Last week I had dinner with a few old friends at one of the score of Manhattan’s wonderful Greek restaurants.  This one, in the Flatiron district of the real World Island.  There, and at all of them, the freshest fish is displayed on hills of ice, then cooked or cured in lime to perfection and served with succulent fresh vegetables and fava, chickpea, eggplant and fish roe pulverized with lemon and olive oil – the epitome of the uber healthy Mediterranean Diet.

Not one of these Greeks, nor one among a score equally great in the outer boroughs, made The New York Times top 100 restaurants revealed this week.  Not one among the 8 Mexican, 7 Korean, 8 Chinese, 6 Middle Eastern and 5 Japanese that populated the list.

Not one, though there were 4 Thai, 4 Indian, 4 West Indian, 3 Vietnamese and a deuce each from the Dominican Republic, Ghana and Sri Lanka.  Not even a singleton from Greece and its majestic isles as the cuisines from Nepal, Malaysia, Tibet, Myanmar, Morocco and the Uyghur Autonomous Region in China each received.  No, not one like the USA.  Yes, the Times food critic, Ligaya Mishan, suffered the presence of precisely one American restaurant on her list of 100.  But she also listed a bunch of “New Americans” that typically serve American versions of Asian and Latino dishes.  Ligaya would say “Latinx dishes,” as she is author of the cookbook “Filipinx: Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora.”

In the preface to her culture war exercise, Mishan explained her rating criteria as “imagination, ambience, service, technique, passion, commitment and sheer deliciousness. . . most important “New York-iness” [sic].  With that most important criterion clearly declared, there is not one Greek for the 138,933 New Yorkers of Hellenic ancestry and not one Kosher restaurant for the million Jews who live in the City.[1]  Not one of the hundreds of quintessentially New York Jewish delis, nor one of the scores of German, Hungarian, Polish and Czech restaurants from the Upper Eastside Yorkville neighborhood.  Not enough New York-iness for Ms. Mishan.  And apparently not the type of “ambience” and “service” featured at one of her favorites where you order and pay using QR codes “without speaking to a living being.”

Blue Fenugreek

In an apparent attempt to avoid having her list become lining for hamster cages and its virtual equivalent, Mishan sprinkled the list with a few gracious French and Italians, including one of each in her top 10.  The French was clearly a studied placement, as it is housed in the Trump International Hotel.  Transparently a preemptive attempt to claim her list was not a political and culture war statement.

And perhaps to counter the complaints from Greeks and their fellow travelers, Mishan points out the rare and dominant spice used in the cuisine of the Georgian restaurant she listed (The Georgia that was on the Beatles “mind” when they were “Back in the USSR”).  She extolled the Georgian chef’s use of fragrant blue fenugreek.

[1]   The non-kosher Barney Greengrass retail store made the list.  It is a famous smoked fish retail emporium with a few tables.