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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
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Controversial Host Sparks Ramen Rebellion at NYC Food and Wine Festival

 Josh Ostrovsky, who performs as
Josh Ostrovsky, who performs as "The Fat Jew," has sparked controversy with his invitation to host the ramen event at the NY Food and Wine Festival.
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Youtube/Joseph Zentil

MANHATTAN — Some of the top chefs and the organizer of the NYC Food and Wine Festival's upcoming Ramen Party have pulled out of the event after the festival decided to hire the controversial social media personality "The Fat Jew," a.k.a. Josh Ostrovsky, to host it.

Food writer J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, who is the author of the popular food column Food Lab at seriouseats.com, says he and his partner Ed Levine are the ones who came up with the idea for the Ramen Party, and that he worked for half a year recruiting New York's top ramen chefs to appear at the event.

But Lopez-Alt announced on Facebook that he was withdrawing from the $150-a-ticket-event scheduled for Oct. 17 after the festival's decision to hire Ostrovsky.

"Due to the unilateral decision of the festival organizers to introduce The Fat Jew as a co-host to my event, It is with great regret that I have been forced to cancel my involvement with the NYC Wine & Food Festival's Ramen Party," Lopez-Alt wrote. "He is a plagiarist, a thief, a misogynist, and absolutely the wrong choice of co-host for a food event, or really any respectable event. That it comes at a time when there's huge media backlash against him is even more baffling to me."

Chef Jamison Blankenship, owner of Bar Chuko, a Brooklyn ramen restaurant, also pulled out of the event in solidarity with serious eats, he said.

"I respect Ed and Kenji very much, and I have a certain loyalty for them," Blankenship told DNAinfo New York. "They invited me to the event, and I am more loyal to them than anyone else involved in it."

Thea Goldberg, general manager of Bar Chuko, clarified that Lopez-Alt did not try to coerce them into withdrawing from the Ramen Party.

"Serious Eats showed us love, and now we're going to show them love," Blankenship explained.

Although Blankenship decided to join the boycott of the Ramen Party, he said he is actually a personal fan of The Fat Jew.

"I do follow The Fat Jew on Instagram and Twitter," Blankenship admitted. "My decision was purely based on my loyalty to Kenji and Ed."

The Fat Jew and the event organizers could not be reached for comment.

Lopez-Alt told DNAinfo he has "no further comment beyond what has already been stated."

In recent months, the Fat Jew has been widely criticized for reposting material on his Instagram account, which has over 5 million followers, without properly crediting creators. In an interview last week with Vulture, he said he is working on giving credit to the creators of the content posted on his social media accounts.

"In the end it's really the writers he has stolen from that I feel bad for," Kenji-Alt wrote in the Facebook post. "He stole their work. At least in my case the only thing he stole is my event."