Tag Archives: new york

Raw meat raves in New York

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Lawyers, prepare your briefs.

And put on clean ones.

The New York Post reports on Gotham’s burgeoning food porn trend to consume meat raw, and lining up for the privilege.

Takashi is one of a small but growing number of restaurants around the city catering to those who are rah-rah about consuming their animal flesh raw-raw.

The first dish to come out is the yooke, ground chuck prepared like a Japanese version of steak tartare. Topped with a raw quail egg, it’s adorned with Japanese seaweed and an enormous shiso leaf.

It’s also by far the tamest uncooked dish at Takashi, which gets its meat from some of the better purveyors around, such as Dickson’s Farmstand and Pat LaFrieda.

Maybe they have those CSI UV goggles that make dangerous bacteria visible. Otherwise, it’s hucksterism to charge a premium.

“Raw meats or undercooked foods leave you at risk of infection [of parasites or a slew of other illnesses],” says Dr. Michael Mansour of the division of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.

According to NYC’s Department of Health, restaurants must notify diners when food isn’t cooked to required temperatures — either verbally or by printing this on the menu. A diner may also request such a dish. Basically, it’s buyer beware — though the DOH says it will investigate complaints of people getting sick from eating raw food. But with so many New Yorkers obsessed with high-quality ingredients, meat so fresh it can be served raw is seen as a benchmark — not a danger.

Food porn trumps.

At downtown’s Acme, you’ll find endive leaves stuffed with a mix of raw bison and sweet shrimp. At Manzo in Eataly, Piedmontese beef is hand-cut and ground to order. Hakata Tonton, just a couple of blocks from Takashi, offers veal liver sashimi on its menu, as does EN Japanese Brasserie on Hudson Street. Last fall, Hecho en Dumbo in the East Village offered venison tartare on the chef’s menu. (It plans to bring it back next fall, too.)

And then there’s raw chicken, a dish not for the squeamish. “There are a lot of places in the city that serve raw chicken,” says Dave Pasternack, chef-owner of Esca in Hell’s Kitchen. But you might have to ask, with a nudge and a wink, to go off the menu.

For some, raw meat is uncontroversial. “It’s my soul food,” says Takashi’s Inoue, who grew up in Osaka. “That’s how we eat in my home in Japan. The meat is very, very fresh.”

Very fresh, except when it sickens and kills, like it did in Japan last year, leaving four dead and at least 70 sickened with E. coli O111 from raw beef.

Pick your poison.

Sick from Syracuse restaurant climbs to 95

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Twin Trees Too in Syracuse, New York has reopened after a thorough rub-down as the number of diners sick with norovirus climbed to 95.

The health department stressed that Twin Trees Too cooperated fully.

If you are one of the customers who became infected, Onondaga County Health Commissioner Dr. Cynthia Morrow says the virus is so contagious that the most important thing you can do is stay home. You don’t want to transmit the virus to anyone else. Symptoms of norovirus include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

An appetite for straight A at New York restaurants

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Julie Powell, who wrote that Julie and Julia book that became the movie with Meryl Streep impersonating Dan Aykroyd impersonating Julia Child, writes in the New York Times today that when the city’s restaurant inspection disclosure program started 19 months ago, she was going to eat at restaurants with a “C.”

“I had some romantic notions that the best, most authentic food could emerge only from kitchens not polished to an antiseptic shine — and that armed with my iron stomach and enlightened mind, I would march into divey joints in the far-flung corners of the five boroughs and experience exotic flavors and spiritual sustenance my more fastidious dining counterparts would forever miss out on.

“It didn’t happen like that. Those glorious hole-in-the-wall places so beloved to us food types are doing just fine. A spin around the restaurant inspection site confirms that your favorite lousy Chinese joint or Uzbek cafe is scoring just as well as the critics’ darlings. In fact, about 72 percent of the city’s restaurants are posting “A” grades; of those, more than 60 percent earned “A’s” on the first inspection. It turns out it’s actually a challenge to find a “C” restaurant at which to tempt fate."

Powell (no relation) asks, “Why mark a restaurant with a “B,” or, God forbid, the dreaded “C”? Isn’t that like placing a scarlet letter on the place?

Exactly. “Do I expect people to see a mediocre grade and decide, ‘Hmm, I’m going to think twice about this’? Yes!” says Daniel Kass, a deputy health commissioner for environmental health. “Only incredible inattentiveness results in a C grade.”

Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club shut down for health code violations

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Celebrities get into the restaurant biz, so celebrity followers are getting into the restaurant inspection biz.

After the New York Post reported this morning that Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club piled up enough infractions during a recent health department inspection to shutter the place, celebrity news site, TMZ, cited a rep as saying, it was just bad luck because a refrigerator died just before the inspector showed up.

But Ron Berkowitz says the staff identified the problem immediately and had no intention of serving the food from that fridge. Berkowitz says the fridge was fixed by noon the next day and the club was permitted to re-open.

Except it was more than the fridge.

Other infractions included mixing salsa with bare hands, no thermometer or thermocouple, and inadequate personal cleanliness.

The refrigerator was at a rancid 60 degrees instead of 41 — jeopardizing the safety of 50 pounds of raw chicken wings, five pounds of raw shrimp and 100 turkey burgers, the sources said.

Five pounds of cooked mashed potatoes were left out at a temperature of 89 degrees, while 10 pounds of cooked rice and 50 turkey burgers were kept at 67 degrees.

All the hot foods should be at least 140 degrees, the sources said.

The club’s restaurant was immediately closed, and new patrons were barred from entering. Those already inside were allowed to remain.

“If you have a walk-in place with food like this, you put a hell of a lot of people at risk,” said the source. “A night of dinner and dancing should not include the risk of contracting foodborne illness.”

A night earlier, the hip-hop mogul held an A-list party to reopen the hotspot, which was closed for 10 months for a $10 million makeover. Famous guests included Russell Simmons, Spike Lee, Lance Bass and Warren Buffett.

New Albany restaurant-inspection grades: Excellent, good, fair

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Starting July 1, restaurants in Albany County, New York, will be required to post a prominent sign (right) near the front entrance to announce a simple, clear verdict of county health inspections: excellent, good, fair or unsatisfactory.

Only the first three will remain on display; restaurants that receive an “unsatisfactory” rating will be required to close immediately to remedy health violations and will be reinspected within days.

Although inspection criteria, guided by state law, will not change, Albany County Department of Health restaurant inspectors will use a new rating matrix to decide which rating to award. The matrix takes into account the number of “blue” (minor) and “red” (serious) violations a restaurant receives.

According to the language of the final resolution, adopted by the county board of health last month, restaurants receiving a “fair” rating will be reinspected within two to three weeks, while those that receive a “good” may request a reinspection, to be carried out “as staffing and resources permit.” Inspections are done at county expense, and there is no provision in the new law for restaurants to be able to pay for a reinspection to be done more quickly.

New York council to hold hearing on restaurant inspection complaints

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In response to restaurateurs’ complaints about the city’s 18-month-old letter-grading system, the City Council announced Tuesday that it will hold hearings on the inspection process in late February.

“I am troubled by the wave of complaints the Council has received from restaurants — even the ones that get A’s — about the fairness and inconsistency of the food safety inspection process,” said Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn in a joint announcement with Maria del Carmen Arroyo, chairwoman of the council’s Health Committee, which has maintained oversight of the health department.

Through its Web site, the council has made available an online questionnaire for the city’s 24,000 restaurateurs because “we hope to learn more about what is and isn’t working, including whether the grading system has been implemented fairly,” Speaker Quinn said, adding: “Any initiative — especially 18 months after establishment — calls for scrutiny.”

The results of the survey — which asks about experiences with inspectors and administrative tribunals, and the costs of paying fines and restaurant consultants to minimize those fines — will be used to set the agenda of the hearings, said a council spokeswoman, Zoe Tobin.

“We look forward to discussing the letter grading program with the council,” said Susan Craig, a health department spokeswoman. “We think it’s making a real difference, and the public understands it and likes it.” She said that a survey last summer showed that 90 percent of New Yorkers approve of letter grading, and added that currently, 77 percent of city restaurants have A grades.

New York restaurants avoid letter grade by claiming they’re supermarkets, warehouses

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Scores of city restaurants with expansive menus and sit-down service are, according to New York Daily News, escaping scrutiny by registering with the state as supermarkets or wholesalers.

The list of full-blown eateries too cool for school includes popular pizzerias in Brooklyn, a bagel store in Manhattan and a Dunkin’ Donuts in Queens.

Officially, the city Health Department is responsible for local restaurants, cafes and delis. The state Department of Agriculture and Markets oversees establishments that operate supermarkets, bodegas or wholesale markets as 50% or more of their business.

The line has blurred since the city changed its inspection system in July 2010.

Many restaurants that sell a few products to local groceries, or are attached to big supermarkets, often use this as a way to be placed under state control, records show. That has enabled them to avoid tough city reviews that could lead to a dreaded C grade — even though many operate full-scale restaurants.

A B C; New York City food carts should also be rated with ‘stupid letter grades’

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Restaurant owners in New York City want food carts to also be “embarrassed like we are with these stupid letter grades.”

Vinnie Mazzone, who owns Chicken Masters, also said, “If you are cooking, preparing and storing perishable items, there should be a letter grade on your cart. No question about it.”

George Constantinou, 35, co-owner of Bogata Latin Bistro, told Metro, “I think it’s only fair that they be graded like restaurants,” said in Park Slope. “The public can get sick if they eat at a restaurant, a food cart or even a convenience store.”

Food trucks are regularly inspected by the Health Department, but city restaurateurs are backing a bill that they say would level the playing field.

Queens state Sen. Jose Peralta plans to introduce a bill this week that would require the Health Department assign letter grades to food carts, letting New Yorkers know where the cleanest carts are — and which to avoid.

One cart owner said applying the same standards for five-star restaurants, which have larger staff and space, to vendors, "makes no sense.”

Rex Velasquez who runs a food cart downtown, called it a good idea. “At least you know if the cart is clean or not. I always keep my cart clean, so it doesn’t matter to me.”

Sardi’s whining about cheese pots and health types mind-boggling; clean up that kitchen

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Sardi’s, serve all the communal cheese you like in your bars to fatten up New York City’s Theater District.

Just don’t leave it out longer than four hours.

The N.Y. Times reported last week that Sardi’s had stopped serving communal snacks because of the health department and interviewed outraged theater-goers, arm-chair epidemiologists, and V. Max Klimavicius, the president of Sardi’s, who said,

“It has to do with the health department. It’s gotten to the point that the way they’re applying the health code is so rigid, we can no longer have what we always had. … It’s just mind-boggling. Nobody’s happy.”

Amanda Kludt of Eater decided to check the accuracy of the Times story and found it lacking.

Representatives at the Dept. of Health would like the bar-going public to know that the cheese played no role in their inspection nor did they order the bar to make any changes to their snack program. In fact, they write that "Cheese, including communal servings, is allowed to be served at room temperature as long as it is not kept out beyond four hours, per the Health Code."

Let the record show these are the actual Sardi’s violations:

1. Spaghetti and cheese ravioli not held to temperature (at or below 41 degrees F)
2. Bare hand assembly of ready-to-eat food (salad).
3. Contaminated ice.
4. Dry food stored improperly (pasta not stored in proper container)
5. Improper storage of food tongs (touching floor when oven door opens)
7. Improper ice handling.

2 reports of campylobacter may be related to raw milk from NY farm

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Consumers in Tompkins County, New York and surrounding areas not to consume unpasteurized raw milk produced at Jerry Dell Farm located at 39 Fall Creek Rd (RT 366) in Freeville, due to possible contamination with campylobacter.

The state Health Department received 2 reports of Campylobacter enteritis, from people who have consumed raw unpasteurized milk purchased from Jerry Dell Farm. Both patients have recovered.

Anyone who purchased milk from Jerry Dell Farm and still has the product should discard it immediately. Individuals experiencing gastrointestinal illness symptoms after consuming milk purchased from Jerry Dell Farm should contact their health care provider.

The farm has voluntarily suspended milk sales. The farm was first notified of the reported illnesses on September 22.

Confirmatory tests completed today at the New York State Food Laboratory found that the raw unpasteurized milk produced at Jerry Dell Farm, and collected on September 22, contained Campylobacter. This producer will be prohibited from selling raw milk until subsequent sampling indicates that the product is free of pathogens.