honestly di fara was pretty filthy the times I’ve been—health inspectors OTM

my standard for great food has always been “confers immortality” so

higgs boson otm. I suppose it would be unfair to change my handle to Higgs Boatswain.

man i read like this whole thread thinking about how i would weigh in on the burg debate and then i realized that i was under no obligation to contribute and it was like a weight had been lifted

max do you like shake shack

i made it clear above i believe shake shack is fantastic

would love to try the minetta burg too

also love in-n-out

five guys does a good burg too

underrated in-n-out style local burg chain: whattaburger

i dont get burgs that often these days tho

whattaburger is a texas chain iirc

oh i didnt know, they have one in union sq that ive been to, found it enjoyable

sometimes i go to james on monday nights for their “burger night” $10 for a fancy burger and fries and a beer

ur thinking of good burger no

btw r there any good high end fast food style burgers in williamsburg

You know what I think is pretty good that I NEVER hear repped for is New York Burger Co.

blue 9 burger is dece iirc, early ny entrant into the elevated fast food landscape

oh maybe im thinking of goodburger

does fette sau do a burger? or that bar nearby that has good fried chicken and a nautical theme

kaz an nou in prospect heights/north slope does a sick fancy “caribbean” burger with a good spice rub and fried egg and mango or something

dont think fette sau has a burger, was thinking maybe this was the nautical place u were talking abt but no fried chicken http://thedrinkbrooklyn.com << nice place btw

no thats not it... its just this real divy place on metropolitan near the milk bar? shit what is it called? starts with an A? its real popular i cant believe i forgot the name

the comodore

never been there but ive heard people discuss their fried chicken at length, i has pies n thighs today btw

thats the one, the commodore! the commodore. good friend chicken, i bet they do a dece burger—if they do a burger

ny fapping should be done at the oyster bar saloon in my opinion

park ave armory slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/12/22/arts/20111222-ARMORY.html#1

I’m an oyster bar fan generally but the staff has been v rude the last couple times I was there and I’m not usually someone who gets uppity about that

like my wife went there first and was trying to save us a spot until I got there to meet her, she sat down at an open seat at the oyster counter (that had several people eating at it) and the server pulled out a little placard sign that said “counter closed” and just sat it down in front of her and walked away, didn’t even say shit. that’s lame

then the bartender in the saloon gave us the gasface

why is it so fucking hot

gods gift to me

i ate at pearl oyster bar tonight and the chowda and crabcake combo is what that shit is about

New York Burger Co.

not to be slept on. although I always worry they will go out of business.

Yeah I don’t know why that place doesn’t do better—maybe it’s a marketing/atmosphere problem, or maybe there’s just burger saturation and they haven’t distinguished themselves.

I vote for marketing/atmosphere... it’s not really very “chelsea” in there. kinda feels like it got misplaced from union square or something.

yeah the one I’ve mostly gone to is near Mad Sq Park but I’ve been to that one too.

oh shoot, I didn’t realize there were multiple locations!

http://www.newyorkburgerco.com/location.html

Yeah I guess looks like they have 3, all kind of bizarrely along the same parallel.

hay guys, we’ve had 50 million tourists this year.

GTFO of my way

o morbsy

I like tourists, they are too slow to get subway seats

some girl I knew from years ago moved to new york some months ago and on fb she complained about how she hated tourists cause they were making it so hard for her to enjoy her favorite parts of the city: times square, going up the empire state building, seeing the tree at rockefeller center

rimshot

I find tourists on the subway really entertaining and sweet — they get all excited and nervous about the little things you come to take for granted

only time I resent tourists is if when they stand on the left side of an escalator, but non-tourists do this too

if/when

love this sign in front of the woolworth building

my fave tourist quote of the year was from a Broadway showgoer on the night of Occupy Times Square. “The riot on Wall Street has moved up here!”

Plus I sort of enjoy the game of instantly recognizing tourists and then analyzing what tipped me off—khakis, columbia sportswear, etc.

could’ve sworn it was “stand on the right side of an escalator.” Oh well, adapt and zigzag.

you can’t zigzag two people standing next to each other!

you’re supposed to stand on the right, walk on the left

pretend the escalator is a highway

and your ass is a car

have never driven

that’s when you break out the “SCUZE ME” spoken with the same intent as “FUKKEN MOVE”

driving is a lot like being an asshole pedestrian in grand central, except sometimes you get to kill people

^pretty sure i saw this on the wall at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp in Times Square

anyway, the cardinal sin is ppl walking 3 to 7 abreast on a midtown street. Go to Paree if you wanna fucking “boulevard.”

people who walk three abreast, people who stop—stop!—at the top of the subway stairs, people who walk slowly: all will see the guillotine blade when i am made premiere

i do like tourists, without them how would you be able to think of yourself as a new yorker

by living off the coast of America for 20 years

that’s true of people in nassau county too tho

hmmm, Nassau is existentially on the mainland.

the 1% in NYC has 34% of the income, compared to 19% in USA:

http://lbo-news.com/2011/12/12/nyc-more-unequal-than-brazil/

someone in the comments mentions that the middle class are in the suburbs, which is true to some degree and doing it w/ the metro area would prob even it out a tad, though it would also include westchester, connecticut, rich parts of jersey while also newark etc on the other side

The New York subway, for example, is an extraordinary resource for beggars. A homeless man who collects 50 cents per car panhandling on an eight-car subway train can make $4 in an hour–enough for a meal at McDonalds....

Disclaimer: No, I am not touting entrepreneurial panhandling as a solution to the problem of homelessness. I support ruinous taxation of the rich and a guaranteed income for all. Equality is better than inequality. I’m just saying.

fwiw I have never lived somewhere that didn’t have a large homeless population and I’m always surprised at how generous nyers are on the subway, esp if you’re willing to pick up a musical instrument.

I like tourists like in august walking through soho and it’s all people speaking euro, it’s like wow, makes u think

tbf I think panhandlers on the subway make a lot more than $4/hr, ESPECIALLY the ones with instruments. I usually see half-decent ones get what looks like $4–5/car and it doesnt’ take an hour to cover a train.

I sort of gaved up on the speechmakers and stopped giving—they always seem to have such absurdly contrived spiels that they can’t be true (“My wife died in a fire, I lost my job, AND I have this inexplicable limp, and also I talk like I had a stroke even though I didn’t mention one.”) I hate to think I might be wrong about that, and also sometimes I think that they must be hard up enough anyway that it doesn’t matter. Other times I also wonder if they’re unfortunate patsies of some crime ring, the way it turned out the *deaf* people with those sign language cards were. For a while I noticed that the kids who sold candy always gave nearly verbatim the exact same speech (“I am not doing this for a basketball team” etc.) which to my paranoiac mind seemed like a sign, combined with the fact that they have candy in wholesale boxes. Anyway.

lol @ the universal affectless speechifying style agreed upon by the hard luck subway storytellers union

If someone just has a sign that says “homeless vet” or something like that, I’m apt to believe them. Cuz there are a lot of those.

all beggars are drug addicted welfare cheats who live in mansions, everyone knows

the basketball team stuff is clearly bullshit but I like how they’re kinda entrepreneurial

I guess I’m assuming they are not part of a crime ring and just some kid who bought a box of peanut m&ms?

lol one time I talked to one of those kids for a while all like 150 thats a lot for a jersey he had this whole spiel like yeah its embroidered we play in such and such league im a point guard until finally i just bought some of his candy, had to respect the prep work

instead of making individual decisions on every panhandler I just give money to City Harvest and never give to anyone on the street or in the subway ever.

I guess I’m assuming they are not part of a crime ring and just some kid who bought a box of peanut m&ms?

nah they def. get the candy from some central location I think. don’t they?

I’d give it like 50% it’s a ring, 50% they just share tips and go to costco

There was a guy I used to always see on the PATH who had this elaborate spiel about collecting for a homeless organization that had a shelter. He had a laminated card and whatnot. I guess I was young back then and i just never thought about it until one day this woman next to me says to me “Listen, I work for a homeless outreach organization and there is no way ANY legitimate homeless organization would ever send someone on the train to ask for money.” Which seemed sort of obvious once she said it.

i ate at pearl oyster bar tonight and the chowda and crabcake combo is what that shit is about

It certainly isn’t about the lobster roll. Luke’s 4 lyphe.

how hard is it to get a bulk box of m&ms?

I don’t deny that there’s a possibility of a central location tho for some reason I always assumed it was just some kids who wanted to make pocket money

I mean I didn’t think anything until I noticed that I had heard like 7 different kids use virtually the same speech word-for-word, which made me think someone was training them.

I just figured they sorta figured out ‘what worked’

yeah I could see either way, it could be like a paper route

come to think of it tho, outside of peanut m&ms there is definitely a regularity of snacks offered

im thinking theres some adult hanging out in a grungy apt who picks up the boxes wholesale and fronts them to the kids

thats what my paper route was like at least

yeah it doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge organized crime syndicates

unplural

I don’t deny that there’s a possibility of a central location tho for some reason I always assumed it was just some kids who wanted to make pocket money

No, dude.

what about the breakdancing kids

are they also working for the mob

That old secret platform at the edge of Grand Central that was built for FDR? Filled with peanut M&Ms.

Haha

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5213468&page=1

One of the groups I investigated gave the children 40 cents for each $2.50 candy they sold. The bars wholesaled for 35 cents, so the crew leaders made a tasty profit.

They sell sweets, but bite in deep enough and you will taste the truth.

REAL NEW YORKERS DONT BUY CANDY FROM KIDS MWA AH AHA AH

Breakdancing kids IDK — they seem much more ragtag and there’s nothing standardized that I notice.

the mob copyrights certain breakdancing moves, such as the flip the hat from your shoe onto your head

the mob also runs a ring of overly earnest hippieish 20-somethings with belt-clip amps covering dylan

one time (in the bay area) I heard 3 different buskers do ‘knocking on heavens door’ in one day

I think people like that one cause you don’t have to remember very many lyrics, also cause if you want to ‘take it to the next level’ you can knock on your guitar when you say ‘knock knock knocking’

favorite subway denizen is this african preacher with a long spiel about the perils of hell should one not accept jesus christ as one’s lord and savior. he has fantastic intonation.

you WILL go to hell

part of the jesus mob, i guess