Today’s wake for a beloved New York institution is being held in honor of Mei Lai Wah Coffee House in Chinatown. It seems the Times’s Eric Asimov, who usually writes about wine, doesn’t subsist on vino alone; he needs his coffee and steamed pork buns as well. And ever since Mei Lai Wah closed last week after a long, losing struggle with the Health Department, Asimov has been in mourning: Mei Lai Wah was indeed......

The earlier reports of the city’s sudden shutdown of Veniero’s pastry café have been followed up with some rather revolting details, sent to Eater by a tipster at the Department of Health. The beloved East Village institution, founded in 1894 by Antonio Veniero, had posted a sign on the door next to the DOH sticker blaming the shut-down on a “pest problem” caused by “a large Capital Improvement Project.” Pest problem, indeed: Veniero’s Café was......

Is Luna Lounge the latest casualty of the Department of Health? Eater reports that the venue "was shuttered on Friday and has yet to re-open." Recently another Williamsburg fixture, Sound Fix, was forced to close its doors after being harassed by the DoH -- they told us the irony of being "shut down for not having a food permit - and WE DON'T SELL FOOD! Ice is considered food in the health dept's eyes, I......

On the evening of April 3rd it was announced that Sound Fix, the record shop/cafe fixture on the corner of Bedford Avenue and N 11th Street in Williamsburg, was shut down. Since first mention the Dept. of Health has been blamed with locking the doors, but noise complaints are generally at the root of every establishment's demise. What many thought was a temporary setback that would dim the cafe section for a few weeks at......

Earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new plan to put health information of millions of New Yorkers online. He touted the initiative, "By bringing this health technology to New Yorkers, we are building a national model for a health care system that works... In Washington, they talk about how our health care system should be reformed; here in New York City, we are actually doing it." Using $60 million of city, state, and federal......

Here's some good news for all you offal lovers out there, specifically those with, ahem, a foot fetish. Hakata Tonton plans to reopen tomorrow. The West Village Japanese spot specializing in all things pig feet has been closed for a little over a week after recently failing a Department of Health inspection. The gal who picked up the phone at the restaurant today said the temple of trotters plans to open tomorrow. DOH gave them......

Photo by Youngna Park It's a dark day for South Billyburg lovers of southern comfort food – dark as blackened catfish on a moonless Brooklyn night. Eater points out Peter Meehan's discovery that the beloved hole in the wall Pies 'n' Thighs, in the shadow of the Williamsburg bridge, will close tomorrow night. Party, or wake, to follow. The closure has to do with some gripes on behalf of the reactionaries at the health......

Mayor Bloomberg, our city's tireless crusader against vice, whose victory against the artery-clogging forces of trans fat has drawn outrage from bakers and restaurateurs, was recently caught trans-handed in this Wired magazine photo. Or was he? amNY is absolutely one hundred percent certain that’s a Cheez-It in Hizzoner’s right hand (in the Wired photo, not the image here.) If so, it would signify a stunning display of hypocrisy, because each serving of Cheez-Its contains a......

The mice at The Mermaid Inn’s East Village location picked a mischievous moment to scurry out into the dining room a few nights ago – as luck would have it a writer for Time Out New York was there waiting for a table! The immodest mice must have been looking for their 15 minutes of fame, because they timed their appearance perfectly with TONY staffer Jordana Rothman’s emergence from the bathroom. As she made her......

Looking back over the year in food, 2007 was chock full of tasty goodness. The locavore movement was in full swing, truffles were over the top expensive, and Gothamist readers continue to get pissed off about foie gras. There was a lawsuit over lobster rolls, we got a new Whole Foods, the vendors at the Red Hook ball fields were threatened, rats ran crazy at Taco Bell, and the DOH went ballistic. Chumleys fell,......

The New York Sun is reporting that the operator of the midtown Japanese restaurant Naniwa has been arrested for trying to bribe a city health inspector in order to avoid a summons. Kazuo Mitsuya allegedly tried to slip the inspector $200 to make the restaurant’s violations just go away. Presumably offended by the low sum offered, the inspector got on the horn with the Department of Investigations, who sent in an undercover officer posing as......

Governor Spitzer said that the NY State Department of Health's response regarding the Nassau County doctor exposed over 600 patients to hepatitis C and HIV was "unacceptably slow" and ordered an investigation. Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, an anesthesiologist, reused syringes and multiple-dose medicine vials between January 2000 and January 2005; some patients learned they had contracted hepatitis in 2005, but the state and Nassau County officials waited 34 months to contact other patients. It turns out......

Just a week after making headlines for unveiling the world’s most expensive dessert – $25,000! – the popular Upper East Side restaurant Serendipity 3 has been shuttered by the New York City Department of Health. Could all the hoopla surrounding the Frrrozen [sic] Haute Chocolate have brought some unwanted attention to the establishment? The shutdown went into effect last night and calls to the restaurant have thus far not been serendipitous. We do know that......

As health-code inspections in bars and restaurants continue apace in the wake of The Great Rat Rodeo of Aught Seven, strange, unheard of violations are coming to light: a bartender at Red Hook’s Moonshine bar was recently cited for “having bare-hand contact with one slice of ready-to-eat lime while placing on top of beer bottle for patron in bar.” In other words, every time you see your bartender poke a wedge of lime into your......

After weeks of media attention about the rising incidence of people, especially students, being afflicted by an antibiotic-resistant strain of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as a staph infection, MRSA has struck NYC. The Health Department confirmed that Omar Rivera Jr., a 7th grader at I.S. 411 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, died of MRSA on October 14. When the school found out about the child's death last week, it contacted the DOH to investigate.......

A welcome break from the "what is this growing on my [insert body part here]" type of questions we're used to, Gothamist Health is happy to answer what all of our friends have been asking us for weeks: "Do I need a flu shot?" For most people, the answer is no, you don't need one. But the Department of Health released a statement yesterday suggesting that ALL New Yorkers go right ahead and take the......

As Grub Street and others reported yesterday, a letter written last Thursday by Senator Chuck Schumer to Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Friedman may have prevented the forcible closure of the Red Hook Ball Field food vendors this past weekend. While this seems to be a small victory for the food purveyors, doubt remains whether the operating season for the newly food safety-certified vendors will end just after Labor Day, or at the end......

Did you excel at yo-yo and rock, scissor, paper as a kid? Well, this past weekend was the 1st ever New York State Yo-Yo Contest at the South Street Seaport. From what we hear, excelling in yo-yo is the way to get all the ladies (they dig the finger dexterity and creativity with the yo-yo). It's not just the kids that are throwing the yo-yo around either. Downtown Express tells us that Riad Nasr, the......

Like the rest of the city yesterday, Brooklyn was recovering from an angry summer squall that shut down the subways and even had its own tornado. While all this was going on Gothamist learned from Porkchop Express that the fate of a Brooklyn institution hung in the balance. Namely, the pan-Latin paradise known as the Red Hook Ballfields. Yesterday Cesar Fuentes, the Executive Director of the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park, met with......

Better make sure you've got your insect repellent ready: The Department of Health has found mosquitoes with West Nile virus in Flushing. No New York City residents have been been diagnosed with West Nile yet and Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden wants it to stay that way. He said, “West Nile virus has arrived in New York City, so protect yourself and your family. Wear insect repellent when you go outside and get rid of......

We are sad to hear that Pier I Cafe at Riverside Park South (around 70th Street, underneath the West Side Highway) was closed by the Department of Health. A reader visited the cafe on Sunday, only to find "a note saying they're probably closed for the season because the city said the bathrooms they had weren't good enough." The cafe had an open kitchen and bar, and the bathrooms were built in a temporary......

The New York City council is allocating a cool $4 million to combat childhood obesity - which works out to about a dollar per extra pound or something like that. According to a June 2003 DOH report, 43% of elementary school children in the City are overweight or obese. The cash will provide for education and physical fitness programs. Thank your City Council member here. The New York Times reported yesterday that the International AIDS......

We know that the last thing City kids want to think about is the next school year, especially with summer vacation just starting or just about to kick off. But parents may want to check out the latest City Health Information newsletter from the Department of Health (DOH) that outlines the medical evaluations, immunizations, and screenings Junior will need before returning to the schoolhouse this fall. The full newsletter is available here. Already helping keep......

Nowadays, when people see rodents at restaurants, they aren't necessarily calling 311 immediately - it seems the first call is to the local news station! A couple strolling by the Upper East Side Pinkberry at 82nd and 2nd Avenue called WABC 7 when they saw mice running around the store at 2:30AM yesterday. WABC 7 observed, "The mice seemed to prefer the counter area. It is just feet from the yogurt machine where the......

The city's Health Department is investigating three hepatitis C infection in people who "received intravenous (IV) anesthesia from the same NYC-based anesthesiologist." Oh, dear. The incidents occurred in August of last year, and it seems like the anesthesia was given in an out-patient (not a hospital) facility. The DOH is contacting about 4,500 patients who received IV anesthesia between December 1, 2003 and May 1, 2007 at the 10 outpatient facilities the doctor worked in......

Di Fara, the famed Brooklyn pizzeria that claims a space in many people's hearts, has been closed since Monday after failing five of the last six Department of Health restaurant inspections. Now, the media has flocked to get sad reactions from customers. The NY Times talks to a Brooklyn College student, who says, "I come twice a week, at least. This is the best pizza. I don't want to find a new place." The......

Has DiFara been shuttered by the DOH? A tipster saw a telltale yellow sign slapped up. Sigh. [Eater] Zak Pelaccio has left the building at 5 Ninth, leaving Dan Parilla at the helm. [Mouthing Off] More crappy news -- could it possibly be the last summer of the Red Hook ball fields vendors? Put on your community action hat and write a letter to the Parks Commissioner, stat. [Grub Street] Get ready for the 5th......

It's hard enough when a loved one passes away, but reading a story from last week's Village Voice about abuses at a funeral home is absolutely horrifying. The story is one of mutilated, decaying, stolen bodies, as well as lost ashes. The Voice found that Riverton Funeral Home in Harlem had an ugly, ugly history. Riverton opened in 1957 near Harlem Hospital and was eventually shut down (it changed its name to Riverton Funeral Home......

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is urging New Yorkers to be careful of ticks while spending time outdoors, especially since many are traveling to forested and wooded areas. The DOH's report has helpful preventative steps you can take, as well tips on how to remove ticks. And this FAQ on ticks has more info about the nasty buggers. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said, "While the number of tick related illnesses has fluctuated......

When the City authorized an over-the-counter version of the "morning after" pill last fall, we wondered how quickly its effects would be felt. Well, a study released by the City Council yesterday found that unwanted pregnancies and abortions have been down in the City thanks to the availability of over-the-counter emergency contraception. The study found that 94% of pharmacies surveyed knew that the medication was available as an OTC item and carried the item on......