Where can I eat a vegetarian dish in New York City?
By Rab Bakari • Apr 30th, 2008 • Category: Food
I haven’t eaten four-legged meat or two-legged; winged birds since 1990. But I do eat certain creatures from the ocean and other water bodies. All of that is supplemented with a healthy dose of things that come from living things with roots. Plants! So.. I never never considered myself a ‘Vegetarian’ or that other awkward word..’Vegan’.
Many friends are moving in that direction. Since I live in the New York City metro are; people in town or out of town are always asking me where can they get a tasty ‘meatless’ meal? Thanks to the ‘Friends of Animals’ website; the good folks there have compiled an accurate list of restaurants and eateries that have only vegan or a meatless option. I am happy to say that I have eaten at many of the restaurants listed in the divisions of the Manhattan section. Feel free to comment about these food joints on my site if you have visited them already! They even have a download guide that can be printed so you don’t keep calling up an internet connection to this website. Brilliant!
NEW YORK Vegan Restaurant Guide
Rab Bakari is Tech; Africa; Politics & Culture; Djaying; Graffiti, Food; Sci-Fi and Music all make up me! :`)
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If you want an African vegetarian meal, the first and best place to begin is
at an Ethiopian restaurant. The orthodox Ethiopian Christians have 250!!!
total days of fasting in their 13 month calender and, they are very observant.
So, the concept of vegetarianism is well known to them going back two thousand
years whereas the idea is foreign to many other Africans. Moroccan cuisine,
which I also love for the couscous and tagines, also has great variety and
vegetarian dishes among them. I have been dissapointed on the last three
occasions I have eaten at Ethiopian restaurants though. On two occassions,
two different restaurants did not have my favourite appetizer; azifa. This
little hors d’oeuvre, spiced with Ethiopian mustard blasts any blockages from
the sinus area and increases sensory awareness of smell and opens the
appetite in a most remarkable way. Also, I have noticed that all the restaurants
are using berbere more sparingly. I guess this is a response to the complaints
of their mostly toubab/oyinbo clientele and their week palettes. I LOVE for my
tongue to burn when I eat my food. I can take it. One striking thing about
Ethiopian restaurants, there are about half dozen to 8 of them that I know of.
All in Manhattan. Quite out of proportion to their to their numbers. Aren’t Nigerians
the most populous African immigrant group in NY? Where are their restaurants?
And how come their cuisine has not crossed over in popularity with whites, Asians
and other ethnics like that of Ethiopians and Senegalese? Any ideas?