Tilapia from Kwik Meal cart

ONE FISH, TWO FISH, JANUARY 1st, NO FISH (Update)

After freaking out street vendors and the bloggers who love them yesterday, the Health Department has emailed us to say it was all a big misunderstanding. A provision in the Health Department’s new code raised eyebrows by declaring that “no fish, shellfish, or any food consisting of or made with an aquatic animal…shall be prepared, stored, held for service or sold from a mobile food vending unit.” That’s what it says, but it’s not what they meant!

A spokesperson for the Health Department just sent us this statement: “The Health Department currently prohibits, and will continue to prohibit the sale of raw shellfish from a mobile food cart. However, the wording in the recent amendments to the Health Code effectively prohibit the sale of all seafood, raw and cooked, and that was unintentional. The Health Department intends to fix this, and will not enforce this amendment as written. So, everybody take a deep breath and stop taking the Health Department’s rules so literally. [Gothamist]

Tilapia from Kwik Meal cart

Midtown Lunch discovered a Dept of Health resolution scheduled to go into effect January 1st that bans street vendors from selling fish or shellfish from a “mobile vending unit”.

While some might question the sanity of eating fish or shellfish from a New York food cart or truck, there are some good choices out there.  I’ve enjoyed the fried cod from the Schnitzel & Things truck, and have heard good things about the fish over rice from Kwik Meal.

Hopefully, this will get reversed before its too late, but if not, it will be another example of the government trying to help people and screwing it up worse. [Midtown Lunch]