To Little Egypt with the Hungry Cabbie: Part 1

November 20, 2009
To Little Egypt with the Hungry Cabbie: Part 1 While I’ve devoted the last three years to asking taxi drivers to deliver me to their favorite places to eat, Dave Freedenberg (alias Famous Fat Dave) has spent the past seven doing restaurant reconnaissance from the front seat of a New York cab. “Every time I drop off a fare, I always ask, ‘Where do
...Read more »

Into the Driver’s Seat: From Mind-numbing Map Reading to Mind-blowing Baklava

November 18, 2009
Into the Driver’s Seat: From Mind-numbing Map Reading to Mind-blowing Baklava No, I’m not going to subject you to the details of all that I learned on the first day of taxi school. There were some fun moments, though. I especially liked the tremendously corny video “I AM New York: Becoming a Professional Taxi Driver,” in which a wise man in the rear view mirror shows
...Read more »

Into the Driver’s Seat: Taxi School & Street Meat

November 16, 2009
Into the Driver’s Seat: Taxi School & Street Meat Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. - Arthur Schopenhauer (quoted on the N train to Queens) First, the good news: the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) accepted my yellow cab application today and gave me a ticket to taxi school. But not
...Read more »

Kebob and Sour Cherries at Ravagh Persian Grill

November 12, 2009
Kebob and Sour Cherries at Ravagh Persian Grill Ravagh Persian Grill in Murray Hill – one of two Persian restaurants that Eli Parviz recommended after we got lost during our quest for his favorite Colombian food – is more elegant than most of the places where I wind up on the taxi adventures. When I walked into the dining room the day
...Read more »

A Colombian Illusion and Two Persian Leads

November 11, 2009
A Colombian Illusion and Two Persian Leads If there’s anything I’ve learned over the course of these food quests, it’s that in the moment I climb into a taxi, I have no clue what the back story of the person in the front seat might be. The idea that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover isn’t new, I know. But
...Read more »

Into the Driver’s Seat: What a Difference an “E” Makes

November 9, 2009
Into the Driver’s Seat: What a Difference an “E” Makes Warning: The following is a rant, but the profanity is only implied. Five years ago, a teenage Gypsy caught me with my guard down and lifted my wallet – and every identifying document I owned – in the Madrid subway. Eventually, I replaced all that was missing, but my name somehow ended up misspelled on
...Read more »