WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

     Chote Nawab is an Indian Restaurant which is located at the corner of 28^th and Lexington Street. I and my friends were so excited to try Indian food at the cozy, pretty restaurant. Natural wood furnishings and fresh coral and blue dish decorating relaxes me to sit and take my time to chose a menu which made me feel like having brunch on Sunday with my friends.

      My classmates and I were waiting for our food. It is always great and comfortable to visit the restaurant with a person who has knowledge or background of the restaurant. My classmate, Rumi was the one who could explain the food to us, and the restaurant owner came to us to say hello.

    Chote Nawab offers food that highlights both the northern and southern regions of India. I would say that it is Americanized. Compared to other Indian restaurants near Chote Nawab, Chote Nawab does not use many Indian traditional spices so beginners to Indian food will not feel intimidated. Their dishes amazed my taste buds without having trouble with spice.

Since I suffered a duodenal ulcer for a long time, I am particular about food because I have limited food that I can have. I am allergic to dairy, peanuts, and oat meals. Moreover, I am not a big fan of spicy or salty foods because it causes my stomach discomforts But, I would love to try new things; of course food cannot be the exception.

Chote Nawab has lunch specials every day (11:30AM to 3PM). Chote Nawab offers a number of different chicken, seafood, lamb, and vegetable dishes. I wanted to eat Shrimp curry ($9 for lunch special, $17 for regular price). It comes with dal, bread and rice- naked shrimp cooked with onion, garlic, and mild curry.

Minced onion and garlic blends to the curry soup with shrimp and well smeared into the shrimp and the makes soup sweet with seafood flavors.

It was the best shrimp curry that I have had so far. When I had one bite of bread and curry, my excitement at this food went crazy and I could not stop say “delicious.”

I did not anticipate that Chote Nawab is an Indian restaurant their look because the interior and exterior of the restaurant looks like a restaurant that sells pastas and spaghettis. Compared to other Indian restaurants near Chote Nawab, Chote Nawab has modern natural wood furnishings and vivid decors. Vivid yellow, orange, and bluecolors pop out from the wood furnishings and made interiors unique. This place is a great place to start your Indian food explore!

Source: Sherri Liberman
Area: Ditmas Park

The after math of Hurricane Sandy struck a cord with me even though I was not affected as much as others. It struck a cord because after leaving my house– after being trapped and being unable to communicate with the outside world– I got beaned in the head with all of the destruction. It was like coming out of a shock and finally waking up to reality. Watching the houses cracked in half on the news as well as the many homeless people in shelters and the people without electricity or heat weeks after the storm, really made me see that Sandy was catastrophic for New York City. My coworkers were affected by it and as I listened to their stories I began to understand the damage the hurricane caused.

Roxmin Lopez, a mother of two, parked her car near the FDR drive and found her car a few blocks away.  “My husband tried to look for the car and found it floating blocks away from where he left it. The insurance company says they will give us the book price so now we’re just waiting.” Lopez says that her car was flooded and completely irreparable. She was not the only one who lost her car, another coworker Barbara Suggs also lost her car and as a Coney Island resident, still has no light or heat.

Yet, residents were not the only ones affected. Leslie Dungee the director of the Lower East Side girls club can no longer bake cookies due to flooding. When asked why she could not bake at home she said that she needs a licensed kitchen in order to sell the goods in the Essex Street Market.  There are many stories like these just in my neighborhood and is sobering how mother nature could one day seem so beautiful and miraculous and the next it could come crashing down on your head and swallow you up.

Recovering from anything that causes even the slightest bit of damage isn’t easy and doesn’t happen overnight. But when this slight bit of damage is caused by a hurricane that literally took New York by storm, it’s going to take much longer than that.

Thankfully, here in my neighborhood of Marine Park, Brooklyn, not too much damage was caused. Just trees and electrical wires being taken down by the winds and many of people’s rooftops, including mine being ripped off it’s base. However, my girlfriend’s neighborhood up in North Salem wasn’t as fortunate as mine. Her house which is surrounded by trees as many houses in that neighborhood are was covered in debris and toppled trees blocked her entrances so they couldn’t get out until they got assistance.

Luckily, even though it took about 10 days to get her house back to decent shape, everything in her neighborhood returned to normal. The whole family did manage to clear their property of the tree and debris and the neighborhood managed to recover from the disaster.

An unsearchable (via internet) deli, next door to Masjid Bab-Salam which is located at 3604 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11224, is reselling goods exposed to Sandy. After telling volunteers that everything must be left at the store for the insurance adjusters and FEMA, store owner Mike, has restocked his shelves with the very items once jointly floating in the waters risen by the super storm.  (more…)

OSHA has told sanitation workers to take it easy on lifting silt as cleanup efforts continue in Sea Gate. It looks like mystic fog from a distance but in truth it is the kind of nightmares. The air is contaminated in the area according to retired sanitation workers sharing information that wouldn’t necessarily be told to residents and home owners in the area. Just the same as information about the death toll came to the area long before anyone had electronic connection to the “outside world”.

One Cablevision repair team employee said “that is why I wear this mask, my boss said they don’t want to hear it if you have this and that. When I drive here (Sea Gate) there is a cloud behind my truck.”

Residents are using a logical approach so far by wearing masks outside of their homes, if they even have one anymore. Rain will help wash some of the floating danger in the air but it will more than likely re-flood basements. Occupational safety committees exist to protect those placed in such situations but who is protecting those that don’t clock out?

Once my mom said that any natural catastrophe is like a Devil, who comes, destroys, and takes peoples’ lives. So did the devilSandy. She took peoples’ lives, damaged properties, destroyed houses, and made the New York City’s norm life miserable with no mercy. What a cruelty?

After the storm Sandy, people are lived without power, gas, and hitter in cold. The super crazy Sandy shakes the comfortable world of New Yorkers and takes the revenge because of taking her lightly. After an easy experienced with the hurricane Irene, people thought Sandy will be the polite one as well. But, she was tough and heartless; she did not consider of having a quiet entry and leaving politely like a good girl rather showing her wildness.

I spend three days straight at home without school and work. Although I got some extra time to relax, study, and do my laundry, I glued my eyes on news most of the time. I constantly followed the New York Times, CBS news and CNN. I think media done a great job on covering the storm, updating the news persistently, and providing tips on what to do during the storm and flood.

I was also busy with answering phone calls that were coming from family and friends from overseas to know if I am safe, and I was. I live in Jackson Heights, Queens, where nothing seriously happened except some trees fell down on streets. I first went outside on the Halloween evening. While so many people in New York could not able to celebrate Halloween because of the Sandy, my neighbors were on streets in their colorful Halloween costumes, and went door to door for candies.

Hello, all,

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I think you’ll find this site incredibly useful. As you explore, please feel free to email me with any questions!

Best wishes for a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

-Not the obvious structural devastation but more along the lines of physical – and mental- health deterioration. We cannot forget that the toll has not purely been on the land but on people as well. Aside from flooding there has been significant sewage back up, cross contamination and exposure to mixed fecal matter. Due to the increased number of donors – medical lingo for multiple people’s contribution, so to speak- the array of parasites, viruses and bacteria, this is bound to causes increased number of illnesses.

There are multiple health risks like Carbon monoxide exposure,
Infections and injuries from floodwaters, mold, hypothermia, contaminated drinking water, spoiled food, and Exacerbation of previous chronic health conditions as discussed on CNN.To see some factors and precautionary measures to take, please visit the Tri-County Health Department of Greenwood Village, Colorado website.

Billions of dollars in structural damage to facilities that would address the sick have been put out of commission and/ or deemed inaccessible for emergency services or limited to outpatient services such as NYU Langone, Bellevue and Coney Island Hospital. Click here for a specific example.

The extent of injuries to the body and mind are yet to be determined and it doesn’t look bright.

This is not my neighborhood

I was unaffected by Hurricane Sandy. This is not an attempt to pour salt in anyone’s wounds, rather it is an attempt to illustrate the first world problems of New Yorkers unaffected by the storm.

The neighborhood of Brooklyn I live in was unaffected by Hurricane Sandy. The worst part about it is, it’s not even that nice.

The only thing that was a bit of an inconvenience was the my trip to the grocery store on Sunday night. There was no water, or any tonic water for my gin. Oh the horror. The line to check out the steaks I bought was so long, I stood there sweating in my heavy winter coat for nearly an hour. It was truly a nightmare.

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Are you familiar with these trashy looking places that have pictures of celebrities all over their walls, when you think of how not to get food poisoning because you see all the buckets with dirty dishes and leftovers right next to you and you are afraid of a possibility to find a cockroach? My question is, why do celebrities go there? (I know about cockroaches, because I worked in a Kosher Diner myself and saw them multiple times.)

the owner and “The Fly”

It took awhile for our waiter to finally come to us and bring menus. The food came fast, through.Since the place is called “Eisenbergs Sandwich Shop”, I decided to get a sandwich, and, as a fish lover, ordered lox with cream cheese on a toasted rye bread. It was delicious, but the price was not. For a sandwich that had only these three ingredients I had to pay $9.

The sandwich was good though. I also ordered some mashed potatoes and cole slaw. I loved the food, and I guess that might be the reason why so many celebrities come here. The place has been open since 1929, so they should know how to cook and they have a right to raise their prices. I love kosher food, since it reminds me of Russian food, it has a lot in common: fish, potato, soups and salads are made the same way they make them in my country. They also have a lot of pickled stuff.  There are even t-shirts with the name of the restaurant for sale.

Upon leaving you had to go to the cashier and tell him what you had. I forgot to mention my tea, and the waiter appeared from nowhere and reminded me about it.

What I really liked about this place is that it is right next to the Russian bookstore which I never knew of.

So now I discovered one more place where I can eat good and healthy food which is not a chain store.