“This is my first time coming on a Saturday and it happens to be after the… it’s really not after – we’re still in the pandemic, but I guess after mass vaccination, so I’m actually quite surprised to see how many people are here,” said Eric Johnson, 32, of Harlem  ”

 Johnson said he isn’t scared to be around a large group of people since he is vaccinated.

 “We’ve been risking it all for a while,” said Johnson. “I mean, you know, I’m not scared. I was vaccinated back in April. Nothing’s happened since then. I ride the trains. This is a little different for me though, I’ve never been in this type of crowd for quite some time, but I am hoping for the best. I think we’ll be alright.”

 Anna Delgado, 62, from Queens said she was a regular at the San Gennaro Feast. She also felt safe in the large group due to the vaccination rates in Little Italy. 

“Some people, they are aware of the pandemic,” said Delgago. “They use masks, but I think around 70 percent of the people over here, they already had the vaccination. That’s very good for New York.”

According to the CDC, 85.54 percent of Hudson Square, Little Italy, SoHo, and Tribeca are vaccinated. This is higher than Manhattan’s vaccination rate of 79.09 percent and New York City’s vaccination rate of 69.45 percent. The case and death rate for these neighborhoods are also lower than Manhattan’s as well as New York City’s.

 With hundreds of people unmasked in such close quarters, the feast does have the potential to  be a super spreader event as fully vaccinated people are still getting infected with Covid.  The vaccine card and mask mandates  are not required for outdoor events.

But the crowds who walked around eating cannolis and smoked sausages were not afraid and neither were the vendors hawking the food.

 “It doesn’t matter because we’re all outside, “ said Angelique Aquilino, 36, a pastry stand owner.  “We can do whatever we want to do, and everybody’s happy.”

Not every vendor was comfortable with the crowds.

Josephine Caso, sister of the owner of Cafe Napoli, checking her reflection in a window at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. Photo by Maggie Geiler

“I tell you I’m a little leery,” said Josephine Caso, 85, sister of the owner of Café Napoli. “Thank God that everybody’s healthy, [my family and I] all got our shots, we’re happy to be back.”

 Caso and her family handed out cannoli’s, almond-filled pastries, and zeppole to customers waiting in long lines, some for up to 45 minutes. With much of Little Italy’s income being dependent on tourism, the tight-knit community was hit hard by the pandemic, causing most restaurants to lay off staff members and some to deal with closing.

 “Forget it, forget it, it was a disaster,” said Caso “I’ll tell you the truth, I was scared. We had the place closed for a year and a half, nobody walked the streets. It was very hard.”

Business owners hoped the feast would be the boost neighborhood businesses would need.

“With the whole festival going on, hopefully it boosts everything back up, said Manuel Siguencia,37, the manager  at Il Cortilo restaurant. “All of Little Italy is packed… it’s so awesome.”

And the 11-day festival was exceeding their expectations.

 “We were afraid that it wouldn’t be like this coming back,” said Aquilino. “It’s like nothing ever happened. Like we just fell asleep and woke up and we’re back where we were. Everyone is back. This neighborhood needed this.”

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 The three-month shutdown and precipitous fall in revenue have clobbered the business, which before the pandemic averaged around $100,000 in sales each month.   

“The money I am making now is 8% of what I was making before the pandemic,” said owner James Daniel, who reopened his once-thriving restaurant two weeks ago.   

 Social distancing efforts have devastated New York City’s restaurant industry but the crisis is just beginning. Outdoor dining reopens on Monday with the start of Phase 2, but experts still expect to see a wave of closures in the coming months as government aid efforts fail to meet the needs of these businesses.  

 Two-thirds of restaurant owners said in a survey that they would need a 70 % occupancy rate in order to reopen and survive, according to the non-profit NYC Hospitality Alliance. 

 It’s the smaller, independent eateries that are suffering the most. Local bars and restaurants lack the financing options available to large chains that can tap bank loans and investors for more cash.  

 In April, the federal government introduced a $349 billion forgivable loan package called the Paycheck Protection Program to give “mom and pop” shops emergency funds. But less than 20% of requests by small businesses were approved in New York state by May, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.   

 But even those that do receive the money find it coming up short. 

 Daniel said he received a $25,000 loan for Bedford Manor under the PPP, and a $10,000 loan from the Small Business Administration.  

  “That’s $35,000, which I used to make in a week before March,” said Daniel. “I pay $10,000 monthly rent and I don’t even make even a fraction of it. How long can I survive? Maybe another 6 weeks.”   

 Daniel had 13 employees before the pandemic and now has only two.   

 Bedford Manor isn’t alone. New York City has about 26,000 restaurants that employed 169,000 people through February, but employment has since fallen to only 21,000 in April.  

 Laura Gemelli, 36, lost her job at ilili Restaurant in Flatiron after it halted operations in March. 

 “I am surviving on my unemployment benefit, but how long? The restaurant won’t hire in full capacity when they have no customers,” Gemelli said.   

 Some restaurant advocacy groups like Independent Restaurant Coalition are pushing Congress to sign a new $120 billion relief package to salvage the industry. The National Restaurant Association, a powerful lobbying group, has called for Congress to provide $240 billion in urgent relief directly to restaurants.  

 “The government must give another package,” Daniel said, adding that he is afraid customers won’t return due to fear of the virus. 

Fred Jackson, the manager at Mo’s Fort Greene, bar and lounge in Brooklyn, said he applied for a PPP loan but never received any funds. He hopes that when outdoor dining reopens on Monday, enough customers will return to bring the business back to life.  

 “If they don’t come, we can’t survive for more than three months,” Jackson said.  

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About 1,200 miles away from Beijing, the reopening in Sichuan was promising. But the salmon cutting board news hits the seafood markets and restaurants hard.

“The restaurant was still full on Saturday, but we only have several tables tonight,” said Lyu, the owner of  the market’s Fude Hao Seafood Restaurant.

 Now all sellers at Qing Shi Qiao must  tell customers the imported types of seafood on sale. Salmon is temporarily removed from the stock in the markets. 

Seafood market in the evening. Photo by Bohao Liu

An empty seafood table. Photo by Bohao Liu

Seafood in the restaurant. Photo by Bohao Liu

A waitress stands outside an empty restaurant. Photo by Bohao Liu

“Declared. June 15, 2020” All sellers must declare the types of seafood on sale. Photo by Bohao Liu

Sellers in a seafood market in Sichuan, China. Photo by Bohao Liu

A crab sits in a tank inside an empty seafood restaurant. Photo by Bohao Liu

An empty seafood restaurant. Photo by Bohao Liu

Full tank, empty restaurant. Photo by Bohao Liu

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Paying visits to supermarkets and food establishments liberates many, including me, from confinement. But once out, liberation comes at full speed – there is no time to pause, legally, in the public space. Benches are cordoned off by tapes and most shops no longer open. Coronavirus has taught us a lesson: even this is a luxury.

Life is not the same for essential workers, who aren’t given a real choice between eschewing health risks and maintaining a livelihood. Busy operations continue at food establishments, like a blessing to those working in related businesses.

The pandemic has torn away veils of inequality. What next?

Only direct paths in the parks remain open in Tanah Merah, Singapore, May 3, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Dine-in is no longer allowed under Singapore’s Circuit Breaker. Ann, employee at a restaurant in Tanah Merah tells customers not to sit on the chairs in the restaurant, April 25, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employees at Haig Road Putu Piring making putu piring, or kueh tutu, for delivery or takeout orders. The traditional Malay street snack made of rice flour and gula melaka (palm sugar) is usually consumed immediately, April 15, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Stone bench, where families or couples would sit for after-dinner walk, is cordoned off, May 3, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employee at Syed Cafe says he makes 500 roti pratas, known in the US as roti, everyday. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employees at Syed Cafe clean up after completing an order for 2000 people. The employees said that the government has placed 4000 orders per day from April 19 to June 1 for staff catering. An entire side of the kitchen is used for these orders and employees work from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. to complete the orders, May 2, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A Western food restaurant separate lines for deliverymen and customers ordering takeouts. There is little communication between deliverymen and restaurant employees at this line, May 2, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Benches are usually extra space for a crowded hawker center. They are now cordoned off next to the empty hawker center, April 14, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Wang’s fruit store is one the few stalls open in a neighborhood wet market. But noticeably more customers make their purchases at a large fruit store opposite Wang’s. April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Row of shops that have closed as they are not “essential service”, April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Huang (left) and Liu (right) are employees of SKP, a container store. The store selling plastic food containers remains essential for food delivery. Large boxes of containers from SKP are seen near Syed Cafe, April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Playground in condominium on March 27, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

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And every business that deals with tourism are on the front lines of  the fight.

Fortaleza Suites in Old San Juan will not allow guests to put their belongings at the front desk. 

“We ask guests to have their IDs and wallets ready when they check in,” said Elizabeth Nolasco, 24, a receptionist at Fortaleza Suites. “We don’t let people take out their stuff and put it on the front desk while they search in their bag. If they need to open their bags, we ask them to do it outside.”

The hotel staff said they work for tourism, but they can’t sustain their business if the virus overwhelms the island. 

“This is more dangerous than the earthquake and Hurricane Maria,” said a hotel housekeeper as she scrubbed the floor on her hands and knees. 

La Fortaza Suites is a hotel in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo by Shanila Kabir

The Dreamcatcher Hotel in San Juan changed their hospitality services to keep their employees and guests safe. 

“We used to have a communal space with lotion and sunscreen for our guests and we will never offer these services again,” said Andrea Otero, 24, manager of the Dreamcatcher Hotel. “We have improved our health measures on everything. The housekeepers work longer hours and we restock towels and kitchen supplies more often instead of reusing them.”

According to NBC News, three out of the five confirmed cases on the island were tourists.

“The virus will make its first steps here in a hotel,” said Otero. “People who are infected interact with other guests and the locals.”

She said the host position at the hotel has been discontinued.

“Our goal right now is to limit those numbers,” she said.

Jordan Acosta, 23, the chef at the Dreamcatcher who runs their vegetarian/vegan restaurant  created a new menu to try and strengthen the guests immune system. 

“Health precautions and dietary changes are two ways our hotel is combatting this,” said Acosta. “I only prepare meals that will boost people’s immune systems. In case one of our guests has the disease, the ginger and coconut in my food will make she/he healthier faster and that can save hundreds of lives.”

The Dreamcatcher Hotel has a vegetarian/vegan restaurant. Their new menu aims to boost guests immune system during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo by Shanila Kabir

Restaurant workers at Cueva Del Mar are requiring customers to sanitize their hands at the host’s table before being seated. 

“We sanitize everything, if it is not molded down, we deep clean it,” said Luis Sanchez-Longo, 24, a server at Cueva Del Mar “We used to have ketchup bottles at the table and now we serve sauces in small plastic cups. Small sanitation methods will make a difference. We even wash our menus before and after they’re used.”

Uber drivers are also taking precautions. Recently Uber  suspended its pool service.  Drivers are also  limiting contact with riders. 

“I don’t help anyone with their luggage,” said Goma Alberino, 27, an Uber driver. “I disinfect my car after each stop and ask passengers to grab one of my sanitizing wipes before getting in.”

Alberino has even declined giving rides to passengers that look sick.

“The slightest cough makes me turn down rides,” said Alberino. “I can’t take the risk of driving a sick person to an area with a sensitive population. This is a responsibility of anyone working during this time.”

There are about 200,000 cases of Coronavirus globally and  close to  8,000 deaths.

There are 17 potential cases of Covid-19 on the island.

Governor Wanda Vazquez implemented a 9 to 5 curfew Sunday and a two-week shutdown of most businesses until March 30. 

“This is bigger than me and my job, said John Santana, 25, a bartender at Acapulco Mexican Restaurant. “I know many people who are still recovering from the earthquake and now they have to worry about this new disease. I can go without money for two weeks if it means I’m helping anyone who needs to be protected.” 

Puerto Rico will survive this, he said.

“There will be always be visitors here. This is paradise,” said Santana. “But we have to do what it takes to make sure we are safe living in paradise.”

The post Tourism workers on front line fight of Covid-19 in Puerto Rico appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan explain what Filipino food is at their restaurant Purple Yam, Brooklyn. from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Adobo. Sinigang. Kinilaw. Pancit. All these classic Filipino dishes have one significant defining feature: most foreigners have never heard of them.

“It’s not a cuisine that is very accessible,” Todd Coleman, former Senior Editor at Saveur Magazine, said. “People don’t know Filipino food because there aren’t many Filipino restaurants. People need restaurants to go to.”

With all the sushi bars, Chinese dim sum joints and Korean BBQ grills in New York City, some Asian cuisines have yet to proclaim themselves beyond the immigrant enclaves. Filipino food—despite the 3.4 million Filipinos living in the U.S. making them the second largest Asian group—is one of them. It is a national cuisine often loosely defined due to the archipelago’s diverse 7,100 islands and long history of foreign trade and colonialism. But historians and food anthropologists argue that there is more to it than that.

“When Filipinos started immigrating to the United States, they weren’t prepared to announce or share their food with Americans,” Alex Orquiza, 32, Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College, MA, said. “If anything, they kept it very hidden.”

Orquiza traces this phenomenon back to the 1898-1946 American colonization of the Philippines. His research explores how American colonialists systematically made the Filipinos feel their food was culturally inferior and nutritionally deficient.

“The entire imperial project tried to get Filipinos not to take pride in their food and to eat like Americans,” Orquiza said. “They would say the food is ‘not clean,’ or ‘not civilized.’”

The public school system took the lead in trying to change Filipino dietary habits: to eat three meals a day; to replace rice with corn and wheat; and to adopt canned foods instead of local proteins and fresh fruit. These were feelings that lingered and transported themselves to the U.S when Filipinos began to immigrate in 1901.

Amy Besa, 63, cookbook author and owner of Purple Yam, a Filipino restaurant in Brooklyn, remembers feeling this way when she immigrated to the U.S. back in the 1970’s.

“American diners would reject Filipino food because they thought it was stinky,” Besa said. “Filipinos didn’t feel their cuisine was good enough to be commercial. That’s why it never got out of the shadows.”

Having been in the restaurant business since 1995, Besa and her husband Romy Dorotan consider themselves outliers of Filipino restaurant owners of their generation. When they opened their first Filipino restaurant in Manhattan, Cendrillon, they sought to reach past the immigrant enclaves. They felt they had a feel for the mainstream because of their western culinary training and weaker ties with the Filipino community. Cendrillon, which was in Soho, closed and reopened as Purple Yam in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn in 2009.

“We were the first ones who tried to do it and survived,” Besa said. “But we got lots of resentment from certain sectors. The Filipino community had a habit of not supporting any restaurant that did not fit its stereotype of what it felt a Filipino restaurant should be.”

Jun Belen, 39, award-winning Filipino food blogger who immigrated to California from Manila 15 years ago, notes a plethora of Filipino restaurants clustered in heavily in cities with large Filipino populations like Daly City, Union City, and Milpitas in the Bay Area.

“Most if not all of these restaurants cater exclusively to Filipinos,” Belen said. “Some are cafeteria-style decked out with a long steam table where stews and soups are laid out. Manny Pacquiao or a Filipino soap is almost always on TV. Prices are kept low to entice Filipinos to return. There are few non-Filipinos here and there. Most of the time, none at all.”

Now, Belen says, this is changing. Though this exclusive, hidden nature may still hold true for the older generation, for the younger generation of Filipino Americans it is no longer the case.

“Lately there has been a renaissance of some sort in Filipino cuisine,” Belen said. “These are young Filipino American [chefs and restaurateurs] who are very proud of their roots, without a trace of the feeling of inferiority possessed by the first wave of Filipino immigrants.”

Today, Filipino restaurants are popping up in neighborhoods outside the enclaves in the United States. Have it be brick and mortar restaurants and food trucks in the California Bay Area, or hip, trendy dives in New York City. These are restaurants with a modern twist mostly run by younger generation Filipino Americans.

“The question is how do you take a tradition and bring it to the forefront of public knowledge and admiration,” Topher Hwan, 28, General Manager of Maharlika, a modern Filipino restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village, said. “Maharlika prides itself on being that ambassador for Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike.”

With a focus on sourcing locally, style of service and by entertaining classic American staples like brunch—something that does not exist in the Philippines—Maharlika strives to draw outsiders in by taking authenticity and tingeing it with modern techniques of the western world.

“The reception of this is often times heartfelt,” Hwan said. “The community is very responsive to the idea that finally they have a place to go that is taking Filipino food and culture to the mainstream. It’s not only a food movement but a cultural one as well.”

The post Filipino restaurants thrive in secret appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

On the narrow streets of Kathmandu, the name “Phiroj Shyangden” is more recognizable than that of Bob Seger or Cat Stevens, legendary rockers who’ve both written songs about this exotic city less than 100 miles from Mount Everest.

As lead guitarist and vocalist of 1974 A.D., the popular band whose concerts have packed stadiums and caused traffic nightmares throughout Nepal since the mid-1990s, Shyangden – with his pierced eyebrow and patented dark sunglasses obscured by wavy black bangs – could rarely surface in public without being hounded for autographs or irritated by gossip-like whispers.

But such hassles no longer plague Shyangden, who continues to sing his hits, albeit from a less glamorous platform: The Himalayan Yak, a restaurant in Queens whose website proudly declares, “Good news for all yak meat lovers: We now have yak meat on our menu.”

Three years ago, Shyangden sang and played guitar to the roars of thousands; these days, the closest thing to a roar during his performances is when the “7” train, just outside the Jackson Heights eatery, thunders across the elevated tracks above Roosevelt Avenue.

“To be honest, sometimes I feel very embarrassed playing here,” admitted Shyangden, in his customary soft, deliberate tone that would be a whisper if any quieter. “Sometimes I have to play in front of two tables, in front of three people, instead of playing in front of 50,000 people. But I have to do it. This is for my bread and butter.”

Shyangden, 45, is one of several household names in Nepal who have traded the limelight for better financial opportunities in America.

It’s an immigrant narrative with a peculiar twist: celebrity musicians and actors from a faraway land abandoning their fame and ending up among their fans and fellow countrymen in a neighborhood in Queens. The dynamic, however, often leaves “regular” Nepalese-New Yorkers surprised to find such well-known artists living, working, and in many cases struggling, right alongside of them.

Samir Shahi, a Jackson Heights resident and fan of Shyangden, said that back in Nepal it would’ve been “nearly impossible” to cross paths with the rock star.

“But in New York, I see [Shyangden] every week,” said Shahi, 25, whose iPod includes numerous Shyangden tunes. “Here I’ll bump into him.”

According to Shahi, Nepalese celebrity sightings are not infrequent. He said he recently spotted Gauri Mulla, the famous Kollywood (Nepal’s film industry) actress, on the subway.

Ang Chhiring Sherpa, the Editor in Chief of The Everest Times, a Nepali language newspaper in Woodside, put it this way:

“In Nepal, people like Shyangden, they cannot meet in a public area. It’s impossible,” said Sherpa, the first South Asian journalist to climb Mount Everest, according to his business card. “But when they came here, everybody is busy, and nobody cares who he is.”

In Nepal, an underdeveloped, landlocked country scrunched between China and India, Shyangden said he would typically earn just 20,000 rupees (approximately $244) for large concerts and as little as 2,000 rupees, or $24, for small shows. He also worked as a grammar school music teacher, although that job similarly paid “very little.”

“It was very hard to support my family in Nepal,” said Shyangden, who departed for New York in 2009 while his wife and teenage daughter remained in Kathmandu.

Shyangden acquired permanent U.S. residency as an “alien of extraordinary ability,” a special category of American immigration law that allows foreign citizens who possess a “record of sustained national or international acclaim” to bypass standard bureaucratic procedures and automatically obtain a green card.

Once in New York, which Shyangden describes as “a very fast city” and “vastly different from Kathmandu,” he met two Nepalese immigrants who had been playing a regular gig at The Himalayan Yak: Rajesh Khadgi, 38, an eccentric, eternally-headbanging former drummer of Robin and the New Revolution, one of Nepal’s best-known bands, and Prazwal Bajracharya, a pony-tailed, soft-spoken 30-year-old computer networker who had belonged to an underground Kathmandu band called Lithium.

Blending traditional Nepali folk music with modern genres of rock and roll, blues and jazz, the trio performs several nights a week at the restaurant, which draws a predominantly Nepalese crowd.

Dr. Tara Niraula, an expert on the Nepalese community and an administrator at Bankstreet Graduate School of Education in Manhattan, said that he has spoken with a number of Nepalese celebrities about their transitions from fame to obscurity.

“In Nepal, they were primetime, they had all the attention and prestige,” said Dr. Niraula, who noted that several Nepalese movie stars also reside in Baltimore. “Then all of a sudden, [the fame] is gone and that’s a difficult thing, because in their heart they are different.”

Each morning, Shyangden awakes at 8 a.m. and calls his wife and 14-year-old daughter in Kathmandu. He spends his days practicing guitar, composing songs, and discussing music and life with his band-mates over tea at a Bangladeshi café. To supplement his income from The Himalayan Yak, Shyangden also gives private guitar lessons to Nepalese children.

Shyangden hopes for his family to join him “in the near future,” but “it is a very long process,” he laments, one that “requires a lot of money.” Still, his combined wages from singing and teaching are far greater than what he earned in Nepal, which helps his family.

The Himalayan Yak is at the heart of Queens’ South Asian cultural hub, with the colorful commercial strip of “Little India” just around the corner. Its spacious, rectangular upper floor is outfitted with gold and brick walls, multiple paintings of Buddha, a photograph of the Dalai Llama, and two miniature stuffed representations of the restaurant’s mascot and namesake.

Against this backdrop on a recent Thursday night, Shyangden and his band played an acoustic show in front of about 15 people. Shyangden said he “loves playing” at the restaurant, even if, at times, the miniscule crowds challenge his ego.

At around 11 p.m., the band broke into a cover version of the Eagles’ Hotel California, with Khadgi, the greasy-haired drummer, head-banging and flailing away at his drum set like “Animal” from The Muppets. Once Bajracharya, who’d assumed lead vocals, belted out the famous line, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,” Shyangden erupted into a guitar solo that whipped the tiny audience into delight.

“Every time I hear him play, my energy, my vibe, gets better,” beamed one of the few spectators, Xlabia Khadka from Kathmandu, who now lives in Jackson Heights. “Whenever I come here, half of my stress just goes away.”

It was almost midnight, and up on stage, Shyangden showed no evidence of tiring. His eyes half-closed as if in a trance, Shyangden sang “Gurans Phulyo,” his original composition that once dominated the radio airwaves of Kathmandu.

Across a two-person table, Khadka’s friend, Mohan Poudel, 23, sang and clapped along.

At the song’s conclusion, Poudel smiled and shrugged, as if trying to communicate how surreal he found the scene before him.

“When I first came to New York, I said, ‘What the hell is Phiroj Shyangden doing here, playing in this restaurant?’” said Poudel. “I knew him as a star.”

“But that’s the New York life. He’s trying to survive, just like us.”

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From mouthwatering sausage and pepperoni pies to blazing garlic parmesan chicken wings, New York City bars and restaurants are prepping to satisfy the thirst and appetites of hungry football fans this Sunday when the New York Giants take on the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLVI.

“I like the Super Bowl, it’s crazy,” said pizza maker Danny Asitimbay of Fat Sal’s Pizza on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I have no time to watch the play because it’s busy here, but I’m working hard.”

This year, specials at Fat Sal’s include a large pie and 10 wings for $21 or, for wings only fans, a bucket of 40 wings for under $26. Asitimbay, who has been working in the pizza business for the past seven years, said Fat Sal’s usually sells up to 2,000 wings on Super Bowl weekend alone. He added that the wings served at the pizzeria are “always fresh, never frozen,” and that extra ingredients had to be bought in order to prepare for the second biggest eating day of the year, following Thanksgiving.

Chicken wings take the spotlight as the most popular game-day food. According to a report from the National Chicken Council (NCC), Americans are expected to eat 1.25 billion chicken wings – 100 million pounds – this weekend.

By noon on Saturday, Atomic Wings already had 50 pre-orders for Sunday’s game.

“We regularly sell six to eight cases of wings a day,” said owner Christopher Lyn. “But for the Super Bowl, we’ll sell around 100 cases of wings – a substantial amount.”

With around 250 wings in each case, Lyn projects around 25,000 wings will be sold and devoured by consumers during the biggest wing-eating day of the year, despite a price increase on poultry. The NCC said wing prices always surge during the year’s fourth quarter, when eateries start to prepare for the Super Bowl.

Lyn added that the Giants, being from the Empire State, would impact Sunday’s sales because “we’re in a New York market.”

But while pizza and wings may be on the minds of most Americans this year, bars are also expecting a business boost. On Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg temporarily renamed Brady’s Bar in uptown Manhattan to Manning’s for the weekend, declaring it “the luckiest bar in New York City,” just as he did when the two teams battled on the gridiron in 2008.

“If I wasn’t going to be in Indianapolis, I would be spending my Sunday afternoon where I think a lot of you should spend it, and that is here at Manning’s,” Bloomberg said.

Owner Dan Brady, an avid Giants fan, said yesterday that altering the name of the bar is a fun change.

“We did it four years ago, and everybody loved it,” he said. “Everybody finds it to be a great thing. Hopefully it’ll bring the Giants good luck.”

The post Super Bowl XLVI: City eateries benefiting from big game appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

A salty hamburger and french fries. Stock photo

salt edit mp3

Reporter Alexandra DiPalma on the salt battle.

Cigarette smokers, soda drinkers and fast-food lovers aren’t the only ones who are being affected by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s health crusades. Now, to the outrage of many New York City restaurant owners, chefs and diners, the mayor has added another target to his list: salt.

In January, as part of his National Salt Reduction Initiative, Bloomberg called for restaurants and food manufacturers to reduce the salt content of their food by 25 percent over the next five years. The initiative has been embraced by more than 40 other U.S. cities and is being backed by several health organizations.

Within the past few days, in a major victory for advocates of the plan, Bloomberg successfully recruited 16 major food companies to voluntarily cut the amount of salt in their products. According to a report from the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, these companies include Starbucks, Kraft and Heinz.

“By working together over the past two years, we have been able to accomplish something many said was impossible; setting concrete, achievable goals for salt reduction,” said Bloomberg in a statement.

Ratha Chou, head chef at Kampuchea, a critically acclaimed restaurant in the Lower East Side, is among those who staunchly oppose the new initiative.

“I don’t understand how Bloomberg can try to regulate the amount of salt we’re using,” said Chou. “It’s a basic right. It would be like saying we can only walk on our left foot or something.”

The sodium regulations are meant to address the issue of high blood pressure, which, according to the Institute of Medicine, kills up to 23,000 New Yorkers and 800,000 Americans each year.

Currently, one quarter-pound cheeseburger or one deli sandwich can contain up to
one-third of our daily allotment of salt. Surprisingly, only 11 percent of our daily allotment of salt comes from our own saltshakers, while nearly 80 percent of sodium in American diets is added to food before it is sold. Thus, the initiative aims to protect innocent consumers who have no control over sodium levels in pre-packaged foods.

“Lowering sodium is essential to reversing the trend of more Americans developing high blood pressure — a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke,” Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Association Nancy Brown said in a press release.

Still, many believe that Bloomberg is using a hatchet instead of a scalpel to address health issues like high blood pressure. For chefs who are trained to cook with potentially harmful ingredients like salt, the regulations threaten the ability to make food properly.

Ram Chhetri, an ice cream alchemist of sorts, says even the slightest change in his recipe can have disastrous results. His shop, Lulu and Mooky’s, also in the Lower East Side, serves liquid-nitrogen ice cream and allows visitors to choose from thousands of flavor combinations, or invent their own.

“We use Himalayan rock salt to make the ice cream, and it’s very important to use the right amount,” Chhetri said. “Just a small cut in the salt would change the chemicals and the taste of the ice cream completely.”

Some out-of-towners can already taste the difference in New York food.

Matthew Haught, 25, of St. Albans, W.V., stopped at Five Guys Burger and Fries in Manhattan during a recent visit. He frequently visits the Five Guys branch at home, and was shocked when he got his burger and fries at the Bleecker Street location.

“The stuff back home is a little saltier and a little richer. Here, I was watching and they didn’t use as much salt or grease when they cooked it,” Haught said.

Haught, like many diners, resents the mayor’s attempt to control sodium levels in restaurants. He believes that he can control his own diet without the mayor’s help.

“If you resign yourself to going to Five Guys, you know you’re going to get a ton of salt and fat in your meal,” he said. “You also know that you’re going to have to spend an extra twenty minutes at the gym that afternoon.”

But considering the country’s statistics on obesity and high blood pressure, not everyone does spend that extra time in the gym, and not everyone is able to make healthy decisions on their own. Even so, Haught says, responsible eaters shouldn’t be punished because of a few unhealthy ones.

“Bottom line: there’s what’s good and then there’s what could have been better,” Haught said of his restaurant food. “And even if it is a little unhealthier, I would rather have it be better.”

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