe just bad ingredients. The brie was acrid against the sweet figs – of course, I could give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe the brie was just bad. Either way, I should have went with my gut and ordered a personalized sausage, cheddar, and onion mac. I am sure I would have been much happier.

The reviewers are kind of on point about the price. Yelpers usually complain about perfectly reasonable prices being too expensive because they tend to be broke as a joke on the whole. Here, the only way to get a good portion for your money was to get the A380 sized cast-iron trough of M&C.

Even after this review, I would be willing to give them another shot at satisfying my undying passion for cheese of all forms. The apathetic waitstaff were a perfect complement to the unexciting macaronis on the menu, but who’s to say I can’t come up with something better?