I think that there is a certain scrappiness to the New York character, – Yes, yes, yes, yes. that, you know, if you’re born here, you’re born with it. If you move here, you have to have it – You better get it. to make it because – You better get some. this is the toughest crowd there is. This city. And to make it here, obviously, you have to go all in. So, I think that so many of these restaurateurs and chefs are working in tiny spaces. This is true low end to high end. – No matter, like, yes, yes, in incredibly small kitchens, – yes, yes, yes. underequipped, eking out miracles, and to me that is deeply New York. – So let’s just, sort of, go, let’s do some “for examples” here. Right, like, – OK. can you talk about a place that’s on the list that, like, you would enjoy thinking about as being, like, a New York restaurant, or like, has a New Yorkiness about it? So I also think singularity is part of this. So for me, Mama Lee, which is at No. 10, Taiwanese spot in Bayside. – OK. Mama Lee herself, Mei Lee, the chef. One person. Nobody else is there. Sometimes she gets her elderly mom to come in and help, but most of the time it’s just her. She lives down the street. – This is a place in Queens. – This is a place in Queens, Bayside, Queens. It’s bright and that’s about it. There’s no more. That’s the ambiance, is that it’s brightly lit. And if she’s cooking, there’s nobody up front. So there’s a little bell, like the kind of old school bell that you would see at hotels. – I hate ringing a bell for service. You can ring a bell, if you need to. There’s a rice cooker full of rice if you want more rice, which should always be available. – Does she allow you to help yourself? Or is she going to take care of that? – You can help yourself to the rice. And, when I tried to tip her at the end, she slapped my hand and said, “I’m the only one here. Save it for the college kids who are working at other restaurants.” – “Ma’am, I make the prices. All the money is coming to me. So what are we doing?” Oh the other thing, though, is that, so I had reviewed her years ago for “Hungry City.” I reviewed her spot, and then somehow she opened in Williamsburg and I thought did some investors swoop in, and what happened here? And then it closed, and I received a DM from a worried customer who said, “I worry that she was taken advantage of, and I don’t know what’s happened.” And then I heard that she had reopened back in her old space in Bayside. And so I asked her what happened to Williamsburg, and she said, “Those kids eat so late at night. I want to go home.”
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