The Solution? Embrace The “Cheap Shit Chinese” Genre . . .

Otherwise you run the risk of sounding like pretentious asshole:

A sweet-and-sour Brooklyn scribe is so nauseated by his neighborhood’s lousy Chinese food that he’s cooked up an online petition to lure a better chef to the ‘hood.

[A] Former New Yorker magazine web editor [ . . . ] says he’ll collect a few hundred signatures and personally deliver them to Manhattan Szechuan joints — hoping it’ll coax them to move their woks to Prospect Heights.

“Everybody deserves better Chinese food,” said [the man], 41, “but neighborhood Chinese restaurants seem to have gotten worse.”

We’ll Always Have Singapore

The other day Clyde Haberman quipped that unlike some other recent mayors who traveled abroad and got wacky ideas, Bloomberg “should be able to resist some undesirable ideas that will fall his way in rigid Singapore, where it doesn’t take much to step out of line.” Actually, the mayor sounds like he’s right at home.

Which is to say, it’s not Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr that makes people think ideas are bad, it’s that bad ideas make people take to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Which is also to say, happy constituents don’t have any reason to bitch on Tumblr:

The mayor noted that technology, despite its benefits, can add new pitfalls to an already grueling process. “Social media is going to make it even more difficult to make long-term investments” in cities, Mr. Bloomberg said.

“We are basically having a referendum on every single thing that we do every day,” he said. “And it’s very hard for people to stand up to that and say, ‘No, no, this is what we’re going to do,’ when there’s constant criticism, and an election process that you have to look forward to and face periodically.”

Later, Mr. Bloomberg noted that long-term urban planning “requires leadership, and standing up, and saying, ‘You know, you elected me, this is what we’re going to do,’ and not take a referendum on every single thing.”

At that, the mayor’s interlocutor, the Singaporean professor Kishore Mahbubani, took back the microphone.

“I think the Singapore government sympathizes with your point about social media,” Professor Mahbubani said, prompting loud laughter from the audience. “We are having the same daily referendums in Singapore.”

BID Head Calls Vendors With Odd-Smelling Food “Terrible Citizens”

The 34th Street Partnership takes on food carts and takes sides, coming out against “smelly” carts and in favor of upscale mobile vendors that sell stuff like Belgian waffles:

“The problem is really simple: the food vendors, with about five exceptions, are the ugliest collection of miserable-looking vehicles we’ve ever seen,” said Dan Biederman, who heads up both the Partnership and the Bryant Park Corporation.

“The vendors are almost exclusively terrible citizens, they litter with impunity and are generally rude to anyone who asks them to clean up.”

The campaign is still in its early stages, but the partnership has reached out to city officials, asking them to reduce the amount of street vendors in Midtown by taking away licenses and making sure that they’re in better locations.

Biederman said the problem has gotten particularly bad since many vendors started putting flashing signs on their carts. Food vendors often create excess smoke and odd smells, the organization said, and they leave their trash piled up on street corners.

The group also wants the remaining vendors to beautify their carts, using the few carts it finds attractive — including popular vendor Wafels and Dinges and the Fruit-n-Juice cart that’s typically around West 35th Street and Broadway — as a template.

The “terrible citizens” line is particularly unfortunate when read with the accompanying photo of a halal cart . . .

Party Like It’s 1897, Bitches!

Oh my god, they’re actually baking their own bread:

Brooklyn, fiercely proud of its independence from Manhattan, is an expanding frontier for the Do It Yourself movement — resourceful residents are baking bread, raising chickens for eggs, keeping bees for honey or simply renovating brownstones themselves.

Third Term Malaise Spreads: Thinking Any Of Us Give A Fuck About Your Title (Or Your Press Conference, For That Matter)

Christine Quinn’s sense of entitlement is striking for someone who had to bend the rules to stay politically relevant:

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn on Wednesday lashed out a reporter for The Daily News who did not invoke Ms. Quinn’s proper title when asking her a question.

The reporter, Erin Einhorn, referred to Ms. Quinn as “m’am” in asking the speaker about her efforts to improve the city’s response to snowstorms.

But Ms. Quinn was none too pleased with Ms. Einhorn, who earned the speaker’s scorn recently with a series of articles that were critical of the Council.

“You can call me speaker,” Ms. Quinn said in a testy tone. “It’s my press conference. I actually decide what words are necessary.”