4 ms·

I dreamed of opening up a vegetarian canteen style restaurant. A place that serves cheap, nutritious, and delicious food and where people from all classes and w

I dreamed of opening up a vegetarian canteen style restaurant. A place that serves cheap, nutritious, and delicious food and where people from all classes and walks of life could sit down for a meal. I've thinking about making a vegetarian restaurant that doesn't advertise itself as such. All the food should be delicious no matter what, not delicious for being vegetarian. It should take people a minute to realize that there is no meat in any of the dishes. I wonder how that would do in the United States.

galago 7y ago
https://www.yelp.com/biz/ganesh-temple-canteen-flushing https://www.yelp.com/biz/ganesh-temple-canteen-flushing Last year I was in Flushing, Queens NYC and visited this basement canteen. It had the desired features mentioned in the article. I'm not South-Asian, but I didn't feel at all unwelcome. It was raining that day, and I sat and drank tea for a little while to wait for the rain to shop. Cheap, decent food. Plenty of seating.
- keeganjw 7y ago
  Wow, dang, that looks good!
L_Rahman 7y ago
As galago mentioned, the Ganesh Temple Canteen in NY is a beloved institution in the city and popular with people of all backgrounds.
dkarl 7y ago
I don't know if you could solve the problem of serving food that feels welcoming to "all classes and walks of life." The level of comfort with different flavor profiles is not exactly independent of class and background. The "cosmopolitan elite" (for lack of a better term) is self-conscious about seeking out new foods and flavor profiles; it's part of the class expectations they live up to. People from other classes and backgrounds often live up to different expectations, such as rejecting unfamiliar flavors and ingredients. Forcing people to embrace the risk of encountering an unfamiliar flavor profile is forcing them to adopt the mores of the privileged classes. I wonder how that would do in the United States. I think the time is better than ever for that kind of restaurant. People have mostly accepted the culinary necessity and dietary acceptability of salt and oil, so the forced dichotomy between the ethnic vegetarian restaurants and the insufferably bland ones is a relic of the past.

galago 7y ago

https://www.yelp.com/biz/ganesh-temple-canteen-flushing https://www.yelp.com/biz/ganesh-temple-canteen-flushing Last year I was in Flushing, Queens NYC and visited this basement canteen. It had the desired features mentioned in the article. I'm not South-Asian, but I didn't feel at all unwelcome. It was raining that day, and I sat and drank tea for a little while to wait for the rain to shop. Cheap, decent food. Plenty of seating.

keeganjw 7y ago
Wow, dang, that looks good!

L_Rahman 7y ago

As galago mentioned, the Ganesh Temple Canteen in NY is a beloved institution in the city and popular with people of all backgrounds.

dkarl 7y ago

I don't know if you could solve the problem of serving food that feels welcoming to "all classes and walks of life." The level of comfort with different flavor profiles is not exactly independent of class and background. The "cosmopolitan elite" (for lack of a better term) is self-conscious about seeking out new foods and flavor profiles; it's part of the class expectations they live up to. People from other classes and backgrounds often live up to different expectations, such as rejecting unfamiliar flavors and ingredients. Forcing people to embrace the risk of encountering an unfamiliar flavor profile is forcing them to adopt the mores of the privileged classes. I wonder how that would do in the United States. I think the time is better than ever for that kind of restaurant. People have mostly accepted the culinary necessity and dietary acceptability of salt and oil, so the forced dichotomy between the ethnic vegetarian restaurants and the insufferably bland ones is a relic of the past.