05.12.06
For Every Job, So Many Men
I finally got a new garage. I’d been going to my old cab stand in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for about four years and never made it off the bottom of the totem pole. Cha Cha (accent on the second Cha) is the dispatcher there. He looks like he is under more stress than most generals who stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle (to quote Colbert).
He is from Bombay and lives on India Street in Greenpoint. So he is, naturally, partial to Indians. Plus, the owners of the garage, in the most Polish neighborhood in New York, are Polish. My first day, the owner’s wife said hi to me and asked, “So, do you live around here?” I didn’t realize that was code for, “Are you Polish?” Stupidly, I told her “nope” and she hasn’t talked to me since. I could pass for Polish. Part of my ancestry come from Poland. But really, her great grandfather probably beat my great grandfather up.
Anyhow, it all adds up to a situation in which I show up at the garage, wait for an hour or hour and a half for a cab, and get sent home. . . Repeatedly. The last straw was today, when I woke up at 5am to go to the garage for the day shift, something that should be no problem as it is the night shift that is over loaded with Indian and Polish drivers, yet I was sent home AGAIN.
Fed up, I crossed the Pulaski Bridge to Long Island City and walked into the biggest garage in town:
Midtown Garage in a no nonsense, strict, by the books operation, so I have high hopes that ethnic divisions won’t enter into the picture with their dispatcher. Within an hour, I had access to the biggest fleet of taxis in New York.
Still, there are a lot of Indian cabbies who drive for Midtown too (I didn’t see any Polish drivers though), and I asked a couple of them where to eat in my new work neighborhood. They enthusiastically informed me that just down the block, Five Star Punjabi serves an all-u-can-eat Indian buffet(s?) lunch inside a retro 60s style diner that I doubt began its life as a Sikh cabbie haunt.
I went back for lunch and the pickings were a bit slim, but $8 for all-u-can-eat of any kind is a deal. I chowed down on a smorgaasbord of Indian food tastier than anything I’ve had on 6th Street in Manhattan’s Little India (save Banjara, although Banjara is about twice as expensive and not twice as good). The chcken tikka masala was to die for (until they ran out and didn’t replace it):
And everything they had with chickpeas was especially delicious, particularly the cholley pishori (chickpeas with tomatoes, ginger, garlic, onions, spices, and herbs):
(chickpeas roasting on an open fire)
All-u-can-eat Indian food sounds like a great idea, but it really fills you up before you feel like you’ve taken advantage. Plus, I don’t know if I’ll be going back before my 12 hour shifts of sitting on my ass in the cab. But they are open all night according to my new cabbie colleagues, so I might stop in for a samosa or two after my day is done, assuming I don’t get sent home before I even start.
(my new work neighborhood)
Five Star Punjabi, 1315 43rd Ave btwn 21st St and 13th St, Long Island City, Queens
Check out http://www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book eating tours
