Leftover Metrocard Change Infuriates Some
UPDATE: City To Remove 14 Blocks Of Bike Lanes On Bedford Ave.
Hamster Rides The 4 Train
2nd Avenue Subway Cooling System Will "Blight" UES
Should Payphones Be Free?
You know, Twittering isn't just good for making sure everyone knows you're watching Mad Men; it's also an effective tool for getting the word out on potential health risks. (You can thank us later, Thursday Style section.) For instance, we know from Sarah Lewitinn's Twitter that you may want to steer clear of a local Mexican franchise: "Got a bean burrito loco from San Loco on Stanton yesterday. It had a weird soapy taste and I got major food poisoning." Reached for comment, the Ultragrrrl elaborated, "I eat at SL all the time as well... but it tasted weird last night and I should've stopped eating. My body is showing signs of the flu but I'm puking so I'm confused."
Any other San Loco customers having a rough day, or have we just unwittingly participated in Lewitinn's elaborate ruse to get out of work early? A San Loco employee did not seem to understand our questions, and said the manager would be back "maybe" tomorrow. In an email, Michelle Nelsen, General Manager of San Loco, strongly denied that her company was to blame:
"We served a few hundred bean items on that day and we did not receive a single comment or complaint on that day or any day following. I could cite many other legitimate reasons why our restaurant couldn't possibly have been a source for food poisoning, but that fact alone should be testimony enough. In addition, the "twitterer" that started the food poisoning dialogue later retracts her allegation and admits that she thinks she had the Norovirus instead."Which is a good reminder to wash your hands compulsively because that horrible Norovirus is on the rise!
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
it's totally irresponsible for gothamist to dedicate a post to a coincidental stomach flu and san loco. i don't endorse or condemn the restaurant, but find this sort of reporting unacceptable.
Sorry, but salmonella/norovirus usually don't have any taste, especially a "soapy" one.
I think San Loco sucks, but WTF are you posting this for?
I love my neighborhood San Loco and will eat its Queso Loco (w/ Chicken) tacos to the bitter, soapy end.
I thought minor food poisoning was just kind of assumed at San Loco?
"I thought minor food poisoning was just kind of assumed at San Loco?"
Well played...
whhoooooooo caaaaaaaaares.
i get food poisoning every once in a while from places in the city too. you don't see me getting gothamist posts about it.
I love San Loco. It's right around the corner from me and I used to eat there a few times a week. Great for late night munchies. However I got some pretty bad food poisoning from there a few months ago. As such, I find I'm only going there maybe twice a month (its impossible to let go). If this is a recurring problem (and I don't mean the normal upset stomach that some of my friends get from eating sloppy tex-mex at 4am) then the health department should definitely look into it. I love the place, they just need to serve safe food.
what admammal said x1000!
Ultragrrrrrl: you got the stomach flu. Have mommy and daddy pick you up and take you back to Tenefly - Lawerence can come too if he wants. Drink a lot of water and get a lot of rest (maybe consider staying home for Shabbos) and you'll be fine.
Also, if the food had a "soapy" taste, why the hell did you eat it?
San Loco made me violently ill the first time I ate there. I never went back.
But, yeah, food poisoning and flu-like symptoms don't really mesh. Norovirus alert.
I imagine this was more of a pitch from Twitter's pr people who are ramping up in a big way right now, than a story about food poisoning. They are pitching the more utilitarian things you can do with twitter to attract a user base that is more than media folks.
Most food poisonings are due to feces. That "soapy taste" suggests that an employee took a dump and then hurriedly washed after but left the telltale traces in food that was mishandled. And this stuff is serious. Just because the CDC didn't test their food and cite them doesn't mean this incident didn't happen. And their management needs to know. A stay in a hospital overnight costs how much? If not this time, it will happen the next.
Correlation doesn't imply causation. There is a crazy stomach flu going around that has been reported on all the NYC stations...nice of gothamist to fail to mention that.
@Nannystate:
I know lots of people who read the taste of cilantro as "soapy". I was even one of them for a long time before I ate enough of it to cross the line...
My money's on Cilantro + that crazy stomach flu that's going around; my back-up guess is the butler in the pantry with a croquet mallet.
#13 NANNYSTATE,
That "soapy taste" suggests that an employee took a dump and then hurriedly washed after but left the telltale traces in food that was mishandled.
Excellent.
I heard my name was said in vain so I rushed here as fast as I could.
Sarah frequently noms at some of the worst dining establishments in the city so if she sensed something was wrong, there's perhaps something to it. However, though she said she was confused, that's her general state of mind so you can't use that as a symptom.
That said, I think NannyState is on to something. A quick look-up of San Loco on the City's restaurant inspection site yielded this:
http://167.153.150.32/RI/web/detail.do?method=detail&restaurantId=40888633&inspectionDate=20080311
Though it had only 12 points (for violations not specified), a look at previous inspections showed:
"Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility's food and/or non-food areas." (11/22/2006)
I'm sure they've since cleaned it up in the subsequent two years. Then again, with an ever-expanding stream of second generation hipsters, Jenny Humphrey wannabes, and drunken frat boys prowling Stanton on any given night, is there any pressure to get them to clean up the place? And couldn't it be argued that a little food poisoining of this crowd might actually be a public service?
If we ignore ultragrrrrrrrrrl will she go away?
any doctor will tell you that food poisoning takes 12-72 hours to hit you, and that its therefore pretty much pointless trying to figure out where it came from.
the only way they ever figure out that a specific restaurant is responsible for sickening people is when several people are sickened and the only common factor is one establishment.
reporting that a restaurant caused someone to get sick, just because one person felt icky after eating there is pretty irresponsible,
and, if i were san loco, i would think it would also be a good excuse for a lawsuit.
Oh no! Someone using "twitter" got food poisoning??
Who gives a fuck?