What a ridiculous self-contradiction in the first sentence of para 2.
Has NYT fired all of its sub-editors?
Agree, with you: the piece is a mess.
For a start, I'd move para 4 up to para 2 to bolster his argument that immigration is vital, but the system needs an overhaul.
If everyone who is against immigration ate a proper döner kebab, they'd have an epiphany.
And this is coming from someone born in Spain, a country that has immigration from multiple different continents all bunched together. We've got EVERYTHING food related.
My British husband is absolutely gutted we can't get a proper döner kebab where we are now in the US. Other Middle Eastern food, yes, but he misses this so much.
Replies to your post have de-anonymized the writer, so I guess this is supposed to be from the New York Times?
I can’t find the article. There is another piece that mentions immigration and the pho beef kolaches, but not juxtaposing them in quite the same way: https://archive.ph/6EC6c
The screenshotted article is poorly edited; the author intended it as “despite wonderful innovations, immigration is broken”
The NYT tries to straddle the national vibe and liberal elites, so I guess their thing is now “MAGA is right about immigration, but enforcement should fall on the employers”
As a native Houstonian, this is an amazing example of what is so great about the community there. I want to try one of these so badly now. I really want to read this original article because of how little sense this segue makes. Wtf is wrong with people.
Maybe Binyamin doesn't realize many of those Trump will bring to Federal offices are people who also don't think like him don't belong in the US under any circumstances.
Harsh? Judgemental? Perhaps, but apparently some just insist on touching hot stoves over and over & need reminders.
He's incredibly stupid, myopic, and has a complete and total lack of understanding on how humans work and the history of anti-immigration rhetoric if he can't figure any of that out. Someone like that writing a paper like that could have only gotten his position through nepotism.
I still can't follow the jump between the first and second paragraphs.
And how could the author be so unaware of how baffling his conclusion would seem to a large number of readers.
A couple years ago we sent all our Diwali leftovers home w/my cousin who was in grad school. I recommended tortillas since there wasn’t extra naan but she was already well aware of the easy sub & had already stocked up. 😂
Haven't had these tacos, but definitely really enjoyed one version of Indian pizza, where the crust is a deep-fried roti and the topping is tandoori chicken. Less good, but still as good, is when the crust is naan, not deep-fried.
Thanks! It’s really easy actually. I use tandoori spice from our local Indian store & make the chicken in advance & sub out raita & chutney for sour cream & salsa. Add lettuce, red onion, feta, whatever else you want & garnish w/cilantro. You can also make a burrito version w/basmati.
My spouse is British & I lived there 4 yrs before coming back to the US. Miss good, readily available, not wildly expensive Indian food, but also afraid to screw it up if I try to make some. I need to get over it and try. We buy chole, samosas, & rice dishes on weekends from the Hindu temple nearby.
Brit Indian food is imo, better than anywhere else except maybe India. I didn’t learn to cook until my 20’s & began with fusion b/c I understood it better. It takes time & practice like anything else. Insta pot is super helpful w/time in curries & my mom & SIL use an air fryer for fried items.
We have both an IP & air fryer! If you can think of a specific book or recipe site for some less-complicated options, I'm all ears. I'm in NC & have found the restaurants we've tried don't measure up to any random curry house in the UK.
The resettlement of Afghan, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and DRC refugees in Missoula has improved our food truck and stall situation drastically. There is both a Syrian and a halal grocery now! More immigration please, and maybe don't make it require dire, life-threatening circumstances!
Not in my area of the SE. They are super popular. I think they are more looked at like fast food as opposed to a sit-down restaurant, but they are beloved.
There are food trucks parked everyday next to Holmby park in Beverly Hills. The same park that has houses surrounding it up to 150 million or more.
Yes they serve the people who work in the area, but people who walk their dogs or jog the area also eat there too.
It’s really not at all that complex. Mexican = brown people and brown people = bad. Pretty fucking simple.
Not sure where you pulled “food trucks are associated with upscale urban areas and are elitist” from. Urban, sure, but upscale/elitist? No, not really.
This is true for dumb suburban MAGAs who're terrified at the thought of an Urban, though, since "elitist" also generally now just means "thing they don't like."
😂 And he just had his ass handed to him: a jury found that Landry's is well known in the Houston area, not statewide. He sued a Texas whiskey distiller because the guy's last name was Landry.
I just saw a Chinese takeout. Next to a Mexican restaurant which was across the street from a Greek Gyro place. Holy cow how did we let these people in? U should have never hid that ID. That person needs to be called out.
I told an ex that we should get her dad churros. She said he probably wouldn't like them. I asked "Why not? They're as American as baseball, apple pie or tacos". She said "If you say that to him, he'll punch you".
Kolaches came from Moravia and were filled with fruit or poppy seeds. A meat filled version might have been invented in Texas, but this Czech Nebraskan wouldn't call them kolaches. They're klobasneks.
As someone who had a Czech grandmother who practically ran a kolach factory out of her kitchen during the holidays, I can attest to this.
(The apricot ones were the bomb.)
Recently discovered Kolaches, yum. I will also raise you a Bolivian meat pie that randomly shows up at the farmers market,and when it does, I am not greatly disappointed.
What an excellent example of xenophobic cluelessness failing to understand how culture works. Kolaches and Pho indeed have history entwined with immigration to Houson. But both have become iconic dishes in Houston. For decades. To the point that kolaches are must-experience "Texan" food.
For those that are curious to try, it's https://www.koffeteria.com and it's amazing. Funny enough, that's my least favorite item from their selection. Also recently named one of the best bakeries in America by the NYTimes.
Yas!!! So proud to be a naturalised citizen of this country. We are not yet there in fulfilling the envisioned ideals on which of this country was built ( in fact it fell flat the day it was declared but has since picked up itself to get there & needs our help now more than ever).
I've been led to believe, as an American, that UK culture is entirely foreign foods, from the curry to the kebabs. Why would they want to undermine your biggest cultural staple?
But, significantly, "more American than bald eagles" might mean that we have to hunt them to near extinction before government intervention allows them to flourish.
This reminds me that I have something to look forward to on st Patrick’s day in Cleveland - the annual offering of corned beef egg rolls at King Wah. Yum!
The short story is there is a long history of Vietnamese culture in Texas and Houston specifically has the largest population of Vietnamese. Then Europeans (majority German) moved to Texas and didn't have access to the sweet fillings they used in pastries so they started making meat or savory types.
I have to add that Koffeteria is in EADO, not Downtown. A distinction that means little to non-Houstonians and is a razor fine hair split for us locals that is absolutely worth fighting over.
We are trying to combat racism and discrimation via the orignal post. If you're driving a car, it really does not matter where the business is located since people just follow Google Map's directions.
Yeah, I'm fully in support of that. That's why I think its extremely valuable to point out that the location is in Houston's original Chinatown and they are bringing business back to that area.
Whoever wrote that knows nothing of food or how "American" food come to be. Most "American" food is an amalgam of foods/food items brought here by immigrants. For example, Cajun/Creole cuisine is a mix of Native American, African, & French cuisine.
First: I need that opinion writer's name. I just wanna talk. 👿
Second: Houstonian here; I will trek across this great nation of a city for a beef pho kolache because that sounds like an amazing something I didn't know I needed in my life until right now.
Sounds like the writer is being tongue in cheek to me, the Czechs and Vietnamese were obviously here long before any of this nonsense started. Now I have one more reason to go back to Houston tho
If that writer was referring to Koffeteria in Eado - it is worth the trip. I fell in love with the London Fog roll and pistachio baclava (spelled wrong I’m sure). Their menu is so unique and good!
It’s a pastry with a lemon curd and dusted in Earl Grey sugar, it is delightful. I live across the city and I haven’t had one for almost 2 years, but I want to say a croissant or similar type pastry. And now I feel like I need one, it’s been too long!
we should prepare after the gop dies out to welcome those who get deported to be brought back and given medals for their bravery and for being true patriots...America is a goddamn melting pot...get over it
I will never understand how one can live in the United States and be angry that they're exposed to different cultures, ideas, and ways of being. I believe diversity is what makes us better human beings. I'm so grateful to have grown up in a diverse neighborhood in my red home state of Idaho.
How is someone upset by fusion food! Korean spicy pork tacos and vindaloo chicken pizza are two of my very favorite things. Now I'm gonna have to make a trip to see family so I can get my hands on a beef pho kolache! 🤩💖🤘
Garlic Naan pizza from leftover tandoori chicken tikka and malai kofta is the amazing! Sprinkle with a bit of chihuahua cheese before going in the oven, and add cilantro and fresh onion when it comes out.
In the pic below, I added a bit of channa, because and I made my own version of Raita to dip.
Well, personally as part of a culture whose food keeps getting “fusioned” and is not a hyphenated American, it feels like a dilution of my culture. It often comes from people with little understanding of the history behind our food and the emotional connections to it. And it’s often inferior.
This is not to say I don’t recognize the fact that the way food culture evolves is through syncretism, but this process is different from fusion. One comes from cultural intermingling and immigrant cultures attempting to wrestle with local ingredients rather than wouldn’t this be cool?
There's a place in Phoenix, AZ called Chino Bandido. So damn good, but it destroys digestive systems. Turns out lots of Southeast Asian foods make really good burritos and quesadillas
This might be hard to believe, but we have been semi-desperately researching places near(ish) to be out of town next Saturday - Monday, and your link resulted (eventually, but directly) in us booking a couple of days in Camden, Maine. Well done, https://larry.earth.
Have you got a reference? In Englsih literature "apple pie" is first found in "The Forme of Cury" (circa 1390), a medieval English cookbook compiled by the cooks of King Richard II.
I don't get this at all. Could the author be thinking of the Biblical prohibitions on mixtures (e.g., fabric with wool and linen woven together, or dishes mixing milk and meat)? Customers will decide whether "pholaches" is viable without Scriptural guidance.
Thank you. So this guy is not anti-Immigrant. FWIW there is a concentration of Vietnamese in Houston largely due to the refugees fleeing the war in the 70’s.
Pho is a favorite meal although growing up in Houston I still didn’t find out about it until my late 20’s. The Kolache Factory was my go-to when I needed to bring breakfast for business meetings.
Any time I see an interesting combination of soup and pastry that crosses the streams of two different culinary cultures, I have the exact same reaction as good ol Liz Lemon here
My first time having French onion xiao long bao 10 years ago was mind altering
Author sounds like a dbag but a pho kolache sounds absolutely amazing. A local place here has spicy boudin kolaches and they’re fantastic. I love cultural fusion food. That’s a lie. I just love good food.
Yep. These clowns act all high and mighty about living the most boring lives and making fools of themselves to any sane man, and it's funny in a depressing sort of way. And here I was, thinking there was no such thing as a free circus!
Their fire department chief is a gay woman. If not for DEI, it would have been a manly man man who could have out the fires with one singular Paul Bunyan bucket.
This just made my mouth water. It also made me want to try to do something to increase the Korean and Czech populations here, but all of my international friends laugh at what I’m living through right now. So I’m not sure why anyone would want to come here
I live in a major city with a multinational Chinatown, and I genuinely feel lucky. Viet bakery, Chinese bakery, Korean restaurant, Chinese restaurant, fusion restaurant. I'm spoiled.
Fusion food is one of the best things immigrants bring to the US. You haven’t lived until you’ve enjoyed a tasty bulgogi taco. And I’m definitely going to try a beef pho kolache the next time I’m in Houston. 😋
Sounds delicious. More food from different parts of the world the better. Went to an Ethiopian restaurant just before Christmas it was so good. They came and actually washed our hands then all food was eaten with our hands. I am definitely going again.
One of my most delicious cultural mixes involving food happened several years ago on St Patrick's Day. I made corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. I brought some to our Mexican neighbors because they had never tried it. Abuelita wrapped it in a corn tortilla and added a little salsa. Perfection.
I ate cherry koláče as a kid, decades ago 😂 You know that McDonald's is ultimately fusion as well? Kroc's father was born ten miles from my Pilsen home. The house is finally renovated a bit
It’s funny that people say Americans have no culture but they don’t realize our culture is a quilt of all culture which is most prevalent in the fusion of all the foods we eat.
I don't want anybody deported, the food landscape in America is brilliant, the culture I learn from taking ten steps out my door, the languages that are wafting through the streets - I love it all. It'll be pretty boring otherwise.
I've never heard of Kalaches until I visited my cousin in Houston and they went and got some. It was okay. Not great. Maybe don't Americanize everything? Some things are good as is.
I want a diverse neighborhood bc all areas of the world have done simply brilliant things with food, and while I will suffer my very pale ancestry thru some of those spices, it will be glorious
Comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/opinion/american-immigration-immigrants.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pE4.H6Iq.ToLAnYnX9Xf2&smid=url-share
Has NYT fired all of its sub-editors?
Agree, with you: the piece is a mess.
For a start, I'd move para 4 up to para 2 to bolster his argument that immigration is vital, but the system needs an overhaul.
Sheesh! 🤦♀️
Seeing the media bend their knee to him is genuinely disgusting, and I'll never forgive (or give a dime to, ever again) any media source that did so.
We WILL remember the collaborators when this is over.
And this is coming from someone born in Spain, a country that has immigration from multiple different continents all bunched together. We've got EVERYTHING food related.
https://thebrewerandthebaker.com/archives/11173
I can’t find the article. There is another piece that mentions immigration and the pho beef kolaches, but not juxtaposing them in quite the same way: https://archive.ph/6EC6c
The NYT tries to straddle the national vibe and liberal elites, so I guess their thing is now “MAGA is right about immigration, but enforcement should fall on the employers”
Harsh? Judgemental? Perhaps, but apparently some just insist on touching hot stoves over and over & need reminders.
I don't know where to start
And how could the author be so unaware of how baffling his conclusion would seem to a large number of readers.
These are not Czech kolaches, they are czech-germ-tex-mex kolaches!
Even then, it can be difficult if you don't know the right Americans.
https://youtu.be/E0E0ynyIUsg?si=R337jjwwVHVPhhEJ
Our weekly menu is often a list of cuisines, not recipes.
Mon: Italian
Tue: Mexican
Wed: Indian
It's kinda nuts when you really think about it.
Still waiting my dude
But food trucks are associated with upscale urban areas, therefore these are actually elitist criminal taco trucks.
I've never heard that before. In my city, you are more likely to see food trucks in poorer areas of town than richer areas.
it confuses and scares them
Yes they serve the people who work in the area, but people who walk their dogs or jog the area also eat there too.
Not sure where you pulled “food trucks are associated with upscale urban areas and are elitist” from. Urban, sure, but upscale/elitist? No, not really.
Probably thinks Landry’s is a respected restaurant business.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/landrys-landry-trademark-trial-verdict-20028034.php
2
(The apricot ones were the bomb.)
i fucking love kebab
🌮🥙😋
https://www.theinfatuation.com/los-angeles/reviews/los-originales-tacos-arabe-de-puebla?ifsb=yes
I say to thee, Liberty hold up they lantern and welcome more to our table!
Please forgive us for our upcoming management- we don't plan on them staying around for long.
man screw those other cultures for giving us money AND delicious food. This must stop!
And I would love to hear the story behind it. 👍
😉
Second: Houstonian here; I will trek across this great nation of a city for a beef pho kolache because that sounds like an amazing something I didn't know I needed in my life until right now.
Much better than a pea soup/pottage filled bread roll. Although......
In the pic below, I added a bit of channa, because and I made my own version of Raita to dip.
(Vindaloo itself is already portuguese/indian fusion!)
https://order.toasttab.com/online/koffeteria-original-location-1110-hutchins-street
Interesting choice to pair with Pho.
I'll ask around here in Czechia.
I'll let you know how the bakery is!
Like the "french" fries.
https://static.nytimes.com/email-content/TY_sample.html
https://static.nytimes.com/email-content/TY_sample.html
The fear of immigration impacting flavor now
My first time having French onion xiao long bao 10 years ago was mind altering
https://4sonrus.com/phorittos-pho-style-burrito/
Second: how far?
Three: please just take my money.
I don’t eat beef, but if they make that in pork? Giv’it here!
And I was like" FUCK YES!“
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/latinos-for-trump-founder-taco-trucks-marco-gutierrez-227667
Also, I've got family that's Korean and family that's Czech, so we will now be making bulgogi kolaches at some point this year.
People ask me why I don't like Krispy Kreme and I'm like That Vietnamese bakery has donuts why would I
https://youtu.be/rUlH5NWtWsk?feature=shared
These are often very local shops
KEEP crying MAGA’ss
They ought to be making bahn mi kolaches. Beef pho ones get all soggy.
https://g.co/kgs/SU4GMGG
https://instagram.com/annastaqueria/reel/Cpn_zueA3C6/
And I bet the future holds some amazing cultural fusion food that will delight our palates.
We're on the fence about Bald Eagle Kolaches, tbqh.