Chipotle-Style South Asian Food Takes On NYC
By: Kari Sonde
People who like food that’s somewhat similar to Chipotle, rejoice! Pakistani fast-casual restaurant Desi Shack has opened a new location near Union Square.
South Asian restaurant Desi Shack opened its (since-closed) flagship location at 331 Lexington Ave in 2012, but now has a second location on 13th Street. The shop was opened in June 2014, and is already finding success.
Desi Shack is just one of many innovative South Asian-inspired eateries that has popped up in recent years. While Kati Roll along MacDougal has been open since 2002, Idikitch, Soho Tiffin Junction, Goa Taco and Inday have all opened in the past year or two. Desi Shack, Indikitch, Soho Tiffin Junction, and Inday all notably follow the customize-it-yourself style similar to popular “Mexican” food chain Chipotle, with wraps and bowls that are easy for the office lunch break.
Owner of Desi Shack Yasmin Ibrahim says that the main reason for opening the eatery was because she found it difficult as a management consultant to find the food she grew to love from her Pakistani husband as an “on the go” meal.
“I think a lot of people, like myself, see the opportunity for this delicious cuisine to expand further in the US,” said Ibrahim. “The growth in popularity of South Asian cuisine over the past few years has been stellar, and a lot of people see that and want to be at the forefront of making this food accessible to a much broader audience in a variety of different formats.”
To Ibrahim’s point, an article by The Washington Post from March say that it is scientifically proven that Indian food is delicious. And yet, as reported by Business Insider, there are only about 5,000 Indian restaurants in the USA. To compare, there are 40,000 Mexican restaurants in the United States.
NYU Food Studies Professor Krishnendu Ray notes that Indian food’s relative unpopularity in the U.S. comes from a mixture of factors, beginning with the fact that Americans really won’t pay for expensive Indian food.
“Americans are not ready to pay $30 for an Indian dish,” he said. “Most Americans are not willing to pay $100 for an evening that includes indian food and a couple glasses of wine. Americans still have a difficult time thinking of food at the upper end that is not French and, interestingly, Japanese.”
According to Ray, Japanese food has only recently become popular. For instance, during and after World War II, Americans largely disdained Hawaiian cuisine, which was largely influenced by the many Japanese immigrants who lived there. Eventually, attitudes changed, and Japanese food became quite popular around the U.S.
Ray cites population and globalization as a factors that spread certain culture’s cuisine around the world.
“I think it is partly the nature of globalization, and two aspects of globalization,” said Ray. “American exposure to Indian culture, including things like Bollywood and mehndi (henna), and Indian professional migration into the US. In a way, its the perfect timing to occupy that intermediate space between disdain, historically, to veneration. Indian food has not reached the side of veneration. You’ve got to give it two more generations!”
The fast casual, Chipotle-style way of eating is another factor within the American food market that is allowing revamped cuisine to subtly weave its way into the American palette. Simply put, this genre of fast-causal South Asian food simplifies the food so it’s easier to eat. According to Buisness Insider’s review of Indikitch, Indikitch is to Indian food what Chipotle is to Mexican food: good, but not authentic. Eater’s Robert Sietsema, noted former food critic from The Village Voice, says the same about Inday.
“That ‘difference-without-complete-veneration’ works fairly well with the relative informalization of the American market,” said Ray. “Informal spaces have become the places which we find the latest expansion. Indians are using their experience to take an insider culture and exhibit it to an outsider group, and whenever that happens, there are all kinds of interesting compromises.”
Goa Taco sparks a slightly different question. Its owner/chef is not South Asian, nor has he actually been to Goa, the coastal southwestern region and former Portuguese colony. In a review by Sietsema it is revealed that the South African chef, Duvaldi Maraweck, who did not respond for an interview, does not make the paratha for his tacos in house (he ships them from Malaysia) and thinks that paratha came from Goa (they originate from northern India). He also only has one taco that has Indian fillings.
“This is a factor where non-Indians are beginning to play with Indian elements,” said Ray, “that, for me, is a symptom of a crossover culture a lot more than if an Indian does it.”
Ray mentions that with the recent surge in fast-casual South Asian eateries, there may possibly be too many at once.
“This might soon become an overheated market,” he said, “there is an opening there between very expensive and very cheap and a lot of people seem to be rushing into it.”
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