I had always kind of assumed, due to the apparent lack of customers, the Chen’s Garden restaurant on my street was, like the convenience store next to it, a front for more shady dealings. Turns out they are a sweet family making decent take-out just making ends meet. We ravaged the fried rice and mu shu, and the results aren’t pretty. But, for full disclosure, it was cheap and yummy and I’m glad to support my neighbors, living behind their shop. There are lots of food establishments in walking distance where people can get cheap food whose source is suspect or at best unknown- but at least at Chen’s Garden I know it supporting my neighbors directly. And who knows where they get their ingredients, but who am I to ask or demand to know. They do a good job and I know we’ll go back (though probably ask to hold the sauces)
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I like this expanded idea of “local” eating. It can sometimes be overwhelming trying to determine where the ingredients in my food are from. Next time I’ll try to remember that local can also be defined as supporting my neighbours.
Thanks for an enlightening post. I’m quite enjoying your blog. It’s nice to know there are others out there dealing with the same issues, and are putting into practice what they are learning. Keep up the good work.
Laurie,
Thanks for the encouraging feedback, I hope you keep reading.
My neighbors at Chen’s Garden are a good reminder not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good and supporting certain kinds of food should not always trump supporting your neighbors. At least when those neighbors are running a family business and make killer dumplings!
It is certainly a challenge to have the same standards for restaurants as we have for the food we cook at home- most of us are priced out of the option to eat where they have only organic local ingredients. I think households can make these choices affordable, but I don’t think you can get the same results with eating out- the value added is just too great. Ideally I would just save my eating-out pennies for a once a year trip to Chez Pannisse. But really I just limit eating out generally and when we do go out to eat we go where we know our money is staying local and we get delicious food we couldn’t have made ourselves. It’s a dilemma for sure.
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