A certain side of X has once again found an issue to criticise the ever-so-hated New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani. The Indian-origin US assemblyman has made controversial headlines over viral snaps of him eating food with his bare hands for the second time in months.

Earlier this year, a video of the NY representative caught him exercising a common South Asian eating practice, as he was caught consuming biryani with his hand instead of a spoon or fork. The months-old video didn’t just resurface this week, rather people caught a new glimpse of Mamdani enjoying a plate full of biryani.

Another picture of Zohran Mamdani eating biryani with hands goes viral

In a since-viral post that has been widely shared, re-shared and talked about, an American X user questioned him for eating with his hands. The tweet, pushed out days ago by “jackunheard,” accompanied a recently snapped picture, which shows him dining at a restaurant. At the time of writing, the first-of-many posts had amassed nearly 7 million views on the Elon Musk SNS platform.

The comments and quote-posts under it were flooded with more questions about his choice to eat biryani with his bare hands. While many others came to his defence, challenging the much-loved American (and global) practice of directly eating pizzas with hands, others simply couldn’t digest the scene.

While one countered, “Who eats rice with their hands? Another challenged, “How you eat ur pizza, with a fork?” A third person backed Mamdani and countless others who indulge in the food-eat practice: “Not sure the issue. If this is concerning to anyone, please learn to travel and open your mind to cultures outside of your own.” Someone downright called it “barbaric.”

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In a separate much-viewed X post, a user branded the pattern of looking down upon on Mamdani eating with his bare hands as an extension of “racist” exhibits. Prompting further heated discourse, they wrote, “I’ve never quite understood this specific form of racism. America and Western countries have all sorts of food we eat with our hands! hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, chicken wings, PIZZA, ribs, muffins, burritos, French fries, doughnuts, popcorn, etc. like, are you dumb?”

Chiming in, someone else commented, “Incoming wave of ‘it’s not the same, rice is sticky, messy, and gross, but BBQ ribs and sauce-drenched wings are completely civilized and clean.’ People will always find a way to justify their prejudice.” Although many others wondered if highlighting cultural differences even qualified as “racism,” a netizen clarified, ‘I mean, don’t most forms of racism boil down to “they do this thing different than how we do it and are therefore clearly subhuman?'”

Asian-origin commentator slams Mamdani

What particularly fanned the fiery debate on X was American conservative commentator Vince Dao’s post. He shares Asian origin. “As an Asian, I feel I have authority on rice,” he began in a tweet that re-posted the original picture. “Eating rice with your hands is gross, strange, and barbaric. Nobody in my family has ever done this. He acts like utensils were never invented.”

As some counters against his argument arose, he ridiculed comments like “But some cultures do it” in a follow-up response. “Okay, well not only are those cultures wrong, but you are in America now,” he added. “And let’s be honest, he wasn’t actually raised in a third world environment, he’s just doing this to pander to a bunch of similar rice-hand-eaters. GROSS!”

Comments from Dao and many others hating on Mamdani’s eating habit echoed what Republican politician Brandon Gill said in late June 2025, when a previous clip of the Uganda-born NYC rep gained unbelievable traction on X. “Civilised people in America don’t eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World,” the Texan wrote at the time.

Expert counters ‘messy’ or ‘unhygienic’ claims of eating with hands

When Mamdani initially went viral for the wrong reasons, an expert offered better insight into the age-old habit that doesn’t represent a culture but is also backed by research.

Culinary nutritionist Dr Avantina Sharma Bhandari told The Indian Express, “In many parts of the world – from Indian thalis to Indonesian rice plates, eating with your hands is normal. But in Western culture, it’s sometimes seen as uncivilised. The truth is, eating with your hands can actually be healthier. It helps with digestion, encourages mindful eating, and connects you to your food.”

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She added, “When we eat with our clean hands, especially from a young age, we expose our digestive system to good microbes. This can help build a stronger immune system.” (Read more here.)

Where is the new Zohran Mamdani-biryani photo from?

The supposedly newly pictured snap of Mamdani’s biryani outing is actually not new at all. It comes from a New York Times exclusive titled “How Zohran Mamdani Built a Campaign Around Food.” Dated September 30, 2025, the article documents the NYC front-runner dining at Kabab King, a 24-hour restaurant in Queen, which has been go-to for him since high school days.

The write-up even brings attention to how Mamdani is actually well-aware of how New Yorkers can be judgmental of politicians’ interaction with food. The much-talked about picture is included in the said piece penned by Priya Krishna. Among multiple other snaps of the politician, this particular grab by NYT’s Amir Hamja comes with the caption, “Mr. Mamdani said that for him, food is less a campaign strategy than it is an instinctual medium for talking to voters.”

While many have speculated that Mamdani’s severely viral food moments are all strategic and pandering to a certain audience, he told the news outlet, eating has been the way that I understood myself as a New Yorker… So many of these moments in my life were ones that I could not separate from food.” Giving his policies targeting high cost, and the “freeze the rent” slogan, he claimed, “Food is a very quick way to understand the rising cost of living in the city, because people remember the cost of staples in their lives.”