Luke Ford

Chaim Amalek writes: “Well, I’ve been to one world’s fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever seen on a blog. The problem with this analysis begins with its own numbers, pointing out that 2/3rds of the UWS is NOT Jewish. So how can one rationally blame that 1/3 for what the 2/3rds don’t support? Also, the overall characterization of the demographic here is weirdly out of date. The old lefty intellectual Jewish UWS was mostly gone decades ago. Now it is like any other part of white Manhattan, with just a smattering of the old (and I do mean OLD) Jewish crowd left along West End Avenue. And finally, does anyone think that the restaurants of the goyim in Judenfrei America are better? It is a sea of Denny’s and Olive Gardens out there, folks. White antisemites need to step up their game if they want to be able to look Islamists in the eye. Also, for anyone who wants to eat out at some fancy place in Manhattan without rubbing elbows with Jews, tonight is one of the two best nights of the year for that, maybe the best. Passover. Even secular Jews will be dining at someone’s home this evening. As will Luke Ford.”

BLOG: A top-featured article from the NY Post reviews how bland, generic, and flavorless the restaurant scene is in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and places blame on the demand side with the residents themselves. Restaurants that ought to do great business flounder in the UWS, while run-of-the-mill Chinese take-out will never die. Any place that tries to do something bold is immediately watered down to appeal to dull taste buds.

You don’t have to read between the lines very carefully to see who the problem is among the residents — it’s primarily the Jewish palate that the Italian-American critic is blasting.

Savvy readers may have suspected this already, given that about 1/3 of the neighborhood’s residents are Jewish. But the critic can’t come right out and say that in the mainstream media (for similar reasons that he would not be able to discuss openly). He did manage to drop a rather big hint toward the end, though, while quoting some other source (my emphasis):

And a new place that sticks to its guns must put up with what [Jewish restaurant manager Ed] Schoenfeld calls the “kvetch factor.”

On Christmas at RedFarm [Chinese food on Christmas], “A lady at the bar was counting people and seats to see who should get a table next.” She made a loud stink and “made my manager cry,” Schoenfeld recalls ruefully.

He asked her to leave — “I basically fired my customer,” he laughs. “You’d never see that downtown.”

Perhaps locals share lingering nostalgia for the days of Mexican beaneries and dairy cafeterias. Call it Karl Marx’s revenge on a neighborhood that prefers Gray’s Papaya to the eats that make this city the most famous dining destination in the world.