Jackson Heights Life

Four Indian friends took me to Mumbai Grill - they said it was the closest they'd come to home cooking since leaving New Delhi. I don't know anything about authentic but I do know what constitutes decent chow, and Mumbai Grill puts out some tasty stuff.

I went back a few weeks later with a Meetup group. Several of us thought the food could've been much spicier. We suspected the kitchen Americanized our dinner and played down the heat. Our favorites: fish pakora, chicken korma and lamb biryani.

Every time I've gone by the place their tables are vacant. Something ain't right.

Your best advertising will be word of mouth. Provide terrific cuisine at reasonable prices. Friendly service is essential, too.

Keep this in mind: One happy customer will net you two more. One unhappy customer will cost you ten.

Seatide? I'll do my fishing somewhere else.

Associated Supermarkets and other local merchants distribute advertising circulars to homes up and down the streets and avenues of Jackson Heights. You know what I'm talking about - those ads you see rolled up and stuffed into fences and gates or sometimes simply dumped onto porches or tossed into yards. Such advertising placement in itself is bad enough. But what's more irksome is this: Those circulars don't always stay where they're put. Instead, they become unsightly windblown debris and ticket-bait for any NYC Sanitation enforcement officer who happens along.

Today I see three, four and five Associated circulars left at each of the houses along 92nd and 93rd streets. There's half a dozen of them blowing around on the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's place and another one tire-mulched into the middle of the street in front of my house. Yuck.

Sure, they gotta advertise, but it seems to me the marketeers at Associated et al could come up with a more neighborly approach, one that's not such an eco-insult to our community.

Talk to them? I tried that. I've telephoned their stores and head offices. I've logged-on their websites to register complaints. I've mailed letters. They're unresponsive.

Any ideas on how to get these characters to knock it off?

If you get a lot of other people's mail it's likely other people are getting yours.

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