Guess who wins battle of cabbies and food deliverers?

On Tuesday evening, a Ford Crown Victoria taxi struck and knocked down a food delivery cyclist on Madison Avenue and 52nd Street in Manhattan. The crouching man, left, is a pedestrian who stopped to help the injured deliverer, who was wearing a helmet, but who didn't move after he was knocked to the pavement.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you spend a few hours in Manhattan, one of the first things you'll notice are the unusually large number of food deliverers on bicycles.

Step off a curb without looking and you might find one of them bearing down on you.

And when you're driving, even at the slow pace forced on you by Manhattan's insane traffic, you have to watch out for them.

With tens of thousands of new apartments built in the last decade, especially on the West Side, ordering delivery of restaurant food is huge.

I don't know how much or how little food deliverers are paid, or how well or badly they are treated by their customers, but theirs is certainly a dangerous job.

As a light rain fell on Tuesday night, I was stopped at a light on 52nd Street when I heard a sickening crunch.

I looked ahead to see a bicycle under the front wheel of a yellow cab on Madison Avenue, and the food deliverer lying on his side, his helmet still on his head. 

He wasn't moving.

A pedestrian carrying a briefcase stopped and tried to help the injured man.

At 774 Ninth Ave. in Manhattan (near 52nd Street), [kahve] coffee lounge is a pleasant spot filled with recorded classic jazz. Try the delicious Almond Chai ($4.85 for medium, plus tax).

The Hell's Kitchen neighborhood is filled with Thai, Afghan and other ethnic restaurants.

A young man thought nothing of stopping his Range Rover on Ninth Avenue and walking into [kahve] for takeout coffee and a pastry as his girlfriend waited in the SUV, above.

Parking isn't easy

Before I saw the food deliverer run down by a cab, I had spent about 40 minutes or so in [kahve] coffee lounge on Ninth Avenue in the 50s, listening to classic jazz and sipping a frothy Almond Chai.

I parked on West 54th Street, west of 10th Avenue, and learned a valuable lesson about the city's hunger for parking revenue and fines.

People who drive into Manhattan to see a Broadway show or eat in a restaurant think nothing of parking for an hour or more on a street, waiting for the end of restrictions.

When I pulled into the space at 5 p.m., across the street from the Colbert Report, I noticed other drivers sitting in their cars, which had New Jersey, New York and Connecticut plates.

The signs said no parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Sunday, and I should have waited until exactly 6.

I didn't. I left at 5:50 p.m., and when I returned to my car from [kahve], I found a soggy parking ticket under my windshield wiper that had been written just after I walked away.

The car behind me also had a ticket. That driver left at 5:30 p.m. The fine: $65. Ouch

At least three Thai restaurants on Ninth Avenue carry the "Wondee" name, above and below. They reminded me of my favorite North Jersey spot for Thai food, Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles in Hackensack.

I met Michael Felber, the local artist who painted the mural inside Holey Cream, an ice cream and bake shop at 796 Ninth Ave., near 53rd Street, above and below. Felber recommended [kahve] when I asked for a place to have coffee.

The "A" displayed in the window, above, is the city's top sanitary rating. North Jersey has nothing like it.

On the night I got my parking ticket, I saw streets lined with illegally parked cars, each one with a "NYC PBA" card displayed on the dashboard, such as the one above. A police precinct was in the neighborhood.

This morning around 11 a.m., I encountered an anomaly. One side of West 60th Street, near Fordham University, had parking signs covered by dark garbage bags. As a traffic agent I asked said, "No sign, no fine." I parked, walked to Starbucks Coffee around the corner and returned to the car with a Venti Zen Green Tea. In Manhattan, you can never be too sure that a "legal" space is actually legal.

Just think: You have to pay to piss

I was in for a surprise when I wanted to use the bathroom at Think Coffee on Eighth Avenue, between West 13th and West 14th streets, in Manhattan.

The front room. The bathroom is in the rear.

After coffee and a filling breakfast at home on Monday morning, I took the bus into the city and stopped at Think Coffee on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.

I walked in and started looking for an outlet to charge my iPhone. 

I found one in the back room, which was full of young men and women riveted to their computers, pads and smart phones.

Were they students or unemployed? 

One young man was kind enough to pull out the charger for his computer and allow me to plug in my iPhone charger.

After about 20 minutes, I went to the restroom, and found the door locked. The sign on the door is shown in the photo:

The pay bathroom at Think Coffee.

 

I know I didn't want to have more coffee or tea. So, I decided I could wait to go to the bathroom somewhere else.

The night before, I walked into a restaurant on Ninth Avenue, in the 50s, and was told using the bathroom was no problem. It was small, but one of the cleanest I've seen.

West 51st Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues, in a photo taken from in front of a French bistro, Tout Va Bien, which means "everything is going well." That may be the case for the restaurant, but certainly not for the street itself, a one-lane track in what could pass for a Manhattan war zone.

I'll always remember Sandy

For breakfast on the last of five days without power in Hurricane Sandy's wake, I warmed up grilled sweet potatoes and an omelet with pesto, even though I had made them the day before and, without refrigeration, left them out in a covered pan all night.

Using a battery powered lantern, we grilled sweet potatoes, above, and used liquid egg whites to make omelets on our gas stove, below. We could light the stove with a match.

The hurricane hit on Oct. 29 and we got power back on  Nov. 3, but Internet, TV and our land-line telephone weren't restored for another two days.

A tree fell in Brooklyn (President Street).

A restorative meal of sushi at Baumgart's in Englewood.

Fried oysters, above, and mussels, below, at Legal Sea Foods in Paramus.

North Woodland Street in Englewood.

The one gas line I waited on in Teaneck was only a half-block long.

There's nothing like a great salad to give you a nutritional lift.

I celebrated the return of electricity and my birthday on Nov. 4 with a lavish, four-course seafood meal at Marea on Central Park South in Manhattan, which showed few outward signs of the hurricane that flooded parts of the island.

The Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Subway riders got updates on the restoration of service.

Dinner for one on Central Park South.

In Hackensack, a tree landed on the hood of a car.

A buffet of photos to whet your appetite

Non-meat eaters will be disappointed, if they look for catfish and waffles at The Pink Tea Cup, a  restaurant on Sixth Avenue near 14th Street in Manhattan.

Can you guess which low-cost Manhattan restaurant offers this comfortable corner?

A customer of the Paramus ShopRite is on a soda diet.

What's next, the Doo-Wop Apple?

Il Porto is a restaurant at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, below.

Just when I wanted to use the bathroom at Pier 17, a busload of Chinese tourists ran for the building's front doors.

At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, there is no extra charge for a second topping.

Beefsteak tomatoes from Costco give the Jersey tomato a run for its money.

Near Manhattan's Madison Square Park, a Cuban sandwich is made with pig's head. Stick with the original at La Pola -- "King of the Cuban Sandwich" -- in West New York.

A lobster roll at this stand will set you back $16.

The food stands will be shutting down on June 3.

Court Street in Brooklyn is lined with food businesses, cafes and restaurants. All of the photos below were taken along Court Street, near Atlantic Avenue.

A single fish taco, made with tilapia, costs $4.50.

A bottle of Singha beer from Thailand is $3 on some days.

This meat market has a beautiful pressed-tin ceiling.

Four-legged residents have their own food store.

A traditional produce market.

A Trader Joe's uses a cavernous former bank building from the early 1920s.

The prices here are the same as at Trader Joe's stores in Manhattan and Paramus. 

Answer to the question posed above: McDonald's, where I stopped for coffee ($1).

Just try using a credit card in the city

Lunch on the run in Manhattan: Vegetarian Lentil Soup with toasted pocket bread. But you'll pay a "convenience fee," if you want to charge the meal to a credit card.

A cup of Lemon Lift Tea is $2 at this restaurant in the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal. Take cash, because you can't use a credit card for anything under $5.

When the hunger pangs hit around midday this past Friday, I was walking past the Pita Pan Cafe, which serves "healthy Middle Eastern cuisine" on 8th Avenue in Manhattan.

I looked over the menu in the window and Vegetarian Lentil Soup caught my eye.

Inside, I ordered a 16-ounce cup for $4, and took out my Visa card. 

But the guy behind the counter pointed to a sign near the register, advising customers of a 75-cents "convenience fee," if they want to charge their purchases.

Scent of cumin

The soup was terrific. It was filled with barley and vegetables, and scented with cumin. I asked, and was told it was made by the Egyptian owner.

I took the subway to the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal, and bought a ticket at the Coach USA window, but the clerk said he didn't take American Express.

Bring cash

I had 30 minutes before the bus left, so decided to have a cup of tea at the restaurant across the concourse.

Lemon Lift Tea was $2, but I had to pay cash. The minimum credit-card purchase is $5.

Pita Pan Cafe, 273 8th Ave. (between 23rd and 24th streets), Manhattan; 212-337-3071.