Are People Still Eating Vegetarian in Brooklyn?
Pho Chay vegan style with beansprouts and hibiscus
iced tea, Falansai.
Photograph by Joe Hume
Henry Trieu
Owner, Falansai (Vietnamese Restaurant, Bushwick)
We get a lot of compliments from our clientele about our vegan options for dinner: five main dishes out of 15 are vegetarian/vegan. Since we opened [in May], all five are among the 10 most-sold dishes. The other five are protein dishes that we’re kind of known for: catfish, shaking beef, pork belly, etc. So without much fanfare, the vegan dishes seem to be as popular as the ones that get more attention.
As far as demographics, the 20-35 group seem to order more vegetarian than, say, baby boomers. Gender doesn’t seem to affect as much though, but I think there might be slightly more females than males… Anecdotally, I feel that Bushwick probably has as many vegan-vegetarian types as the other, more-progressive parts of Brooklyn, which probably has more than the other boroughs. I used to live in Bushwick and remember that many of my roommates were vegetarians with some vegans mixed in.
