When you think of 3 am diners, the image that comes to mind is of a few drifters, nutty tourists who can’t bear the room service at their $300 per night New York hotels, and some stubborn party animals who don’t want the night to end. All downing cheap beers and atrocious food which you wouldn’t touch with a 10-ft pole in the day. Or maybe not. USA Today says that 3 am restaurants may be the new ‘in’ thing, with swanky fare available all night long.

Restaurateurs are, more than ever, willing to heed that need, according to the National Restaurant Association, which reports that service hours for diners and fast-food restaurants have jumped 33% in the past two years… Customers snatch up Cafeteria’s decadently cheesy dishes, like the mac and cheese spring roll with a smoked gouda dipping sauce, or their very popular Mac Attack — three small macaroni and cheese crocks (cheddar and fontina; smoked gouda and bacon; truffle oil). The rich dishes have lured in a fairly famous late-night crowd, including Hilary Duff, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson.

That’s great, but these new kids on the block are still light years away from the original late-night stars like the Corner Bistro. The best thing you can do, if you’re out on the streets of New York at 3 am after a wild night, and in need of ‘cheesy’ nourishment, is to end up at Corner Bistro for a burger, fries and a beer. Its not just food. Its an experience,  one of the attractions in New York, like the Empire State Building and the MET.

Speaking of party animals, this AP report says that the party is about to end for some 1000 monkeys that have been raising cain for over 30 years in the Lajas Valley in Puerto Rico. And its not just that they’re a nuisance. Apparently, the rhesus and patas monkeys  are also carriers of herpes and hepatitis, on account of being escapees from research labs in the nearby islands.

What the authorities are doing is pretty simple. Catch them with traps and blow their brains out. Before you can say PETA, lemme add that they did try to get zoos to accept the captured monkeys, but after 92 organizations rejected the bad homies, Puerto Rico is now hell-bent on exterminating the monkeys.

But there’s a whiff of scandal here. They left the diseased monkeys alone to breed for 30 years, and now suddenly they want to finish off every last one of them. What’s up?

There’s rumors going around that the monkeys which escaped from the research labs have started to mutate into some kind of new species which prefers to walk and stay on the ground, instead of staying up in the trees, as monkeys usually do most of the time. Note the startling posture, with the bent strong and long legs, weak and thin forearms and the slightly uplifted back of this monkey walking on the ground in the picture. Photo copyrights - Puerto Rico - A Paradise Lost?

Posted on December 22nd, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: Restaurants, World