World's Largest Vegetarian Menu?

I was flipping through an alternative newspaper one evening when a small ad caught my eye. “World largest vegetarian menu,” boasted the ad, for Chowpatti restaurant in Arlington Heights. (No, “World largest” is not a typo on my part.)

The world’s largest vegetarian menu? I was impressed— and skeptical.

So, I decided to take a trip out to Arlington Heights.

On a Friday afternoon shortly after 2:30, I arrived at a strip mall on S. Arlington Heights Rd. Above a doorway, a large, green banner read “INTERNATIONAL VEGETARIAN CUISINE.” I entered the restaurant, and a woman at the front counter told me to choose my table.

I walked into the dining room, where a white man and woman sat at one table, and two Asian women at another. The room had a calm feeling to it, with about a dozen tables and a mix of cushiony, green-and-brown benches and green-and-brown chairs. Table lights suspended by chains from the ceiling helped give the place the feel of a coffee shop.

“In a few minutes, our kitchen will close, so I will need your order soon,” said the hostess, handing me the menu, with the slightest of Indian accents.

“No problem,” I replied.

“I appreciate it,” she added.

I began to flip through the menu. It was divided into sections of a variety of ethnicities, from Indian to Middle Eastern to Italian to Mexican.

It was only 22 pages long.

And those were just the numbered pages. Two more preceded them, one with a history of the restaurant, and the other with a table of contents for the rest of the menu.

Overwhelmed, I asked the hostess for recommendations. She pointed out the Chowpatti veggie burger, the Bombay Bhel salads, the Sev Batata Puri, and the Pav Bhaji, among other dishes.

I decided on the Pav Bhaji, a stew of steamed vegetables with seasonings served with a side of grilled French bread. I opted for a “medium” spice level from among choices of mild, medium, and hot.

The hostess then suggested a drink. Beyond a range of lhasis, milk drinks, and teas, the menu offered 28 combinations of fruit and/or vegetable juice. My eye fell on the Refreshing Fruit Cocktail, a mix of pineapple, grape, and apple juices.

But— ack! $8.95!

And yet, I’m a sucker for fresh juice.

I ordered it.

(A paragraph at the top of the page with the headline “Benefits of Freshly Squeezed Juices” included this consolation: “When considering the expense, think of our juice as a delicious investment in your health which pays for yourself.” I didn’t quite buy it, but it made me feel a little better.)

While waiting for the food to come, I perused the menu. The first page gave an interwoven history of the restaurant and the family that ran it. It turned out a man from Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, named Anil Kapadia started the business in 1982. He named it after his native city’s Chowpatty Beach, where, back when he was dating his wife, vendors sold a variety of food— what the restaurant’s menu described as “culinary delicacies and tasty tid-bits.”

After the history came the table of contents, arranged as follows:


1) Dining helpful hints
2) The levels of spice [explains the kitchen’s spice system, from mild to hot; written in three paragraphs, plus bullet points]
3) Soups
3) Gourmet soups
4) Sandwiches, gourmet salads
5) American favorites
6) Italian favorites
7) Veggie pizzas
8) Mexican favorites
10) Middle Eastern favorites
11) Bombay favorites
14) South Indian favorites
16) North Indian favorites
17) Indian flat breads
18) Rice selections
18) Dal selections
18) Combination platters
19) Side orders
20) Beverages
20) Hot beverages
21) Freshly squeezed juice
22) Dessert


If it wasn’t the world’s (or at least America’s) most extensive vegetarian menu, it was still doing pretty well for itself.

My fruit juice arrived first. With a frothy texture, it had a sweet taste from the apple and a tartness from the pineapple and grape. The apple juice itself tasted freshly pressed, and the whole mixture was refreshing. I’m not a wine connoisseur, but with this drink, I could sense what they must appreciate with wines.

The Pav Bhaji was next. A stew with hearty chunks of— what was it?— potato?, along with peas, tomato, onion, and sprigs of parsley, it, too, tasted freshly made. The dish wasn’t too oily; the peas, notably, stood up to biting without being hard.

As I chewed the mixed vegetables, I felt the spice from the stew, but the flavor, especially from the tomato, crept up through the spice— as opposed to the spice’s covering for a lack of flavor, as is the case with some Indian food.

While I continued alternately eating and looking at the menu, the hostess brought over a complementary small plate with what looked like a fried sweet-potato puff and a nacho chip topped with sour cream, diced tomatoes, and shredded cucumbers. They were samples of what I didn’t order.

The fried potato had a spice to it (dipping it in the accompanying tamarind sauce helped), while the toppings on the nacho had a nice cooling effect. Towards the end of the meal, I dipped the French bread in the tamarind sauce, which made for a sweet flavor and further cooled my mouth.

The hostess asked if I’d like tea or dessert, and I decided to indulge in Kesar Pista Kulfi, homemade saffron-pistachio Indian ice cream. It arrived in the form of a tiny pie cut into eight wedges with two toothpicks stuck into it. Though it looked small sitting in the middle of the plate, that didn’t matter much when the cold, dense, pistachio-ish creaminess seemed to climb up the roof of my mouth.

Mmmm.

I could have gone for the Carrot Halwa afterwards, but such as it was, my budget was already crying for mercy.

The hostess dropped off the check, along with a take-out menu— only eight pages long— a coupon for my next visit, and a business card.

The hostess, it turned out, was Niyanta Kapadia, one of the two daughters of the restaurant’s founder.

“We do have our journal, by the showcase, if you want to sign in,” she said.

After a few moments, I walked up to the cash register to pay, passing reviews on the wall from the Daily Herald newspaper and North Shore Magazine. By the register, T-shirts with vegetarian slogans sat in a display case; facts about vegetarianism, from Vegetarian Times magazine, were posted on the wall not far from a few Norman Rockwell images; and a column of photos of Anil, the restaurant’s founder, who died in 2000, had been set up.

I asked Niyanta whether it was true that the restaurant had the most extensive vegetarian menu.

“I just reduced my menu three […] weeks ago,” she said. “It was 26 pages and so many varieties. It’s just that my mom’s turning 65 tomorrow, and she’s had a couple falls in the kitchen. She slipped and fell, so her rotary cuffs, you know, aren’t cooperating, and just her age and health.

“So, I figured, slowly, slowly. You know, I don’t want to burden her so much. So, that’s why I’m simplifying. And many of my customers are even telling me, ‘Niyanta, you guys are doing too much. Reduce,’ you know. So, I think it’s… in the long run, it’s just going to help me to manage it for a longer period of time.”

I think I speak for a lot of customers when I say, Niyanta, I think you’ll be just fine with 22 pages.

Road Trip

Under a bright sun, the bus pulled up to 103 St. and Torrence Ave. The driver waited as I unloaded my bike from the rack. I surveyed the scene: An empty lot stood across from a gas station; right near me, a pole had an advertisement for “Round trips to prisons at an affordable price.” The stench of what smelled like rotting fish filled the air.

Fortunately, the scenery would change. I peddled off down the street, heading south and then east, towards the Indiana border.

The journey had begun.

When you’re a freelancer looking for a full-time job, one luxury you’ve got (no, not a big income— hah, hah) is free time. Combine that with warm weather, a free social calendar for a couple of days, and an increasing penchant for biking, and you come up with a two-day trip road trip.

To South Haven, Michigan.

You’ve never biked a hundred miles in two days before, but you take that as a challenge. And… you look forward to the nicer views towards the end of the trip as a reward for your efforts.

The starting point: Torrence Ave. and 103 St., Chicago. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Following the first of 14 Google maps I had printed out, I crossed into Hammond, Indiana, and headed southeast along Indianapolis Blvd. Fear can quickly overtake you when you’re vying for space with two lanes’ worth of cars and trucks whizzing by on what… well… technically is a highway.

Moments later, however, that fear morphed into dismay. My tape recorder, which I was using to make occasional notes for myself, had slipped out of a side pocket of my bicycle bag. I backtracked to the state line, made a U-turn, and continued back to where I stopped, scanning the ground as I went. Nothing.

Oh, well; whoever found it would probably hear me doing an interview for a class, doing another interview for a magazine, and then saying such important things like, “Smells like rotting fish.”

With notebook and pen still with me, I started off again, moving from hardscrabble Hammond into slightly-less-hardscrabble Whiting, where the smokestacks and jagged metal structures of the BP oil refinery came to dominate the landscape. In East Chicago, a flock of birds gently lifted off of the four-lane highway as I rounded the bend. In downtown Gary— a once-vibrant city, thanks to its steel-manufacturing plants— concrete buildings now stood over uneven sidewalks sprouting weeds in their cracks.

Seeing a sign hopefully proclaiming the city “100 years…steel strong,” I felt sad for Gary. I couldn’t help but wonder how the downtown used to be, before the steel industry declined precipitously here.

Gary, IN. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Around 5 o’clock, U.S. Route 12 took me parallel to the tracks of the South Shore Line, an inter-city commuter train stretching from Chicago all the way to South Bend, Indiana. Spotting the Miller station, I thought of Bill Murray in “Ghostbusters,” announcing dryly, “It’s Miller time!”

During a long stretch of road by Northwest Indiana’s famous sand dunes, however, I came to feel terrible cramps in my stomach. I wondered when the leafy surroundings would give way to a place— any place— to get food and drink.

A guy passed me on his bike. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“All right,” I replied.

A flat-out lie.

At about 6:30, I stopped at the Dune Park train station. I had gotten off the train here once before, so I knew the stationhouse had a vending machine. Walking by passengers who had just arrived from Chicago, I entered the waiting room to find a single vending machine with only chocolate bars and other sugary snacks— nothing resembling a sports bar. And no drink machine.

I pressed on.

Around 7 o’clock, I spotted a distant sign with red LED lights. A gas station!

And aptly-named: Marathon.

Having subsisted on Cliff Bars and sports “gel” for several hours now, I snatched a tuna-salad sandwich, bottle of water, and sports drink from the store and took a seat on the ground outside. As I ate and drank, weathering the cramps, I fixed my eyes on the dense foliage that lay across the road. The trees gave the station an isolated, calm feel.

At the same time, I felt concern— and disappointment. The ride was taking longer than I expected. (Either that, or someone had stretched out the distances.) I wasn’t sure if I’d make it all the way to New Buffalo, Michigan, where I had planned to spend the night— let alone to South Haven. I could always cut today’s itinerary short and spend the night in Michigan City, the next city up the road, but it wasn’t even in Michigan. (Yes, Michigan City is in the state of Indiana. No, I don’t know why.)

I returned to the store for a chocolate milk.

Portage, IN. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

The two-lane road continued along the South Shore Line tracks before snaking its way toward Lake Michigan. Shortly before 8, under a darkening sky, a man with a dog waved at me from the side of the road. At a quarter past 8, I finally found myself in downtown Michigan City.

I had passed through here before on a day trip, so I made only a brief detour to explore, riding by the Rag Tops Auto Museum and a police station.

Then, with perhaps more determination than thought, I continued along Route 12 out of town.

At 9 o’clock, under a thoroughly dark sky, a sign on the side of the road beamed, “Welcome to Michigan.”

Yes!

I looked up as I rode along. The sky was full of stars. FULL of stars! The sound of chirping crickets filled the air.

I took a deep breath. The air smelled FRESH! Later, the beautiful smell of burning wood (or maybe it was charcoal— hey, I grew up in New York City) wafted by. Oh!

At about 10:40 p.m. (one hour later now because of the time-zone change), I finally rolled into downtown New Buffalo. The small commercial district was almost completely dormant, save for a Mexican food stand and a Subway sandwich shop that remained open.

I stopped into the Subway and asked the woman behind the counter for a recommendation for a cheap place to spend the night. A man sitting at a table told me to head up the road to the Buffalo Motel.

There, in a small office with an “OPEN” sign in the window, a woman came out from a back room.

“Do you have any non-smoking rooms?” I asked.

“I’ve got one left,” she said.

“Great. I’ll take it.”

As I got into bed around 12:30 a.m., some 60 miles from 103 St. and Torrence Ave., I noticed a poster on the wall. It made me stop.

“SUCCESS,” it read. “Success is a journey, not a destination.”


U nder a brilliant mid-day sun, I mounted my bicycle and began to peddle.

Ow.

My leg muscles.

In the last year, I had gotten more and more into bicycling. I had done some long-distance rides, but never for two days in a row. I had heard you’re supposed to give your muscles a day’s rest after exercising them; on the other hand, professional bicyclists ride on consecutive days, so obviously, it’s doable.

In any case, today, it had to be doable.

New Buffalo, MI. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

After a breakfast of pancakes and eggs in a café downtown, I made a brief stop at the New Buffalo beach. There, views of sand and Lake Michigan bolstered my spirits.

As I rode along hilly, residential Marquette Dr., with its quiet and greenery, I felt a high. The day was gorgeous, the setting was beautiful, and I was in Michigan!

Somewhere along the four-lane Red Arrow Highway, my cell phone rang. I pulled over.

It was Mom. (She couldn’t talk earlier and said she’d call me back.)

“Do you know an inexpensive place to stay in South Haven?” I asked casually.

She said she and my dad had stayed in the Comfort Suites outside of downtown, in an area with a cluster of chain hotels.

“Give me some context,” she went on. “Who’s this for?”

“Me,” I said.

“Oh.”

She continued softly, “Don’t tell me you’re biking there. I’ll die.”

I may have mentioned something to her a while back about wanting to bike from Chicago to South Haven. And she may have replied something to the effect of, “Oh, no, you’re not!”

I paused.

“Yeah.”

She let out a screech.

“I’m just north of New Buffalo, Michigan,” I said. “I hope to get there by nightfall. Before nightfall.”

The road continued on— and on. Red Arrow Highway became Lakeshore Dr., then became Main St. through the town of St. Joseph, then became State Highway 63, and then became Blue Star Memorial Highway. My legs kept pumping. I drank more water; ate more Cliff Bars; crunched on more trail mix.

Somewhere along the way, with vehicles zipping by me, it dawned on me: Those drivers were paying for fuel, but was I technically traveling for free? Not if you consider the extra water and sports drinks I had to buy as I rode, and the snacks bars and gel and trail mix I purchased before the trip. Then again, those drivers had to eat, too— though not as great a quantity of food.

Then again, I’d be having more meals on the road, since my trip was longer. And yet, I would have bought food even if I weren’t biking.

At one point as I rode along the shoulder of the road, another bicyclist waved to me from the opposite shoulder. I gave him the peace sign.

St Joseph, MI. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

It was close to 5 o’clock when I pulled over to a small park in St. Joseph. There, a plateau of grass with shrubbery and a tall tree offered a beautiful view of Lake Michigan, with a stretch of water glittering under the sun.

A man stopped me to ask if I knew how to get down to the water. “Sorry,” I said.

The man had an accent, and I asked where he was from.

“Holland,” he answered. He and a friend were traveling here in a minivan.

Although the man was, indeed, from the Netherlands, I laughed later when I saw on a map that Holland, the city, was just up the lakefront from here.

At 5:59 p.m., I sent a text message to my brother: “100 miles in 2 days and going.”

And yet it wasn’t over just yet. A series of slight, but long, inclines— probably combined with my not having slept well enough last night— caused me to slow down significantly. Just the same, the sun was high enough that I surely would arrive before dusk.

At ten to 7, I spotted a mailbox on the side of the road with the words “South Haven Tribune.” 15 minutes later, a sign reading “South Haven Charter Township” appeared. Perhaps another 15 minutes after that, I turned from Blue Star Memorial Highway onto the final stretch, 76 St., a straight, residential road. I followed it, passing houses on both sides, until I noticed a clearing between the trees up ahead that revealed an expanse of blue.

Moments later, at shortly after 7:30, I stopped. Before me, a wide beach with tranquil water spread out next to a pier, as a large, late-evening sun prepared to descend over the horizon.

I called Mom.

“Hello?” she answered.

“I feel like I’m going to keel over and die,” I said, “but after 118.7 miles, I’ve arrived in downtown South Haven, Michigan.”

And in some of the most peaceful moments I had experienced in the last two days, my trepidation, my angst, my determination were washed away by a wonderful feeling of tranquility.

Along with nausea.

After 118 miles, South Haven, MI. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

I set out towards the middle of downtown, swinging down by Riverfront Park, where children played on the grass, and up to Phoenix St., a road crammed with charming storefronts in the heart of the business district.

South Haven held sweet memories for me, which was in part why I chose it as a destination: I had spent a summer here with my family when I was maybe ten years old, and had come back on several other occasions. My aunt, uncle, and cousins had spent time here, too, as did my grandparents on my Mom’s side when they were still alive.

That night, in my room at the Comfort Suites (the cheapest accommodations I could find in the end), I soaked my legs in hot water with four pounds’ worth of Epsom salt.


I t was around 11 a.m. when I walked into the bike store.

“Can I help you?” asked an employee, coming over to me.

I asked if he had a bicycle box. He said he did, and offered to sell it for ten dollars— or charge 20 to disassemble and package my bike, box included.

I debated whether to carry the box to the bus station and then put the bike in it, or have him do the packing. If he were to pack it, he said, I should allow 45 minutes.

My bus left in 55 minutes.

“If we’re short on time, I could always run you over there,” he added.

Sold.

With the box shoved into the back of his station wagon, we climbed into the front seats. Seeing a cassette with a protruding audio cable in the tape deck, I asked if I could connect my iPod.

Soon, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” was playing over the speakers.

The writer's approximate route from Chicago to South Haven, MI. (Click here for a larger map.)

As we drove along, the man said he had been to Chicago and hated it. He had seen people hail taxis in the movies but didn’t know you were actually supposed to do that; he once stood for an hour waiting for a taxi to pick him up as a number of them whizzed past. He only leaned into the window of a couple that were parked on the side of the road. “I felt like I was soliciting a prostitute,” he said.

I told him I was from New York City, had lived in Chicago for five years, and never owned my own car.

In a few minutes, we had arrived at the bus station, where he unloaded my bike.

“Have a good trip,” he called out before riding off.

As the bus drove up an incline for the first time, I felt a tinge of fear. But the motor kept on, while my legs remained still.

Relief.

Two-and-a-half hours (and one transfer in Benton Harbor) later, I looked down from Interstate 90 to see the McDonald’s that sat at the Illinois-Indiana border.

It may have been around there that I lost my tape recorder.

Soon after, with Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” playing softly from the front of the bus, a light Chicago skyline materialized in the distance.

Back in Chicago, the downtown skyline in the distance. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

2 o’clock. The Greyhound station in downtown Chicago. It took just a moment to claim my bicycle box from the beside the bus, and another 22 minutes to sift through the cardboard, metal, masking tape, plastic, and rubber bands to reassemble the bike.

And then, once again, I rode off— across the street.

There, a bus sat waiting. I loaded my bike onto its front rack and took a seat inside.

I was off in search of a massage. And I didn’t feel like biking there.

Georgia on Dempster St.

O n Wednesday afternoon, as the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia unravels, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepares to travel to Tbilisi, things are much quieter in a small storefront restaurant in Skokie.

There, in a dimly-lit room, three men perhaps in their 60s sit around a table watching a Russian-language soap opera on TV. On the table sit a packet of cigarettes and a jar of Tylenol. All ten tables in the room have red tablecloths, and most have fake flowers; paintings of landscapes, flowers, and boats adorn the walls. Perhaps the only indication of the cuisine here is a red-and-white flag with crosses hung at the far end of the room.

It’s the flag of Georgia. Sh. Rustavely, the only open business in this drab strip mall on Dempster St., is (according to my research) the lone Georgian restaurant in the Chicago area.

The soap opera turns to news, and the men get up from the table. One leaves the restaurant, and the other two busy themselves in the back.

Sh. Rustavely, on Dempster St. in Skokie, likely the only Georgian restaurant in the Chicago area. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

The news broadcast shows a shot of people in street clothes walking quickly along with a soldier. In another scene, a man in a green jacket decorated with military symbols sits at a table before a group of reporters.

As I stand before the TV, one of the three men comes out of the kitchen with a plate of beef cutlets and French fries, placing it on my table. Then he joins me in front of the TV.

We both watch.

The anchor speaks rapid-fire Russian, as do the correspondents, and I hardly understand any of it. (I learned only a bit of Russian in junior high school.) In the corner of the screen, I can make out Москва— moskva, or Moscow— and сегодня— sevodnya.

“Sevodnya?” I ask the man. “’Today’?”

“Today,” he replies softly, wearing a somber expression.

I return to my table, and the second man comes out from the back. He carries a glass of a clear liquid— it could be water; it could be vodka— and slowly takes a seat at the table with the cigarettes and Tylenol.

A scene of Russian-language newspapers, laid out as if at a news kiosk, comes up. Later, a man in military fatigues lets out a sigh as a reporter interviews him in front of a military truck.

The two men at the table are glued to the images.

Jorni and Edward, co-chefs at Sh. Rustavely. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

I walk over to where they’re sitting and ask one of them how he feels about the conflict.

“We have different information,” he says. His English is broken, halting.

“Do you have friends here from Russia?” I ask.

“I have friends,” he replies, shrugging.

I ask the men if there’s a large community of Georgians here. “Two hundred” says the first man.

I ask the other one, whose English is better, if he likes Putin. “Nah,” he responds, shrugging his head. “He live before, 15 years old, he live in Georgia. His mother live in Georgia.”

“About President Medvedev?” he goes on. “What can I say?”

I ask if he still has family in Georgia.

“I leave. Some others stay. Many people go to other countries. My brother go to Germany. Others, to Italia.”

We watch the TV some more.

“My name is David,” I say in Russian, recalling one of the few phrases I know from junior high school.

The men smile. They introduce themselves as Jorni and Edward, both cooks (and, I’m assuming, proprietors) at the restaurant.

“Sunday, there were many people here from Tbilisi,” Edward, the second man, tells me. “Many have brothers, sisters…”

They came from different suburbs— Palatine, Buffalo Grove, Wheaton— Jorni tells me.

I’m at a loss for what to ask next, perhaps because I’m at a loss for Russian. I return to my table, to my beef cutlets and French fries, and the men continue talking to each other in a low voice.

I pick up my Chicago Tribune. “Russia-Georgia clash leaves lasting damage” reads a headline on the front page. I dip my cutlets in a tomato sauce.

No other customers have entered the restaurant by the time I get up to pay for the food.

“Come again,” says Jorni when I get ready to leave.

“You have to eat our shish kebab,” he adds, smiling. “You have not eat… all of Chicago… our shish kebab.”

It’s the most enthusiastic thing I’ve heard him say this afternoon.