Robert Gearty of the Daily News is fast becoming my favorite reporter of tongue-in-cheek-satire-when-combined-with-lawsuit news. Nibble on this, from yesterday’s paper:
Moo goo gai what!
Workers at an upscale midtown Chinese restaurant flashed penis-shaped dumplings at a former bartender and bad-mouthed celebrity diners, a new lawsuit says.
Yvonne Diaz, 30, accuses kitchen staff at Chin Chin of harassing her with the dumplings three times a week from the time she was hired in 2007 until her departure in October. The federal lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims her former co-workers made sexist remarks about singer Jennifer Lopez’s body when she visited the restaurant.
The restaurant’s owner Jimmy Chin called Diaz’s allegations “all frivolous nonsense.”
But not as frivolous as those “penis-shaped dumplings”! I’m sitting here wondering a lot of things:
- Why is this a federal lawsuit?
- What are Diaz’s causes of action?
- What do comments about Jennifer Lopez’s body have to do with this lawsuit?
- Why were those phallic symbols flashed only three times a week?
- How precisely do you “harass” someone with a dumpling, anyway?
- And why did Diaz stay at the place for such a long time before filing a lawsuit?
So has Zagat rated the restaurant? Yes. The 2010 Zagat’s says:
“Favored by ‘corporate T&E types,’ [what is “T&E,” or shouldn’t I be asking?] this ‘longtime’ ‘upscale’ Midtown Chinese standby still ‘hits the spot’ with its ‘fine’ cuisine (as for the ‘outstanding Grand Marnier shrimp’) via an ‘attentive’ crew; in all, the package is win-win because ‘you get what you pay for’ [$51].”
But my most important question is: what were those dumplings filled with?