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| - So for years Shambala was my veggie/omnivore-mix-friendly-date-go-to. The food was comforting but unique, service variable, and the space, above all is really lovely. If I want to impress someone I make a reservation for one of the cute sit-in booth tables.
Now, I visited last night for the first time since the restaurant was bought by a French Canadian family and things were different. For one, the menu has gotten significantly smaller (I'm talking there's like, a dozen things for dinner on the menu) as well items seem to be more expensive than I remember them being. In any case, the nice surprise here is that the recipes, according to the waiter, have been tweaked since the new owners came in, and it shows- everything was super flavourful.
The weird part of the evening was when we went to pay and the waiter began to talk about how "Tibetan people are ALWAYS smiling, they're all so happy all the time." I can't help but feel like it's one thing for white people to buy a Himalayan restaurant, it's another thing for them to actively tokenize and generalize the culture they're appropriating.
Too harsh? Maybe too harsh. I was kinda uncomfortable, not gonna lie.
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