@ManicProgressive wrote:Washington (CNN) — As salsa and merengue beats pulse in the background, diners are lining up at one of the newest restaurants in the nation's capital.It's called "Immigrant Food," and it's just a block from the White House.The fast-casual spot caters to a weekday lunchtime crowd, with bowls blending cuisines from different cultures around the globe -- like a dish that combines Vietnamese spicy-rice noodles with pickled bananas in what the restaurant says is an "ode both to Central America's favorite fruit and to German-style pickling." It also gives diners a chance to donate to local immigrant advocacy groups -- all under a slogan aiming to bridge the political divide and find common ground: "United at the Table."During the restaurant's opening week, co-founder Peter Schechter has been shaking visitors' hands and offering menu suggestions as they wait in line to order during the lunch rush.He wants people to feel at home here, and to hear the story he's excited to tell.As the child of immigrants from Austria and Germany, Schechter says he felt like he had to respond to the surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric across the United States."This isn't the America I recognize. ... Somehow it has become normal to disparage, to feel you can talk down to immigrants, like immigrants are not good for this country," he says. "Immigrants have been the foundation of growth and vibrancy. This country has been great again and again and again because of immigrants."And what better way to fight back, he says, than with food."Immigrants are feeding America," he says. "All of the industries that make food, whether it is the picking or the shucking or the meatpacking or the slaughterhouses, (or) in restaurants, the servers, the bus boys, this is an industry that is dominated by immigrants, even if your restaurant is called McDonald's."
Sounds GREAT, Manic! Thanks for the "heads-up"...it's on my MUST visit list for our Thanksgiving trip to DC for my sista's first anniversary. After of course we visit Piccolina da Centolina and Anju. 
