Pitaz in da hood - UPDATE

Remember Ashkara, the pita place Mark and I initially loved, then reviewed again and weren't so happy about? (Here's the old blog post.) Well, last time we were down in the LES to see a show at the Mercury Lounge, we noticed that obviously things didn't get better because Ashkara is CLOSED.

I wonder how many cases of food poisoning it took for that to happen?

Sometimes I wonder if places like that fail as a result of improper staffing (which I imagine was what happened). They open up, the food is good for awhile, they start treating their employees like crap, the good ones leave and they can only get retard clowns to run the place, or everybody stops caring, which leads to lapses in cleanliness and overall quality of food. (A quick look-up on the NYC Restaurant Inspection website says they had 22 violations as of the end of December 2009...mostly things that seem the result of general laziness.)

Regardless, we never wanted to go back again after trip number two, and apparently nobody else did either.

What's that in my stir fried rice??

Today while looking up a nearby food/billiards establishment at work on Google Maps, I came across a lovely local internet gem that will be of use to me for years to come:

NYC Department of Health Restaurant Inspection Information

AMAZING! Within the first five seconds I learned that I will not be going to Ridgewood Billiards after work tomorrow (not with 38 violation points!) and that my favorite Chinese food delivery place in Bay Ridge, Hot Wok, has mice living in and/or near its food sources. Lovely!

You can search for an individual restaurant name or just browse everything in your neighborhood or zip code and even sort them quickly by number of violation points just so you can make sure that wherever you're about to go grab a nosh at is not on the Heath and Hygene shit list.

Hooray for E. Coli!!