NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Cuomo Gets Endorsement From Opponent in NYC Mayor’s Race, a Moment for South Indian Food, and Horseshoe Crab Love on City Beaches

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Democratic candidate Jessica Ramos is endorsing her opponent Andrew Cuomo in New York City's mayoral race. Plus, a South Indian restaurant tops the New York Times' list of Best One Hundred New York restaurants. And finally, recent data show New York City beaches are the site of a surprising conservation success story for horseshoe crabs.

Former Governor Cuomo gets an endorsement from his opponent in New York City's mayoral race. South Indian food is having a moment in the city and horseshoe crab love on city beaches. From WMYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. Democratic candidate Jessica Ramos is endorsing her opponent, Andrew Cuomo, in New York City's mayoral race. Ramos had previously criticized Cuomo over his record as governor, citing his handling of coronavirus and multiple. women's sexual harassment allegations. In 2021, she called for him to resign, and last December, she called him a, quote, remorseless bully.

Now, the progressive state senator says Cuomo is the best candidate to run New York City because of his experience. But we need much more than a performative politics. Those are just not enough to run the greatest city in the world. A spokesperson for Ramos's campaign says she is staying in the mayor's race. and Cuomo told reporters he's not cross-endorsing her. Early voting in the Democratic primary starts on June 14th. With the weekend just around the corner, you may be thinking about grabbing a bite somewhere.

Well, consider South Indian food. It's having quite a moment in New York City these days. WMYC's Ryan Kylath join me to talk all about it. He starts the conversation describing what sets South Indian cuisine apart from other parts of India. So it's useful to think of India not as a country with different states like the U.S., but as a continent with different countries in it. I mean, the food and the language is going to be as different in North India and South India as it is in Russia and southern Italy. It's just an entirely different world. So in the U.S. and in New York, when we think of an Indian restaurant, we typically think of Muglai cuisine.

This is influenced by Muslims who immigrated to North India ages ago. And this is the butter chicken, the saug panir, the chicken teakamasa. South Indian food could not be more different. It's tropical. It's rice patties, more than fields of grain. You're not going to see too much bread. There's no non. There's no thunduri.

It's a lot of yogurts. It's a lot of fresh vegetables. Much more fish than meat or poultry. South Indian cuisine that people will be familiar with, certainly is the Dosa, the huge sort of rice and lentil flour crept. But that's just a small portion of the many, many amazing food served in South India. The flavor profile is sort of more similar to like a Malaysian or maybe even a Southern Thai food than it is to that butter chicken maglite cuisine. All right. So this week, the New York Times named Semma, New York's best restaurant. Ryan, tell me about this spot and their menu.

Yeah, so there's been a ton of ink spilled about Semma and getting number one on the New York Times 100 best restaurants in New York is certainly going to keep the attention coming. Oh, yeah. It's already impossible to get a table. But yeah, Semah is amazing. It's a tamillion chef from the southern state of Tamil Nad in South India. His name is Vijay Kumar.

I actually knew his old restaurant in California because it's near my parents' house where I grew up and we used to love going there. It's been exciting to see him come to New York and win a million awards, James Beard. I think he's got New York's only Michelin Star for an Indian restaurant. And he does exactly what I want. It's the kind of food you see in a million home kitchens and home dining rooms, if you're South Indian, but that you never see in restaurants. I've spent almost 20 years looking now and have found this kind of food in.

so few restaurant menus, but he's doing it in the West Village at Semah. Yeah. And it's the same kind of South Indian flavors that we've been talking about. Yeah. Well, you said that it's nearly impossible to get a reservation now at Semma. So talk about the other restaurants that are, you know, sharing this moment for South Indian cuisine. Yeah, I definitely have to shout out the OGs. And these are the places that, you know, over the past 20 years, I've been hunting down.

It's mostly, you know, no frills, steam table, often lunch buffet kind of way out, far eastern Queens or like 90 minutes away in New Jersey, because again, there isn't the same audience for this cuisine, or at least there didn't used to be until now. One, I want to shout out, is called Taste of Kerala Kitchen. That's in Floral Park or near there, you know, Queens. They have a lunch buffet on the weekends with food from Kerala, the state where I'm that is just amazing. There's a place in New Jersey called Kuchy, K-O-C-H-I.

It's more sit-down a la carte, not a lunch buffet, but also delicious. There are some new spots in Manhattan also, closer in. Oh, nice. There's a great place in Flatiron called Kanyukumari, which focuses on dishes from all of South India. In fact, the menu is organized as sort of a trip down the coast, so you get a dish from each city or region as you travel down. That's W-M-Y-C's Ryan Kod.

You can read more about the explosion of regional Indian cuisine in New York on our new site, Gothamist. It's not Valentine's Day, but love is certainly in the air at New York City beaches. Horseshoe crab love, that is. More on that after the break. You're listening to NYC now. Long before dinosaurs roamed the earth, horseshoe crabs were crawling along beaches. Scientists called them living fossils. Over the last century, the 12-legged anthropods have declined by about 70% in New York, New Jersey Harbor. But recent data showed New York City beaches are the site of a surprising conservation success story.

WMYC's Rosemary Mizdairy joins ecologists surveying horseshoe crabs along Plum Beach in Brooklyn. On the side of the Belt Parkway, ecologists and volunteers gather on a narrow strip of sandy beach. Anne Seligman is site-coordinated. It's a pretty high high tide. It's almost a kilometer walk. We're going to walk down to the jetty. Does everybody have headlamps? It's mating season for horseshoe crabs under a full moon.

Thousands of the ten-eyed creatures are coming ashore. Multiple males are stuck to single females. They will remain attached for the entire mating season from May through June. Matthew Sclafani is a marine educator at the Cornell Cooperative Extension. It's a bar scene, yes. It's typically three to one males to females in this area. Sperm is cheap. Scientists doing the annual count at Plum Beach have recently recorded higher numbers

after decades of sharp declines. Catherine Chen is a scientist with the New York City Bird Alliance. They're millions of years old, but they are facing threats. So part of that comes from habitat loss. Part of that comes from over-harvesting. The pharmaceutical industry uses the crab's blood in testing for toxins in medical products, such as vaccines. Statewide, commercial take is limited to 150,000 per year.

Because of data that we are collecting here and elsewhere, there are horseshoe crab limits that get put in place to help prevent over-harvesting. The data collected on sites like Plum Beach is vital to conservation efforts. A colleges do more than just count crabs. After surveying the shoreline, volunteers lay out a tarp on the beach. They carry horseshoe crabs out of the water for measurements, noting gender, age, and condition of its shell. Sorry, buddy.

What is that? 20, 20.20.1? Oh, my God. And then what's the, is it male or female? The male. Shell condition is, what, three? Great. The shell is.

Before they return the crabs to the crabs to the animals. ocean, scientists tagged them. Ready for this one? Yeah. That's 5.57. That's got it. Okay. This one can go back.

Last year, a coalition of advocates and scientists petitioned the federal government to designate horseshoe crabs as endangered. The application is still pending. The State Department of Environmental Conservation prohibits any harvesting of horseshoe crabs during peak mating season. Scalphani says horseshoe crab regulations in New York waters. appear to be working, even as the overall population declines in the Atlantic Ocean. We're starting to see some positive trends the last five to ten years in almost all of the areas

that we're monitoring. So that's really encouraging. Jamaica Bay has been showing a slow and steady increase over the last five years, the last 10 years for sure. The 2023 Jamaica Bay survey counted nearly 40 percent more crabs than the previous year. Chen says protecting horseshoe crabs is critical to bird conservation. They play a very important ecological function in our ecosystems. Some birds can even double

or triple their body mass when they're gorging themselves on these horseshoe crab eggs, and it's a really important fuel source for them to be able to make it for the rest of their migratory journey. A colleges say it will be another

three years before they can truly assess the success of current conservation efforts. But advocates point to the growing population as a reason for more restrictions. Some are pushing for a complete ban of harvesting horseshoe cramps in New York waters. That's WMYC's Rosemary Medicine.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm JeneyPierre. Have a lovely weekend.