BREAKFAST OF OUTRAGE:

I went to get breakfast at Ocean Palace, a dim sum joint on Avenue U that opened two years ago and has become very popular. They have some truly tasty-looking "don go," Cantonese for sponge cakes, but I’m more of a "bao," or bun person, and I occasionally sample the steam plate.

My favorite bao is pronounced "gai bao doi." It’s a white, steamed bun made of rice flour, filled with chicken and scallion. Some places use too much or too little scallion, but Ocean Palace gets it right, and the chicken actually tastes fresh.

Unfortunately, the chef neglected to make any "gai bao doi," so I opted for two plates of a steamed, flattened rice flour shell filled with ground pork and chopped water chestnut called "fun guo" (Westerners call them "dumplings."), and a plate of pan-fried noodle shells filled with pork and dried mushrooms called "siu mai." (Westerners call them "dumplings.")

I last bought dim sum two weeks ago, at that very location, and I could swear that items from the steam plate only cost me $1.00-$1.25 each. But today, the three plates combined added up to $4.50! Clearly, they raised the price by up to 50%. I almost told the girl behind the counter to put one of the "fun guo" back, but she had already gone to the trouble of taking each order out of its metal steam tray, and into a styrofoam take-out shell. Also, I was hungry.

Though I paid, for the entire walk back home, I grumbled to myself. "$4.50 for dim sum for one? That’s robbery!" Then I crossed Nostrand Ave., and this Chinese guy bolted past me carrying an armload of small boxes with the blue-and-red Duane Reade logo on them. I only caught a glimpse of his face, which was sweaty and scared-looking, and no wonder, since he was being chased by a uniformed cop and a Duane Reade employee.

"I stand corrected," I said aloud. "What I saw just now—that’s robbery!"