53rd & 6th Halal Cart

We were in New York for Daniel Glass's daughter's wedding.

Say that three times fast...

Anyway, it was hot as hell. And the A/C in Felice's mother's apartment was on the fritz. But after a scorched night we hit the pavement that inspired "Summer In The City" and walked over to the Eugene O'Neill Theater to pick up our tickets for "The Book Of Mormon". Felice is a diehard South Park fan.

And just around the corner is a Shake Shack. With a line. In the hundred degree heat.

I'd like to tell you it's fantastic, unmissable, but I'd still rather go to In-N-Out, which is gonna lose the war because of its expansion policy, which is essentially a no-go. The shakes at Shake Shack are to die for, real ice cream. The fries are worthless, those crinkle-cut pudgy ones.... Fries either need to be shoestring and brown, maybe just golden, or steak cut and crispy-edged. These are neither. They're forgettable at best. You can taste the Pat LaFrieda beef, but it doesn't dominate. Which is good, but makes the burger just a bit less memorable.

Not that I told any of this to Danny Meyer. Who I ended up sitting next to at the wedding... But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Felice wanted to take a cab back to the apartment, to wait for the A/C company, ironically entitled "Arista", but that seemed too wimpy to me, so I suggested we walk back.

And that's when we saw the line. At 53rd and 6th. But it was the middle of the day. I didn't pay it that much attention. People need to eat lunch. But after midnight, when we returned from the play, which is so wild you don't believe it's on Broadway, never mind won all those Tonys, I can't even repeat some of the lines in this family-oriented newsletter, ha!, (not because I don't want to but because they won't make it through the spam filters), we encountered once again...

The line at 53rd and 6th. Twenty deep. After midnight?

I had to check this out. Nothing special. Just meat on a grill.

But now I was intrigued.

The next day I spent at the Paley Center, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio. I advise you go. First and foremost, to see all the people who mean nothing to today's younger generation. Do today's kids know who Marlo Thomas is? Even Richard Pryor, who was the absolute best? And I watched the pilot of "Seinfeld", without Elaine, where Kramer is monikered "Kessler", but what truly intrigued me was John Lennon on Tom Snyder. Wherein he said he left the Beatles because he was bored. Not that the others weren't good musicians, but they always played the same thing, he wanted to make music with new people. But what about the fights? He'd known these cats since he was fifteen, the fights were over long ago. What about the jealousies? Hell, people preferred Paul, the cute one, to him and the rest of the band from the very beginning, back in Liverpool in the fifties.

Whew!

And it was after that I had the halal.

That's what they sell at the cart at 53rd and 6th. Halal. Which is meat on a grill. Beef and chicken. With white sauce, which I was afraid would give me diarrhea, hell, it was sitting out in the heat, and a red hot sauce that's akin to Tabasco. Oh, there's rice if you want it, but we're all off carbs. And a few vegies and pita. And for six bucks, I got a container full.

Not that I didn't have to wait.

The guy behind me was from Sweden... How does everybody know?

And the proprietor and his assistant couldn't have been less interested. One was on the cell phone the whole time and the other wouldn't even talk to me, or anyone else.

And I brought the steaming hot container back to Felice's mother's apartment and...

It wasn't the highlight of my life, but it was the food highlight of the weekend. The beef was just a little crisp, almost burnt on the edges, exactly the way I like it. And it wasn't low rent meat. And the chicken didn't have the bland taste of the hormone birds. And the sauce made the whole concoction work. I couldn't stop eating it. Even though we had to be at the wedding soon.

Which was at the Harvard Club, Daniel's daughter went there. For graduate school (she hit an Ivy for undergrad too!)

And I had an intriguing conversation with a Harvard grad who mentors kids. He counsels them to find financial independence. To put that in the mix with your dream.

And Rita Houston and I bonded. After she tweeted bad things about me in Philadelphia.

And Danny Meyer was fascinating. You always wonder about talking business with successful people. I asked him whether to order the veal or the fish and he was nonresponsive. I figured that was a generic ice breaker. But after the main course came and he leaned over and said the fish was the right call, we got into it like old buddies. There are few people you can connect with, but I connected with Danny. Because he was real, without airs. He certainly talked about his restaurants, Felice swooned when he told her he owned Maialino, the food there is so good. But more interesting was hearing the family history, of going to Trinity instead of Princeton, of finding his wife and his way.

As for meeting Daniel... He responded to his complaint!

That's what Danny does.

Imagine Doug, Lyor or Lucian responding to a customer complaint. They don't have the time for the little people. But unless you do, you're doomed, your business is going in the wrong direction.

And on Sunday we went to visit my mother in Connecticut. Where I had fried clams, with bellies, which were better than the faux item at Howard Johnson's, but nowhere near as good as any roadside stand in Wellfleet.

And of course we stopped at Carvel, it's a tradition!

And despite the heat, and the intermittent A/C, we had a wonderful time.

And one more thing... I went to MOMA. The Museum of Modern Art for the uninformed.

This income inequality is ruining the arts. Because the best and the brightest, those willing to challenge instead of fall in line, are not going into art, but banking, they need the money.

And we all need the money. But how much?

My choices are behind me.

But I fret that the younger generation has skewed values. Believing bankers are kings.

You want to know who are kings?

Those middle eastern guys at 53rd and 6th. They've got a line. That's how good their product is. It's selling itself. No advertising. No hawking.

Musicians could take a lesson from them.

But before you take the lesson, eat the food, it's fantastic!

53rd & 6th Halal Cart (be sure to check out the pics!): http://bit.ly/WwTyS

Maialino: http://www.maialinonyc.com/

"A Movable Feast: Danny Meyer on a Roll": http://nyti.ms/qU1WTF


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