What Is "Chinese Food, New York Style?

Why do people in the Buffalo New York area thi nk the food is so good?

• everyone I speak to tells me how good their food is here. I have yet to find it. The wings are okay but no different from anywhere else I've had them and the pizza here if gawd awful. It's so thick and doughy, always undercooked. Nothing like new york style pizza. Tell me where the good stuff is.

• Answer:

  Buffalo food is more hilarious than good. I was talking to a gal in a bar there one night years ago and the subject of Buffalo wings came up. Turned out she worked in a local deli that specialized in them and here is what she said: "Damn Buffalo wings; they ought to go back to throwin' 'em away." And then there are the famous "Friday Fish Fries." First time I wandered into Buffalo . . . it was a Thursday . . . I noticed that every restaurant, bar, church, etc. had signs proclaiming "Friday Fish Fry." Gotta try that tomorrow, I thought. So Friday evening I sat down at the counter at a local diner and ordered the Fish Fry. Talking to another customer at the counter I commented about how strange I thought it was that everywhere had Fish Frys every Friday night. To which he replied, "Oh really? I just thought it was like that everywhere!" Oh, yes, one of the features on the sandwich board at the bar where I talked to the "wing girl" . . . was a Bologna and Onion Sandwich. Nuf said.