Series:Food / Restaurant Revolution is Metropolitan suburbs And Detroit Altogether

Number one in a series of  Food analysis in the Metro D 

As of this article Your culinary journey has started  in the middle of the alphabet -M for Mongolian 

or L for Lamb  ...or Lebanese...

The Restaurant Revolution is Metropolitan suburbs And  Detroit Altogether

How  is Detroit in a Resturant Moment? ?  Detroit is not as ethnically diverse. We lost our Chinese Community China town  by the time of the riot/ rebellion of 1967 . Where Little Caesar stadium is now on the southern edge -just before Fischer Freeway  was a classic Chinatown - like the movie.  

If its anything I miss most about NYC its the variety of Asian food and markets in their 4 "Chinatowns"... to be correct its not just Chinese but Malaysians, and South Americans/ Central Americans and Puerto Ricans  in Brooklyn's Sunset Park  zip code  11220. Ever heard of Chino- Latino??

Chino-Latino- like sweet and sour sauce on Mofongo

Back to Detroit  and its fellow suburbs Asian Diaspora : we do have a Korean Community , and  Hmongs (Vietnamese/ Chinese /Laotians /Thai Mountain peoples non urban all) in the Detroit metro area mostly in northeast Detroit, South Warren and Pontiac. There's also some Laotians  on the eastside of Detroit. The Vietnamese are in Troy and Sterling Heights.

Thank you Detroitography         https://detroitography.com/2015/01/07/map-detroit-area-ethnic-groups-1971/   As for  Maltese - they are Mediterranean both North African (Arab) and Greco-Roman  All the white space you see is industrial and possibly brownfields  all 6.1 square miles 

We are as diverse as NYC or some other coastal capital of commerce and consumption just that we do not have 33 different ethnic/cultural restaurant categories.  Looking for a Laotian restaurant? Well  Detroit suburbs have lumped Asian together! How  Japanese sushi and generic Chinese food can be in the same restaurant  I do not know  Not hanging there- that is for sure ...

 Where to go?    Driving the 143 square miles of Detroit  and beyond- all the way to Howell/ Milford/ Ann Arbor  I was able to confirm that  This  is the area of  hottest kitchen /culinary explosion in recent times.

But if you do not believe this article and you think you have to seek Culinary Community further afield- skip  Detroit Metropolitan area, fly over NYC and be really avant garde - I recommend a trip right out of DTW direct to Beijing if you need an excuse for exoticism .. Not that expensive either.(1)

There are  2500 restaurants here that are as glamorous as the  Mad Man Mid Century Modern set  of The Best of Everything - (movie ) There are restaurants here that are  as old /Older than  the Blues Brothers movie (1980) paying homage to the  shack of soulful food  in back of the house that features food from  a church full of ladies cooking plates for sale after services on  Bedford  -Stuyvesant.(2)

When I left here the restaurant I ate in  was bugged- Coleman Young liked the food too...

 Now I am back - lived through several boom and bust restaurant cycles   and trends...in the city that rivals  Europe for  Zagat, Michelin bragging rights New York does have it... and Detroit has it too!

For now - as long as rent stays reasonable and people in Detroit eat out more than they cook ...
 The Detroit Metro area dining will keep getting  Better- the food is affordable, considering that it is often locally sourced, organic and fresh. So what  Tao NYC... Who needs a Buddhist temple to dine in? If you are into power surroundings and  exotic non -Western spectacle  see the map - eat right here in the  Detroit Metro Area.

Appreciate the convenient Detroit Metro Area including those suburbs that connect by freeway in all directions offers dining High or Low in terms of your decor .  After  paying with an  credit card too many times for atmosphere    you learn this:

 Food, served  so the food can be eaten comfortably
 In a space that is  not crowded and about
 A third less expensive than you know where..
 Is better than having hovering waiters and a crazy bill

         The Detroit restaurant equivalent of Mid Century Modern  is the
         London Chop House -not Cranbrook -sorry Eero Saarinen 

       

You can be a fan of food and still not be a foodie- unless they pay you for eating/commenting 

         Learned the lesson the hard way.

         Collected Menus and matchbooks. 

         Estimated that at one point all 21 meals a week being eaten out.

         Had a dining tab. 
         Walked the pounds off  daily.
          Still not Gail Greene , but that is another story for another day...

        

 INSTEADAte like a New Yorker, but missed Detroit's food.     

   Learned that Coney Islands in NYC have NO meat!! (that is not cool)    
 Loved Greek Diners in NYC serving wine with your BLT    

   Loving Fresh Fish /fryers appearing  on Harlem streets on Fridays      

 Exploring it all - Food Trucks Rule in both cities.

Variety in both cities is amazing! In NYC I have eaten everything from koshary from the  NYC  Koshary (it is Egyptian not Jewish) in deep Brooklyn/BayRidge to spicy Okra at

Bognan International West African Restaurant in the Bronx Give me 30 days and start with  Armenian and 30 days later  still have not gotten to the pho at my favorite Vietnamese  Restaurant in Brooklyn's Sunset Park Chinese Community ...there is at least 33 to 35 ethnic cuisines to visit,and that includes Northern Chinese broths &Mongolian Borts (dumplings).

  Spoils you a little. But I am looking forward to seeing what is here In the D and  beyond.

   Detroit does  Lamb!! Better than NYC !!

    I missed the Mongolian Food Trucks serving lamb filled dumplings 

   called in Queens Himalayan dumplings and are found@southern end of the LGA-Queens Bus/subway route

Whoa! Detroit does have  Lamb!! Affordable and succulent Lamb.Middle Eastern or Greek depending on which side of the Mediterranean you prefer -the sauces differ .

I was willing  to forgo the dumplings  ( lamb dumplings are better in Xian)  

Yippee  Lambchops!Lamb Ribs.Lamb! I did not need to spend  more 
than 20 dollars in the Metro D. If you want a little atmosphere try lunch here- excellent Lamb hummus lunch . You know I could go on and on but go see for yourself. Not going to waste your time being a foodie expert -it is better to be  adventurous and not be trendy. Need a dose of NY food trendy? Read this review of abcV (the  newest restaurant by  the extremely successful Chef owner Jean- Georges Vongerichten)  It is pure foodie writer snark - which this blogger Does Not Miss 

      Beau's Grillery 

     Which has re-invented itself from Burger Pub to American Bistro Middle Eastern influences                              

 Beats the grilled lamb I had on 9th avenue near 54th street  in the food district of Clinton/Hells Kitchen 
 NYC new Indian place serving Lamb - the place was real cute though  beautiful plating, artisanal alcoholic drinks,tiles white & gleaming...Communal tables and gorgeous waitstaff- 

 It felt like a movie- the scene- a hot restaurant  a celebrity or two present -

I paid  accordingly .The lamb was at a typical   midtown NYC hipster joint that 
if it existed  when I first moved to the  neighborhood, would have hastened my monetary demise ...I spent $65 without drinks-ouch...

You have no idea how happy I am to be back in the land of reasonable beautiful food ... then again I am also cognizant of the vast majority of others in my age bracket that just do not go out. They are retired, and they tend to frustrate us food advocates and writers,like Hungry Black Man  I get it-  so  guess who is not retiring-

Eat to live. Live to eat! Exploring Detroit will be such a treat!

 I just met a young man from Louisiana who is a chef across the street from Beau's Grillery 
so I will check him out next- He is on Instagram as Anointed Epicurean. 

Number one in a series of  Food analysis in the Metro D 
 REFERENCES

As of this article Your culinary journey has started  in the middle of the alphabet -M for Mongolian  or L for Lamb  ...

                                                                                      

  (1)    DTW direct to Beijing if you need an excuse for exoticism Not that expensive .

 The exchange rate for The Chinese Rembi to dollars is often between 8 to 1 and 10 to 1. When 10 dollars spends like 100 you are a rock star. Everybody speaks English so get that ticket out  of the D and fly over the Arctic Circle just in time for Dinner..nahhhh it is better if you did this:

Eat In Your City/Get Out And Enjoy Detroit's Food Renaissance

   (2) Church Supper Plates - Can not tell you exactly but usually Menus  posted near schools on Fridays in Bed- Stuy with phone # and prices OR  Go walking  Sunday afternoons on Fulton
 be aware there is no Safe Serve paperwork - these are not Soup Kitchens ...  

  this picture is not from the area mentioned   in the article - However @10$ will get you a full   dinner plate - chocolate cake is extra...)

Why Detroit is such a #$%^& for long term residents

Q?  Why Detroit is such a #!@#$%^&*&  for long-term residents?

A. Several facts no one in polite company will acknowledge..

see the links too 

or scroll to the very end to see the facts summarized in a list.

 Remember that Detroit is unique in its' status as a destination of the Great Migration for any body who could not make a living between the two world wars (Great Depression)  However recessions  followed each of the 2 world wars.  Keep this in mind...because Detroit goes through economic swings more often that the rest of the country regardless of the Bankruptcy. I count seven national  recessions between my preschool years and leaving for NYC in the mid 1980s.Black people disportionately felt every little economic hiccup.




The great Migration occurred several times in Detroit's history.It included southern whites and Immigrant Mexicans as well as blacks, but lets concentrate on black migration.  In my case I had parents who after being married on the west coast, and leaving the Air Force and their families in the south- thought Detroit was the next logical step. My dad thought he had a job in Detroit- one that utilized his degree in Electronics. This was post Korean war @ 1953.

 Thank Goodness he had a masters electricians degree and education to at least associates level (which was more than most Black men had post war- hence the migration) My parents  survived the  Eisenhower recession. How ? 

Initially my parents lived in  as tenants who had skills :  Dad was once as a super, then both dad and mom were   the  live in help for the owners of  Knorr Broadcasting Corporation / eventually WKNR Keener 13 radio. The black and white photos of them  in full chauffeur and maid ensembles do not bother me because I credit that stint with their ability to impress upon me money really is- its a tool that has to be used with wisdom .  I grew up with parents who knew how to get it, despite educations just barely  past grade 14...   For me  this resulted in an education in money: alternating maintenance periods of gaining knowledge (remember knowledge is power ) 
Also gaining currency in making alliances and contacts by  volunteering for after school programs . Finally alternated all that social currency  with earning money. This money gave me independence- gas in the car . The social currency  resulted in a decent paycheck at the Mall . Of course things have changed- thanks to the internet, and neoliberalism Yet the bootstrap and the boot it was attached to was  all was due to a firsthand experience  of what  luck* and money does. Detroit does not offer that lesson now.

Luck is a nebulous term but  if you agree that opportunity exists because of previous circumstances - *call it luck if your timing is right.   The timing is now forever off. Most cities no longer have working teens/young adults who have summer jobs and Detroit is particularly bad when it comes to employment  over the schoolbreak. For 6 weeks this federal program suggests how the private sector /not -for - profit sector creates  summer employment .  (Full disclosure I have run the programs- having never qualified for them . I worked for my dads company instead.)

  There is no longer a direct federal program for employment . You do have  several Federal Programs for Unemployment .This shift, which has happened in the last 30 years  teaches you nothing about money .   How do you  learn how not to have money if there is no money ??https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/disappearance-of-the-summer-job/529824/

My first job required working papers, and I started working on the books in high school - recessions be damned only because I lived at home , so I had a leg to stand on and a bootstrap to pull... My fellow classmates did not include any working poor- we were in private school after all.  However  all of my fellow black classmates were less than 3 months away from feeling the pain of poverty if our parents income suddenly ceased. You can only freelance so much. (Book -No Shame in My Game opens here)

  If you went to private schools from the Kennedy era onwards in   Detroit;   your timing was excellent . Bussing ,the civil rights movement and other social experiments  up to the Rebellion in 1967 just made it more and more difficult to stay employed without a career track. You had to make more than you did the year before. I understood that early- looked at my dads paychecks on the regular. He wore suits to his job although  he was not required to do so. Being one of the first black men to integrate the Engineering department  and management meant he even got paid during the bankruptcies. Most people who were not in his position  lost their jobs...


 Unfortunately that ability to make money in this town disappeared by the time I left for NYC in 1985. I had friends who lost teaching jobs because the school was downsizing or closing The school shut down  because the factory was no longer paying . People who had less than 10 years on the job for any of the Big Three Auto Companies  had to become service workers or move back down south if they wanted to eat. (broke the bootstrap - move before you lose the boot)

Which leaves the retirees and the blacks who make up this town-sitting on it. (losing the boots, cant use the legs anyway) Understand the frustration  of the blogger Hungry Black Man who wrote about Detroiters not availing themselves of the excellent restaurant scene in this city- who do not even hit the OG spots- who do not eat out at all... How do you engage these retirees who live within the borders of Detroit  who are barely hanging in there, who have no disposable  income  and when they do- they lack the education of the consumer to want to spend money outside the home.?? You don't engage them ....you live in your world and they live in theirs

 Just look at these stats. There is a new label for this phenomenon and the label is taboo - but it explains the stasis ,the wall between newly arrived and Downtown versus your grandparents or aging uncle in 48234.

   census.gov quickfacts Detroit                                                                                                                

  Detroit   Median household income (in 2015 dollars), 2011-2015    $25,764 

  In civilian labor force, total, % of population 16 yrs+,2011 -2015 53.0%

    

High  school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2011-2015    78.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2011-2015     13.5% Land area square miles, 2010    138.75  square miles 7.2 miles gentrified My migration from 1952 to 1985  Map by Detroitography.com

 more    census.gov quickfacts Detroit                 

  Detroit Persons in poverty     40.3%

population estimates, July 1, 2016, (V2016)    for all  living in Detroit     672 ,795 Black or African American  April 1, 2010   82.7%  (means 556,401 people in city are black)

Enough stats.  A picture is a thousand words  ???? A fellow blogger Alex Hill of Detroitography.com  posits this   about his maps  and gentrification 

"I would argue that these maps don’t tell the story of gentrification at all, but rather the impact of further disinvestment of the neighborhoods where Detroit residents live. As census tracts/ neighborhoods lose population, those who are able to stay are more likely to have higher income, education, etc."


Since we do not engage the people represented in the above statistics  ---------is there a work around? Yes if there is work that can be maintained. Do we have the tools to get work, and make it pay?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/15/african-americans-are-the-only-racial-group-in-u-s-still-making-less-than-they-did-in-2000/?utm_term=.3e83cc436ab8

There are neighborhoods that are speculative and possibly open to change if the money flows...
Look at the amount of housing/land new money now owns.

As you know, the Detroit Land Bank has stopped cataloguing properties and the people who have brought properties to flip has slowed. The people who want to make a go of it and  do a fixer upper has also slowed. We now have to wait until the development zones  finish re- routing the streets to slow traffic/ rehab housing /community.  I do not possess an urban studies  degree but cul de sacs do not always produce nice results. See any street off the Jeffries .  If closed off neighborhoods work it is because of an artistic diverse presence that is not necessarily gentrifying , but integrates itself into the existing fabric.

4th street Garden at end of  cul de sac 

Example My favorite cul de sac is 4th street off  Holden near Wayne State University off the Lodge and Edsel Ford .  This street used to host a fair., then it ceased with the bankruptcy of 2013.As of 2017, two properties on 4th street are in trouble and may end up on the auction list, due to back taxes. Yet the cul de sac spirit lives on - see the  artists of Theatre Bizarre  at the DIY (Do it Yourself ) fair in Ferndale this weekend. I suspect that if you ask participants of this fair where they make their art now- its not in a cul de sac neighborhood in Detroit. Everybody knows when the artists leave the gentrification  usually starts. Here when the artists leave the neighborhood  stagnates at rates proportional to those with pedestrian jobs.


Who are they re-designing these neighborhoods for? The old retirees that dot the landscape can barely afford what they have now. New money  lives along the Q line corridor .
   My old neighborhood - the Northwest section  still has some grip on the bootstrap.It is not being gentrified. You could move there if you can afford it . My  grade school friend - who has stayed in Detroit all his life   suggests  I get a concealed weapon permit  if I move back to my old neighborhood. He is correct - @40,000 police  on the Streets of New York has  ruined my streets smarts radar.

 Northwest section does not need gentrifying but it does need a decent strip mall with some chain stores and a  nationally connected grocery . If you call that gentrification - rethink this. You gotta eat.
It would not hurt to have a hardware store - oops I forgot Home Depot took over the old Grace Hospital spot. Well that makes it easier to fix things up. Wonder how much money it takes since these are not the 500 dollar or even 1000 homes? Heard there is a guy who wrote a book about that...

 The wall - a real estate construct that was racist in the extreme , is less than 10 blocks from where I grew up- the redlining actual wall is still there.  If it was not for a future  private school classmate who knew my dad from the old neighborhood making a connection with a realtor  in the Northwest Section ... who knows where I would be now...

I do know my parents of the Great Migration refused to go back down South.  Yet recently ,  the return of people to the South may have accelerated the housing vacancy problem .It is called Unintended Consequences :  no job / or fixed retirement  savings means you cannot pay the ever growing tax bills and the highest insurance rates and water bills in the US.  Makes sense to move to  for  these people. 

There is hope - down South
 http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/02/04/2016-nielsen-report-black-buying-power-reached-tipping-point-will-black-america-leverage-create-wealth/

You want hope here- Not cutting and running ? Address the following list of issues.

Underclass - there is no project to socialize and rehouse people here 

why cant Detroit be an experiment ????

Internet - turn the internet on here in Detroit for free then  make the internet in Detroit  a 24 hour remedial education tool up to the associates level Hello Wayne State ,U of D Mercy ,University of Michigan etc time to do a win win- If college is free to the AS   some people will pay for the credits to the BS

Education - create after school  tutoring centers for Adults as well as kids toto support the internet learning  It would be another experiment  If  we do not increase the degree level of Detroit residents by 2020 ---THREE years from now 70% of the jobs will go to outsiders

Transportation You Need the other Q Line to the airport connecting the existing Q line.Jobs depend on it  Detroit needs to be the Mobile City not the Motor City  and The train tracks are already here

 Crime- the gangs exist because there are  members who can not hold certain well  paying jobs  requiring re schooling However if you paid them to do CCC level work they would probably be too  tired to get into trouble. Seriously. Physical Labor that pays @ 20+ an hour is transformative   The gangs here have members who have never worked- Do we need a physical  Katrina type situation  that as an  unintended consequence  reinforces   gang activity/ power -  Of course not!

 Detroit's' Bankruptcy was our Katrina. Now we need to deal with it with sophistication. 

If I stay I will be the re-gentrifier !

Retrieved 9/15/17 from the Gothamist

 http://gothamist.com/2014/02/26/

spike_lee_goes_off_about_the_mother.php

BY JEN CARLSON IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ON FEB 26, 2014 7:50 AM

 It may take 25 or 50 years, but wait long enough and you too may get to experience falling rents and street crime!"

Detroit:Get Lucky or Get out says it is part of the great cycle of life. 

My  parents lived in de-gentrified, moved to gentrified and If I stay I will be the re-genrifier

 Most of the Detroit it is hoped gentrified, degentrified, and regentrified, and will be again at some point in the future     

But Detroit - it is too big and spread out - to be discussed next article

 but here is a  teaser 

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/04/11/standing-in-the-shadow-of-industry-detroiters-feel-choked-out

At an event at Pratt last night, Spike Lee was asked about something he's been consistently passionate about: Gentrification. Specifically the gentrification of Brooklyn, where he was raised. In 2010 we asked him about this, and here's how that went:

Were you still living there when the neighborhood began transitioning into what it is now?When did you start noticing it changing? You know, you have to do your homework. You do your homework and you find out the specific year when gentrification took place.

I'm asking if you witnessed that gentrification. I can't give you an exact date.

Okay, but what was your own experience of it? [No response.]

This time around he had more to say, about seven minutes worth according to NY Mag—they transcribed the entire thing. They report back that he railed against the hipsters taking over Brooklyn—sorry, that's "motherfucking hipsters"—when asked about the "other side" of the gentrification debate ("there was some bullshit article in the New York Times saying ‘the good of gentrification'"). Here are some bullet points from his talk, as well as the audio, captured by NY Mag:

§  "Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? Why did it take this great influx of white people to get the schools better? The garbage wasn’t picked up every motherfuckin’ day when I was living in 165 Washington Park... The police weren’t around... When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something."

§  "Then comes the motherfuckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome. You can’t discover this! We been here. You just can’t come and bogart. You can’t just come in the neighborhood and start bogarting and say, like you’re motherfuckin’ Columbus and kill off the Native Americans. Or what they do in Brazil, what they did to the indigenous people. You have to come with respect. There’s a code. There’s people. I’m for democracy and letting everybody live but you gotta have some respect. You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here?"

§  "When Michael Jackson died they wanted to have a party for him in motherfuckin’ Fort Greene Park and all of a sudden the white people in Fort Greene said, 'Wait a minute! We can’t have black people having a party for Michael Jackson to celebrate his life. Who’s coming to the neighborhood? They’re gonna leave lots of garbage.' Garbage? Have you seen Fort Greene Park in the morning? It’s like the motherfuckin’ Westminster Dog Show. There’s 20,000 dogs running around."

§  [After discussing people not being able to afford Williamsburg anymore...] "These real estate motherfuckers are changing names! Stuyvestant Heights? [SpaHa] What the fuck is that? What do they call Bushwick now? How you changin’ names?"

Well, as Native New Yorker Jake Dobkin once penned, "If it's any consolation, like Autumn following Summer, degentrification ('urban decay') is the inevitable second stroke of the urban cycle. Some neighborhoods, like Fort Greene, have been gentrified, degentrified, and regentrified, and will be again at some point in the future. It may take 25 or 50 years, but wait long enough and you too may get to experience falling rents and street crime!"