It’s been a rough few days for the food and beverage industry. On Saturday, a Chinese deliveryman was shot in the head in the Bronx, seemingly over an order of pork fried rice. He’ll likely survive. Later that night, a 50-man (and -woman) brawl outside of a Steinway Street reggaeton club, Tahona, left five folks hospitalized. There were also shootings outside of Greenpoint’s club Exit this weekend — though no reported victims. Most disturbing of all? An incident involving Philippine press secretary Jesus Dureza, who was laid out for three days (morphine and everything) due not to gunshots or stab wounds, but to … a New York City slice?
According to Dureza, the intense stomach aches he suffered came an hour after he had a slice of pizza and ginger ale in a New York pizza joint last Thursday (Friday morning in Manila). He said he had gone to the Fifth Avenue restaurant for a late lunch after accompanying President Arroyo to her bilateral meetings with world leaders. “I returned to my hotel room and called up my sister who is a doctor from Davao,” he recalled when he said the antacids he took did not help ease the pain. After describing to her his symptoms, Dr. Marjorie Dureza-Culas told her brother to go to the hospital as he might even be having a heart attack.” It was a continuous numbing pain that seemed to be radiating all over my body,” was how Dureza described the pain he had then.
Whoa! Numbing pain? Who’d have thunk a stomach hardened by the likes of balut could be so easily felled? Ever the diplomat, Dureza doesn’t name the offending slice joint. Out with it, man!
Press Secretary Downed by New York Pizza and Ginger Ale [Philippine Daily Inquirer]
