Photo: Patrick Smith/2011 Getty Images

New England Patriot Chad Ochocinco has asked many questions.”How did [Obama] manage to memorize so much material?” he wondered during his live-tweet of the State of the Union in January. “Is it possible to find Neapolitan Mastiffs this big,” he pondered, linking to a picture of an enormous dog, “and if so do you think they’re bred in the states.”

At 4:13 p.m. this afternoon, the ever-eccentric wide receiver issued a statement, not a question, to his 3,297,121 Twitter followers: “Dinner in NY tonight 1st 200 people at Sylvia’s Restaurant by 7 pm in Harlem. Leave ya money/credit cards at home.”

The line at Sylvia’s, the famous soul food restaurant in Harlem, was around the block within twenty minutes, according to Trenness Woods-Black, granddaughter of Sylvia “Queen of Soulfood” Woods herself, who also handles the restaurant’s communications. She told us this evening that Ochocinco gave Sylvia’s a call to let them know he was coming to New York — “he loves us and we love him too” — and wanted to know how many people he could host for dinner. Woods-Black told him 200 was fine, and the line started snaking around the block minutes after Ochocinco’s tweet.

Ochocinco’s guests ate well. “We served our most popular items,” Woods-Black said, “barbeque ribs, fried chicken, mac and cheese, corn bread, iced tea, cocktails…” Cake Man Raven brought 200 red-velvet cupcakes for dessert. Ochocinco seemed pleased with the evening and gave out his phone number to all 200 guests. “Now I have 200 new friends…” he tweeted, “now that shit is #Epic or #Crazy.” We’ll have what he’s having.