Rat Tartare in NYC

[Sneakeater]

Where can you get it?

Whose is the best?

[Carolyn Tillie]

You aren't serious, are you?

[Sneakeater]

(I only just took a break to read today's NY Times Op-Ed page.)

[Fat Guy]

Perhaps I can clarify Mr. Sneakeater's comment. He's referring to an op-ed in today's New York Times that I wrote.

There have been several news reports lately about rats in New York's restaurants, and a video is making the rounds on YouTube showing rats playing at night in the dining room of a KFC/Taco Bell store in Greenwich Village. The department of health is closing restaurants left and right now, in response to the outcry.

My point is that this is an overreaction, driven more by people's psychological problems with rats than by any sort of public health crisis.

What Mr. Sneakeater is referring to is a line later in the piece, where I point out, "Were rats a delicacy here, as they are in parts of China, we’d demand the right to rat tartare with a raw egg on top."

[Mayhaw Man]

What kind of egg would be the best for this dish? And, as I am a neophyte in the rodent dining realm, what kind of beverage might be a good match for this developing delicacy?

[Sneakeater]

I've enjoyed chicha morada with guinea pig.

[Sneakeater]

To say something serious, FG is clearly right that the current restaurant-closing hysteria is a silly overreaction to the rat infestation found in a Greenwich Village fast-food place. Other problems are clearly more serious. But you can see how the Department of Health must have felt it had to do something in response to that video.

[Fat Guy]

The department of health had the right idea about a week ago. Deputy Health Commissioner Jessica Leighton gave the straight dope to New York 1 News:

Leighton points out rats are a quality of life issue, not a health risk.

“They are not what causes food borne disease; they are not what causes poor health conditions,” says Leighton.

But rational talk got swept aside by hysteria and pandering, so now restaurants are being shuttered willy-nilly. You know, closing an unsafe restaurant is a necessary evil. But closing restaurants that are perfectly safe, that have been serving food and harming nobody, just because they have rodents like every other building in New York, is just wrong. It's wrong to do it to the business owners, and it's wrong to do it to the employees.

[rich]

Maybe they should just close Greenwich Village - it seems to me the rats with guns are far more dangerous.

[Sneakeater]

For the very little it's worth, I couldn't agree with Fat Guy more.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Sneakeater (log)

[annecros]

I've seen that video, and sure it skeeved me out. But honestly, rats are going to be wherever people are and are a codependent species.

Nasty, but codependent.

We have issues down here because of agriculture. When we were in Palm Beach county, we were semi-rural, and lived within walking distance of a U-Pick tomato field. Wonderful, right? I thought so as well, and picked and put up tomatoes all spring and fall. Unfortunately, when the field was ploughed under in the fall, the rats then moved over into our subdivision and began feeding on the citrus in the neighborhood.

They can be semi-controlled, baits - traps - poison. Then you have to worry about the beneficial predatory animals that feed on them - not to mention domestic cats.

We are next to an empty lot right now and have seen a few small ones (all outdoors, thank goodness). We went ahead and poisoned - but didn't feel good about it. But I have too much invested in my tomatoes right now.

Get pest control in there, make sure the food is secure, and inspect vigorously. But shuttering at the first sight of a rodent dropping is a bit hyper sensitive.

The rats have to eat too!

[Fat Guy]

The health department seems to be losing touch with reality, and is now closing more restaurants than I can keep track of. Foodie favorites ranging from Grand Sichuan to DiFara's have been shuttered, and the Post just reported that LCB Brasserie Rachou is the most recent casualty of the DOH's massive publicity stunt. This is insane. Nobody is being harmed by these restaurants. They're doing nothing this month that they haven't been doing for years. And the cooks and servers who are going without income, well, I guess they're not a consideration because anything done in the name of health triggers complete disregard for any other issue.

[larrylee]

http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=89783834

Coverage about the Di Fara shutdown.

[ned]

I dunno about the other closings but Gawker's quote of the DOH's report on DiFara's is unnerving. A measured response would I think be welcome from all the sides of the fence.

I'm curious about a couple of things. Were are all of these places that are now being carefully inspected previously inspected by the inspector who passed the Taco Bell? How does an inspector miss rat activity on the scale that was present at Taco Bell. And if you can't miss it, was there something more nefarious at play? I mention it only because I haven't read anything about the possibility anywhere else.

[larrylee]

Gawker report on Di Fara closing.

[wannabechef]

admin: merged threads

I checked around and was surprised that I coudln't find a thread about this. Can anyone confirm? I have to confess that the report from DOH is pretty damning. I don't know if I'd be ablet to go back again after reading this.

http://gawker.com/news/brooklyn/di-fara-pi...ings-245575.php

[Sneakeater]

Discussion here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=100374

[jg488]

I just called Di Fara's and spoke with Dom. He hopes to be open on Monday.