The greatest of all unintended consequences:
It has come to this: Pop-Tarts and Doritos have trumped homemade brownies as acceptable foods allowed to be sold at bake sales inside the city’s public schools.
Apparently they don’t just use the hot dog water as someone might have told you one time or another:
Health inspectors, cracking down on unattended vendor carts across the city, revoked his permit last week when a bathroom emergency forced him to leave his stand in lower Manhattan.
“Everybody has to go sometimes,” [Nuts 4 Nuts vendor Shiraj] Islam, 42, who had been a fixture near J&R Music World, told The Post.
“Now, I am losing a lot of money. I have a wife and four children, and I have been sick.”
Leaving a food cart unattended — even for a minute — is a violation of revised city health codes that went into effect Jan. 1, sparking the crackdown.
. . .
Under the law, street-sold hot dogs, pretzels and nuts become “imminent health hazards” the moment the carts are abandoned because the food could be contaminated.
Normally, Islam would have a friend watch the cart during the one or two bathroom breaks he took each day, but since he was diagnosed with a tumor on his colon, the frequency of his trips to the toilet have increased.
Islam’s cart is dropped off each day two blocks away from the electronics and music store on Park Row, but the veteran vendor said that on that day, as he went to haul it to its usual spot in front of the shop, he knew after walking 10 feet that he wasn’t going to make it without a pit stop.
“My stomach was feeling very bad,” he said. “I went into a pizza place on Fulton Street where they know me, but there was a line.”
Islam said he waited and used the restroom, but “when I returned [to the cart] 15 minutes later, the decal [permit] was gone.”
See also: Food Carts, Nuts 4 Nuts.
If you’re going to inflate expenses, do it within reason — say, $25 for a bagel, not $177:
If you ordered a Bits Best Bagel Platter and asked them to throw on extra toppings, like avocado, bacon, sun-dried tomato, steak fries, chicken wings and mozzarella sticks, that would still come to only $25.80.
Such an exercise in bagel-nomics was necessary and noteworthy on Wednesday, the day after Councilman Larry B. Seabrook was charged with money laundering, extortion and fraud.
Among the items in the 13-count federal indictment was the curious case of the $177 bagel sandwich and soda. Mr. Seabrook, a Bronx Democrat and former assemblyman and former state senator, bought a bagel sandwich and diet soda for $7 one day and submitted a doctored receipt that inflated the cost to $177, according to the indictment.
Interesting theory, not sure if I buy it though:
Manhattan shops are less likely to have candies, chips, sodas and other munchies at the checkout than stores elsewhere in the country, according to researchers at the Tulane University School of Public Health.
Nationwide, 41 percent of non-food stores stock the treats, but in Manhattan, just 32 percent do.
The upside is that Manhattan’s obesity rate is 16 percent, compared with 33 percent in the rest of the country.
I don’t know who actually wins, but Katz’s comes out looking quite bad:
As an experiment, I picked up some signature dishes at popular New York spots. I got the works at Shake Shack. A New York strip steak with creamed spinach at Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse. From Ollie’s, the Chinese chain, cumin-flavored lamb (“I eat that and need to consume about a gallon of water afterward,” one foodie warned me). A slice of candy bar pie from Momofuku Milk Bar, because a sprinkle of salt gives desserts there an edge. House-made saffron pappardelle with braised rabbit at the Standard Grill, because it looked so luscious. The corned beef at Katz’s Delicatessen, because, well, how could you not?
. . .
The Food and Drug Administration recommends a maximum of 2,400 milligrams of sodium per day, 1,500 for people who have hypertension, are African-American (who are at higher risk of hypertension) or are beyond an unspecified middle age.
. . .
A large take-out container of Manhattan clam chowder at the Oyster Bar weighed in at a scary 3,100 milligrams (without the little crackers). And Katz’s?
Katz’s justifiably famous corned beef sandwich, with mustard but only two of the six pickles the counter guy gave me (along with his number), came to a truly remarkable 4,490 milligrams of sodium. That’s two whole days’ worth in one sandwich, nearly the equivalent of 10 McDonald’s hamburgers.
Location Scout: Katz’s Delicatessen.
The state’s real message behind the soda tax? Save money, drink beer:
“A six-pack of soda is going to cost you approximately $4.99″ if the penny-an-ounce tax goes through, [New Yorkers Against Unfair Taxes chairman Nelson] Eusebio said, “where you can pick up beer from $2.99 to $3.99.”
Some enterprising cable network should make a reality show/cage match called “Front Of House Vs. Back Of House”:
An angry waiter . . . picked up one of the normally dull [butter knife] blades during a brawl in the legendary [Algonquin] hotel’s eatery and wound up stabbing a sous chef and a host, police said.
Jesus Payano, 43, was arrested for assault after the fight, which began at about 5 p.m. at the West 44th Street hotel.
The trouble started when sous chef Christopher Goodwin got angry because Payano was playing a radio, and shut it off.
The dispute escalated, and Payano allegedly grabbed the knife and slashed Goodwin in the hand.
Another campaign against another food additive . . . and the Campbell Soup Company weeps big, salty tears as they shake in their boots, hoping against hope that Supernanny Bloomberg finds another blighted neighborhood or some great new gadget to focus his attention on instead:
On Monday, the Bloomberg administration plans to unveil a broad new health initiative aimed at encouraging food manufacturers and restaurant chains across the country to curtail the amount of salt in their products.
The plan, for which the city claims support from health agencies in other cities and states, sets a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years.
The BATC Editorial Board weighs in:
My metro section seems thin today:
The dining room at the paper’s headquarters on Eighth Ave. and 40th St. was shut down Thursday after several employees fell ill with digestive problems.
. . .
The culprit is rumored to be the pasta salad, a source told the Daily News. As many as 15 staffers are sick, the source said.
Location Scout: New York Times Building.
Launched in July 2008, the rules require calorie listings at any chain with substantially similar menus and more than 15 locations nationwide.
That largely affects fast-food outlets such as McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts — but it also covers some high-priced steakhouses and other top-end eateries with just a handful of New York locations.
. . .
“These laws started in McDonald’s, and I think they should stay in McDonald’s,” said tourist Michelle Dedriazia, 49, of Pittsburgh, who likes visiting fancy steakhouses when she comes to New York.
“If you are going to a nice place, you should not be told this type of information. I don’t know why they do this in New York City. It doesn’t make sense.”
None of the upscale eateries contacted by the Daily News responded to requests for comment. But one California-based chain was so opposed to the requirement that it changed its name and menu just to get around the rules.
Houston’s renamed its two Manhattan locations “Hillstone” late last year and changed the recipes of several items after the rules took effect. When Health Department officials charged the chain with violating the law, Houston’s successfully brought in cooks and executives to prove the offerings at its Park Ave. South and E. 53rd St. locations are different.
“We, after meeting with them, withdrew the violation,” said Tom Merrill, general counsel for the Health Department.
The Queens Courier continues its series on gross shit:
When The Courier was at the store, one customer wanted four roosters from the same cage. So, when the man reached in to grab the four birds, one fell to the floor and started walking around the store.
“That happens sometimes,” Ustav said, and no one else in the store seemed to flinch. Then, the birds are tied up and dropped on a scale, which will determine how much it costs.
After that, the birds are brought back to the “slaughter room” — a room located in the back of the store on the first floor — where the killing and cleaning process begins.
First, the bird’s neck is cut and broken in order to drain the blood out of the animal. Then, the bird is thrown into a “plucking” machine that takes all of the feathers off the bird.
“Then we have to clean up the inside and take the guts out,” Ustav said. “Sometimes we cut off the head, but some people like it with the head.”
See also: Live Poultry Markets.
Eid-al-Fitr at Chuck E. Cheese:
For at least five years, Muslim families originally from Beirut and Bangladesh to Khartoum and Kuala Lumpur have flocked to Chuck E. Cheese on Eid, which marks the end of the month-long Ramadan fast. The tradition has spread from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Bay Ridge entirely by word-of-mouth.
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips*:
As a billionaire in one of the dining capitals of the world, he can eat anything he wants. But he is obsessed with his weight — so much so that the sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides.
His food issues have become New York City’s. Although he has described his battle against unhealthy foods as common-sense public policy that will shed pounds (and save lives), many of his targets overlap with his own cravings.
“I like a Big Mac like everybody else,” he confessed the other day, explaining the city’s warts-and-all approach to fast food. “I just want to know how many calories are in it.”
Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit” by asking waiters for food without added salt.
But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.
Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino’s Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.
And then there’s the concept of Asshole-In-Chief:
When he does not like the food, he rarely holds back. After dining at Blue Smoke, Mr. Meyer’s barbecue restaurant on East 27th Street, the mayor told Mr. Meyer, “I just don’t like it.”
Mr. Meyer tried inviting him back, but the mayor would not budge. “It never feels good when somebody tells you they don’t like your restaurant, but it’s nice when a politician does not pander,” he said, adding that the mayor has heaped praise on Union Square Cafe.
*In fact, Thompson should consider making this a slogan of sorts, e.g., you think it’s OK to suspend term limits just this once, but consider the deleterious long-term effects . . .
Weighing 267 pounds and measuring 29.2 inches in diameter, the biggest matzo ball in the world was unveiled Thursday and served up to hungry lower East Siders.
The giant kosher creation was schlepped across the city with a police escort after spending 19.5 hours on a slow boil in a custom-made 100-gallon New Jersey kettle.
Or is the horrible truth about the ice cream truck business that it resembles Amway? Too many trucks, too little territory:
Few sounds evoke the languorous innocence of childhood summers like the jingle of a roving ice cream truck, its melody drawing streams of children clutching crumpled dollar bills.
In this part of Queens, however, ice cream trucks have become a symbol of sharp elbows, more reminiscent of “Goodfellas” than Good Humor. Martin Price has taken his white and aquamarine Kool Man truck through Maspeth, Glendale and Middle Village for 25 years, but he has complained to the police that a franchisee for Mr. Softee has warned him a dozen times over the past two seasons to stay out Maspeth and Middle Village.
The most recent threats came on July 22, Mr. Price said, when three Mr. Softee trucks and a green Ford Econovan carrying the franchisee converged on his Kool Man truck at 56th Road and 60th Street in Maspeth. The franchisee, who Mr. Price said did not identify himself, was carrying a baseball bat and, according to Mr. Price, warned him: “I bought the area.”
“You don’t own the street,” Mr. Price responded.
But he has been so scared by the possibility of violence that he has been staying away from Maspeth and parts of Middle Village at a cost of 40 percent of his business, he said.
Earlier: This Is No Softee.
Normally there isn’t much point in pointing attention to legislative bills that may or may not ever be voted on, much less passed, but here’s an important one that everyone should get behind:
A bill introduced today in the state Legislature would, if passed, profoundly change the way alcohol is sold in New York. Among its provisions:
- Allow stores that currently sell beer (supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.) to also sell wine and liquor.
- Replace the State Liquor Authority’s licensing system with medallions that could be sold to another operator if a business closes.
- Allow liquor stores to sell “complementary” items including snacks, mixers, etc.
- Permit liquor stores to open as early as 8 a.m. and close as late as 3 a.m. (9 p.m on Sundays).
OK, I’ll bite . . . it’s the pizza. There are a lot worse reasons to run for office than the opportunity to sample pizza in every borough:
[City Councilman John] Liu is most readily known among the press corps in Queens for his overbooked schedule and uncanny ability to rattle off reporters’ phone numbers from memory. But in an interview with TimesLedger Newspapers about his ambitions for comptroller, Liu displayed a lesser known trait: pizza aficionado.
“I eat pizza almost every day,” Liu said, while taking a bite of his second slice of cheese pizza at Amore Pizza in Flushing. “That’s one of the best things about running for a citywide office: I get to sample pizza from all over the city. No matter where you are in New York, there’s always at least one pizza place.”
Liu’s discerning taste quickly became apparent as he rattled off the equivalent of his cheers and jeers list of pizzerias.
“VIPizza, yes. That’s a good place. You know what else is good up at the Whitestone Shopping Centeri Pizza Chef, you should try that one,” Liu said. “But one place you should never go, and I won’t mention names, but there’s a place right across from the Empire State Building that’s just awful. How they can even have the audacity to call that pizza is beyond me.”
Liu also dismissed the popular John’s of Bleecker Street.
“That’s not a real pizza joint,” he said. “There’s a clear difference between a pizza joint and a pizzeria that is more of a restaurant.”
And big props to Liu for having the stugots to publicly diss John’s. He may earn a vote or two from that.
How about five dollars:
Loyalty apparently has no limits: Di Fara’s Pizza has raised the price of one slice to an astronomical $5, but devoted customers continue to gobble up the cheesy fare.
. . .
According to the pizza-centric Web site Slice, $5 for a plain slice is believed to be the highest pizza price outside of an airport or ballpark. Value seekers might want to invest in an entire Di Fara’s pie, priced at $25, or a round pie, at $30, the site notes.
Just last year, Di Fara’s raised its prices to $4 a slice. At the time, the shop said the increase was long overdue, and critical to cover the costly fresh ingredients.
Longtime customers remain unfazed. Some, like Park Slope resident Mitch Feldman, didn’t even notice the increase until queried by a reporter. “It’s certainly a lot of money, but then again, there’s pizza and then there’s pizza,” he said. “I’d rather pay more and get a better product.” He conceded his limit per slice would be $10.
Location Scout: Di Fara Pizza.
You’ve heard it reported anecdotally but now there is firm evidence that you should always buy the cheapest well drinks, because it’s the same stuff:
Hot spots around the city have been nailed by the State Liquor Authority for refilling top-shelf liquor bottles with cheaper booze, watering down drinks or serving up cocktails full of fruit flies.
The SLA slapped staggering penalties on some of the city’s hippest clubs for a slew of violations in 2008-09, records show.
Some of the popular joints found themselves in violation of Subdivision 2 of Section 106 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law — meaning they kept their booze in “containers the contents of which were not represented on the labels affixed thereto.”
“We may find contaminated liquor or contaminated products, which may include refilling of liquor bottles with inferior liquor or fruit flies contaminating the bottle,” said SLA spokesman Michael Smith.
Because croissants and cupcakes are exactly like hot dogs and soft-serve ice cream:
Monday was a routine day for Grant Di Mille and Samira Mahboubian, the owners of the Street Sweets food truck, a mobile trove of croissants, cupcakes and cookies that got rolling last month.
The couple loaded the truck by 6 a.m., parked in front of the Museum of Modern Art at 7, traded hostilities with other vendors from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and were surrounded by police officers by 2.
“The police told these guys that nobody owns the streets. But it sure doesn’t feel that way,” said Mr. Di Mille, who called the Midtown North precinct — not for the first time — when a jewelry vendor set up shop directly in front of his sales window.
In four weeks of business, the couple has been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers; and approached by countless others with advice — both friendly and menacing — on how to get along on the streets.
“I want to be a good neighbor,” Mr. Di Mille said. “But I am nobody’s fool, and nobody’s pushover, and I should not have to carry a baseball bat on my truck in order to sell cupcakes.”
In the last two years, upscale food trucks have swarmed the streets, entrancing New Yorkers with everything from artisanal Earl Grey ice cream to vegan tacos. These highly visible trucks, their outspoken owners and their followers on Twitter, Facebook and food blogs, have broken the code of the streets that has long kept a relative peace among food vendors.
Turf wars are nothing new for carts selling kebabs and cheap coffee. But the makers of thumbprint cookies, chicken-Thai basil dumplings, and crème anglaise are not happy about the sharp elbows that are part of the city’s sidewalk economy, or the murky bureaucracy that oversees the issuing of permits.
And then you remember where you are:
Organizers say the Greenmarket, held every Thursday, will further chip away at the terminal’s dingy, dirty reputation from yesteryear.
“This market is the next chapter in the terminal’s evolution,” said Susan Bass Levin, deputy director of the Port Authority, acknowledging it was once “a place you would hesitate to go.”
While signs posted on brick pillars still warn that “no person shall spit, urinate or defecate” on terminal property, some of the 210,000 people who pass through every day were delighted to see produce from upstate farms in midtown.
. . .
“I personally wouldn’t eat there,” said Ronald Goodie, 63, of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. “With all the dirt coming in and out of this place, no way, not for me. Why would they pick this place of all places to do that?”
Al Jean-Babziste, 38, also of Brooklyn, agreed, saying, “You touch the door handles and the booths, and it’s all so dirty, and then you sell fruit? I don’t know about that.”
Location Scout: Port Authority.
. . . the street:
In the debate over who is the purveyor of the tastiest pie, tempers often get hot enough to singe the palate.
On either side of Garretson Avenue in Dongan Hills, two giant banners claim to have a definitive answer to this highly subjective question.
“World’s Best Pizza” boast the signs draped in front of Goodfellas Old World Brick Oven Pizza Restaurant and Il Pomodoro, located about 100 feet from each other on Hylan Boulevard.
Both state they won the honor in the “non-traditional” category of the 2009 International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas.
“We can authenticate Goodfellas; they won the contest,” said Linda Keith, who organizes the expo — perhaps clearing up the confusion for the hundreds who drive by the proclamations every day.
The March expo drew more than 6,000 pizza-business people from across the globe, and top culinary judges selected winners from 120 contestants in the “traditional” and “non-traditional” pizza competitions.
“Il Pomodoro is very passionate, I know that. But, no, they did not win,” said Ms. Keith.
They did, in fact, earn a slot as a finalist in the Eastern Division, a division won by the team from Goodfellas, who went on to sweep the contest and win $10,000 in prize money for its seafood-laden creation, “crustacean sensation.”
On closer inspection, Il Pomodoro’s banner does contain the disclaimer. The word “finalist” is written in looping, diagonal script over “2009″ but hardly visible without searching for it.
A cabal consisting of the City and Mister Softee is conspiring to obesify our children. Parents are defenseless against the large sums of money flying around:
As Mayor Bloomberg takes on trans fat and calorie-laden fast food, some Brooklyn parents are outraged the city rakes in thousands of dollars a year from ice cream trucks parking right next to playgrounds and schools.
“It’s very frustrating that they’re here every day,” said Carroll Gardens mom Meryl Allison, who picks up her son Ben at Public School 58 and has to take him past a Mister Softee truck to go to Carroll Park across the street. “You’re a trapped audience. It’s hard to say no to your kids.”
The Parks Department auctioned off the prime Carroll Park spot on Carroll St. — between the entrance to the playground and PS 58 — for $6,500 a year.
But then again, there may be a corkage charge for that, too:
Recession-hit restaurants are helping themselves to your wallet by serving you an extra side of super sneaky charges.
The Post last week found city eateries subtly billing customers for things usually free — including bread and butter.
. . .
Unexpected costs found by The Post include . . . $3 for bread and another $2 for butter at Company, in Chelsea.
No cost was mentioned when bread was requested and delivered to a Post reporter last week — and a waiter refused to give a refund.
“It’s clearly on the menu, and we do have a famous baker,” restaurant spokeswoman Danielle Pagano said, referring to owner Jim Lahey.
The menu listing is in Italian.
Update, 4/28/09: This correction doesn’t change the fact that Company charges $2 for butter:
Due to an editing error, a story in yesterday’s Post misattributed a quote explaining the cost of bread and butter at Company, in Chelsea, to restaurant spokeswoman Danielle Pagano instead of to a waiter. Also, the menu listing is not in Italian.
Like a Brooklyn-Queens real estate spike that indicates people are cutting back, the hot dog vendor bump may be short-lived, and portend worse things to come:
The sinking economy has taken a big bite out of the borough’s top-grossing hot dog carts — which are now struggling to lure enough customers to pay their sky-high rents.
Vendor Timothaos Ayad, who pays the borough’s top-dog price of $48,000 a year in rent to the city to set up his cart outside Brooklyn Supreme Court, said business is down nearly 50% since August.
“I hope I will break even,” said Ayad, 46, a father of three, who has had the pricey contract for more than two years.
Ayad, who peddles $1.75 hot dogs and $5 gyros to the throngs of court workers, jurors and others passing through the bustling downtown Brooklyn spot, said he has been hurt by the fact that so many people now bring their lunches from home as a way to save money.
“In the morning, I see everybody coming by with their bag of lunch,” he said, adding he has decided to throw in the towel and not bid on the spot when it is up again at the end of the year.
“The job is too tiring and the economy is bad, so it’s not worth it anymore,” he said, adding he has to finish out his contract or lose his hefty deposit.
After all that nationwide publicity, he’d be a fool to change the name:
The man who caused a stir by calling his fast-food restaurant Obama Fried Chicken no longer plans to change the name, despite a growing outcry from protesters who say the name conjures up disturbing racial stereotypes.
On Monday, about 20 people, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, protested outside the restaurant, at Rutland Road and Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
“He wasn’t a man of his word,” one of the protest organizers, Kevin McCall, said Tuesday, referring to the restaurant’s owner. “He didn’t keep his commitment of having this sign down. This is very offensive to African-Americans.”
The restaurant, previously called Royal Fried Chicken, took the Obama name in late March in a gesture of fondness for the president, said Mohammad Jabbar, the manager and spokesman for the restaurant.
Under pressure last week, Mr. Jabbar, who said he is not the owner, said the name would be changed to Popular Fried Chicken over the weekend. But on Monday, the sign was still there — a fact noted by the free newspaper amNY, under the print headline “What the Cluck?”
Feel free to make fun of the Yankees whenever you want now:
When the new Yankee Stadium opens April 3, the choice of food will be a bit more varied than before. There will be chains like Johnny Rockets and Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, and sandwiches from the premium butcher Lobel’s.
But those who settle into the 4,000 or so well-upholstered seats of the various club and suite areas, which can cost as much as $2,500, will have access to much more.
A number of restaurants and dining areas will be for their exclusive enjoyment. And the food will be prepared at open cooking stations run, from time to time, by Masaharu Morimoto of “Iron Chef” fame, April Bloomfield of the Spotted Pig, chefs from Le Cirque and cooks from Elaine’s (because Elaine Kaufman is a big Yankees fan).
Some of the chefs will be at the stadium for one evening and others may make multiple appearances. . . .
Those seated in the Delta 360 Club, which has 1,200 seats, will have access to a dining room where chefs from the Food Network will occasionally cook at two open kitchens.
The only thing better would be if the Bleacher Creatures started chanting “Mor-ee-Mo-to” until chef tipped his toque. Which I’m sure they will do. Remember, these are people that still do the Cabbage Patch along with Cotton Eye Joey.
Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.
Mets fans* no longer can poke fun at San Francisco for its sushi, Arizona for its crudite platter or Seattle for its grilled salmon (on an organic roll) now that Citi Field is serving pulled-pork sandwiches on brioche buns:
As 6,000 construction workers have been feverishly toiling in advance of the April 13 opening, the restaurateur Danny Meyer has been refining the batting order for the ballpark’s signature food offerings.
Mr. Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group runs six fine-dining restaurants, a jazz club and two hamburger stands, but has never gone outside Manhattan. Now, in Flushing, Queens, his nonunion company will partner with the corporate behemoth Aramark, whose concession workers are represented by Local 153 in Manhattan.
“I’ve been thinking about this my whole life, and I know what I want at a ballpark,” Mr. Meyer said.
Some of the things he wants are pulled-pork sandwiches on brioche buns ($9), steamed corn on the cob with mayonnaise, cotija and a dusting of cayenne ($3.50), “dog bites” (Kosher hot dogs coated in matzo meal with brown mustard for $11), spare ribs seasoned with Kansas City rub ($10) and shrimp rolls — using a Martin’s potato roll — with shoestring potatoes ($14).
. . .
And for the ticket holders with lower budgets, Mr. Meyer will operate a terrace-cum-food court in left-center field called Taste of the City. There will be menu items from his existing franchises like Shake Shack and Blue Smoke, in addition to offerings from two new concepts: El Verano Taqueria (fresh tacos) and Box Frites (fresh-cut Belgian fries with dipping sauces).
(And don’t forget “Asian noodles” at New Yankee Stadium.)
*Excepting Peter Meehan, who waxed rhapsodic about the Laurent-Perrier Champagne at AT&T Park last summer.
Location Scout: Citi Field.
In case you don’t trust the avenging power of a higher authority, you can simply take matters into your own hands:
A riot erupted at a Brooklyn restaurant last week when Orthodox Jewish patrons discovered the “kosher” hot dogs on the menu were chicken franks that didn’t answer to a higher authority.
What ensued was as unholy as the hot dogs. The eatery’s frightened manager was punched in the face and fended off the angry mob with an electric carving knife until cops finally broke up the frankfurter fracas.
“They were yelling at the guy behind the counter,” one witness told The Post. “They started spitting and throwing things at him. They were shaking the counter and trying to jump over to search the fridge.”
. . .
The Torah tussle began when a longtime patron noticed the unusually plump wiener he bought Monday night at Cheskel’s Shawarma King in Borough Park didn’t fit into a challah roll as usual.
Suspicious, he asked for proof of where the hot dogs were bought. The server brought him the package, which confirmed the Bar S brand jumbo chicken frank was not certified kosher.
