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As a Concierge in this great city, I do my best to divert people's attention from chain restaurants. The culinary choices are mind-numbing!

Friday's? Olive Garden? tsk tsk tsk Mr. Huckabee. Next time, ask a local... :-)

Actually come to think of it what he should have done is set aside the entire day for Adam's pizza tour.

That way no matter what happens in his future he'll have memories of a really great day.

If candidates are expected to eat local in Iowa, why not in New York? He should have eaten at a deli or went for a slice. Otherwise, as much I am not a fan of Fridays or Olive Garden, it's obnoxious to be ripping him for it in my opinion.

This just confirms to me (what I already knew anyway) that Mike "Intelligent Design" Huckabee is a complete imbecile, just like the other candidates fielded by the GOP.

Karen is right that his restaurant choices were a politically calculated, go-with-the-proletariat kind of attempt at populism, but with zero intelligence, charisma, or street smarts. If he had half the savvy of Bill Clinton, he would have gone to a place like Junior's, Lombardi's, or Katz's. Somewhere iconic that served some New York home cookin, and that represented the culture of the working people of this city, of all races, religions, and ethnic heritages, from any of the eras of New York's immigration waves. There are still a few left.

If anything, his choices are a slap in the face to New Yorkers, and the New York food culture, and reveal at best disinterst, but most realistically, disdain. Places like TGIFs and Olive Garden are a blight to New Yorkers. If it wasnt for tourists and B&T teenagers, there wouldnt be any Olive Gardens' and Applebee's in Times Square, but rather a place to get an Egg Cream soda and a frank.

As they say, all politics is local politics. If he can't come up with anything better than Olive Garden or TGIF's when in New York effing City, he either just isn't very bright, doesn't do his homework, or does't like us New Yorkers very much. And we've had more than enough of that recently, haven't we?

Wow, I like the nicknames y'all gave him. Seriously, where else was he going to go? He's surging in Iowa, and he cannot be written up in the most famous newspaper in the country by going to an upscale place. I think a street vendor hot dog would have worked - affordable, non-fancy pants type of food that mid-westerners can relate to, and somewhat new york-ish.

I do not think he should have gone to a Lombardi's or Katz because he has got about a snow flake's chance in hell of finishing anywhere near the top in a New York Rep. primary. If he went to Esca, he would be swift boated as a two-faced hoity toity type that does one thing in Iowa and another for them yankees up north.

As I understand it, Huckabee usually doesn't eat the food provided at campaign events. Since his (genuinely remarkable) weight loss, he brings his own food in a cooler most of the time. So maybe when he does eat out he likes to go where he's already familiar with the menu and knows what he should and shouldn't eat.

It still seems criminal to pick unremarkable chain restaurants when someone offers to take you anywhere in Manhattan, but I guess Huckabee has had to really change his relationship with food.

(Trust me, there are plenty of other reasons why the man should never be President.)

Huckabee could just as easily have asked Chafets to recommend an interesting place that would have accommodated his diet. As a New Yorker, I am just appalled that his top choices would be chain restaurants. Man-of-the-people it may make him, but it is just an indescribable insult to the culinary variety and excellence of this city.

I'm reminded of this recent entry from "Overheard in New York":
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/011479.html

"umm.. NSW..I'm originally from the midwest, and I have never eaten "fried corn",at a "state fair" or anywhere else for that matter. "

I was joking by the way.

Relax, I am also from the midwest, born in Illinois; raised in smalltown Ohio. I often joke with people not familiar with the midwest that all we eat is corn, since there are so many cornfields there. It's just playing on their stereotypes of us.

Midwest solidarity.

The Olive Garden mention was total red meat for Chafets's East Coast, high-class readership - it helped us size up Huckabee in one fell swoop, a la "well, if he thinks the Olive Garden is good Italian food, he must be a bumpkin..." It's a bit of a dig, sure, but Huck - a guy who didn't even bother to bone up on the NIE on Iran - might deserve it.

A way better dig against Huckabee was when Chafets called him out on describing the previous Arkansas governor's refusal to resign "the greatest constitutional crisis in Arkansas history" - Huck ignored the state's succession from the Union and the forcible integration of a Little Rock high school. This point isn't topical for a food blog, but it sure is delicious.