The New York Times today reports on an interesting trend in Mumbai where "hunger cafes" take drive-by donations for the starving. These restaurants serve cheap meals to the poor who sit in front and wait for passing motorists to give them the cash they need to eat.
The hunger cafes are clustered together on a street in the city's Muslim Mahim neighborhood. They serve rice and "yellow curried gruel" in both meaty and vegetarian varieties. A meal at one of the cafes costs about 25 cents.
According to the Times, this up close and personal style of charity is a part of Indian culture. The paper reports that "anonymous, checkbook-style charity has yet to catch on" in India. Mumbaikars apparently prefer what the Times describes as good old fashioned "feudal charity: making donations to those below you in your household chain of command."
As of today, Turkey has banned smoking in all enclosed areas. But getting people to comply may be quite a task, as half of all Turks smoke at least occasionally, according to Gallup.
If you're not ready to quit, you'll find a reprieve at bars, cafes and restaurants: They'll have until July 2009 to go smoke-free. Until then, one waiter says, you'll be able to skirt the restrictions:
I don't think the Turkish people will follow this law ... They will find a way around it. But I think it's a good change. Even as a nonsmoker, I feel like I am smoking.
Starting today, the only places you can legally smoke in France are private homes and open-air public spaces. About 70 percent of the French public thinks the ban is a good idea. But there's at least one way around the prohibition.
Christophe Cadet, who owns Cafe 203 in Lyon, plans to flout the ban in the name of performance art. Patrons will be allowed to smoke, he says, between noon and 2 pm. He's put up a banner reading:
Cultural and social experimental zone: You are exposing yourself to the threat of second-hand smoke.
Cadet plans to endure the government fines--of up to $1,100--by selling ashtrays. Knowing how popular smoking is in French cafes, we're guessing he'll also rake in tons of sales for those two cig-friendly hours.
France isn't the only place kicking the habit in 2008. A wide-ranging indoor smoking ban Chicago--and the rest of Illinois--started at 12:01 am on January 1. While some locals don't like being told they can't smoke, others are loving it. One woman even came up with a new name for New Year's: "Happy no more smoking in bars day." Guess we shouldn't expect any civil disobedience from Chicago, then?
Take a few minutes to step off of bustling Broadway in SoHo on your next downtown NYC trip, and step into Aroma Espresso Bar, a relaxing coffee bar, where it's easy to waste the rest of the day. Open 24-hours a day, Aroma (perfect for a pre or post Angelika Film Center stop) has everything from basic cappuccinos to Israeli sandwiches, as it's an outpost of the popular Israel-based chain. While Aroma's interiors can be a bit jarring--think lots of red, black, and white--the crowd is a mix of stylish scensters and neighborhood types looking for a place to hide out. Bring your laptop: the WiFi is free and outlets are plentiful, but you might have to wait a bit for a seat if it's crowded. A nice Starbucks alternative with atmosphere and strong coffee.
Okay, it's more than one block, but just barely. From 12th to 14th Streets between Avenues A and B, a WiFi utopia has emerged, and all within a relatively short amount of time.
First, there was the B Cup Cafe (hours: 7:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.), the friendly storefront on 13th + B with coffee and free WiFi. Where B Cup fails is its crap food, because they carry the same oily, gunked-up muffins that the breakfast carts do. But it's still free WiFi, and the staff is nice. Next came Rapture Cafe & Books (hours: 8 a.m. - midnight), the très progressive hybrid peformance space/book store/cafe/WiFi heaven, on Avenue A between 12th + 13th.
And now, the dubiously christened Gramstand (hours: 7 a.m. - "quite late") on Avenue A between 13th + 14th. No, unfortunately it's not a coke bar with wireless internet. It's an outpost of the Irving Place tea bar, also named Gramstand, run by owners of an internet tea store. The Avenue A location has--you guessed it--free WiFi and serves loose leaf tea. And coffee too, thank god.
Tip: The best baked goods in WiFi-land are at Ciao For Now bakery on 12th between A + B. It doesn't have WiFi, but you'll want to grab a scone, muffin or quiche there and get a drink at your final destination.
Jaunted editor Davie Kaufmann is currently touring Japan. All this week, we'll be running stories from her Jaunted Field Trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. Have something you absolutely need to know about Japan? Just ask.
Here's another Nakazakicho pick for you. Common Cafe is a collective space where young, creative types come to take over for one time slot each, every week. Every day and night, different curators are in charge: one afternoon might see someone transforming the space into a Parisian-style patisserie with homemade sweets, while someone else will take over that night and put on an indie music show.
Some curators run separate businesses, while others come here for their only opportunity at running such an operation; the dream of owning a cafe or live space is popular among young Osakans, but many of them find it hard to realize or maintain due to financial constraints. Money made from nighttime cover charges goes back towards keeping the cafe running, while those who sell their food during the day are free to take home the profits.
Jaunted editor Davie Kaufmann is currently touring Japan. All this week, we'll be running stories from her Jaunted Field Trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. Have something you absolutely need to know about Japan? Just ask.
There are a whole bunch of new photos up in the Jaunted pool on Flickr. Consider the new additions a mini-tour of sorts, a peek into the creative enclave of Nakazakicho in Osaka. Though some guidebooks will lead you to believe there are no such "cute" things in town, this nabe is packed with independent cafes and shops, almost all of them housed in old wooden buildings (as opposed to those "concrete boxes").
Rent is still low in Nakazakicho, meaning that many of the young generation who come here to open up shop do so as a means of artistic expression rather than of getting filthy rich (or perhaps doing more than breaking right above even). The shops are full of handmade goods, and the cafes are teeny-tiny.
Pictured above is Le Flacon, a small cafe/shop that serves drinks, cheesecake, and, as is popular here, French-themed goods. More Nakazakicho spotlights just for you coming soon.
Piedmont Avenue is a strip on the border of Oakland and suburb Piedmont (i.e. a safe area) that has a couple of blocks of shops, some restaurants and three big coffee houses. Two of them are chains--Starbucks and Peet's--but the third is the one worth checking out.
Gaylord's Caffe Espresso has been brewing up coffee drinks and ice cream since 1976, way before espresso became cool. Today the place is the anti-corporate america coffee shop that cares about its coffee drinks. The place has tons of personality from its alternative-looking yet happy employees to the artworks by local artists hung on the walls (and for sale) to the Pac-man table game.
There's also wireless internet access available for a $1 per hour fee. With that, you get a wifi code but one of the store employees said they never change the code and the system only ends up charging you once. So feasibly, until they change the code (which could be once a month) you have unlimited WiFi for a buck.
As with most espresso shops, you can get pretty much any drink your heart desires along with regular coffee too and some food. Plus, you'll feel much cooler having gone to Gaylord's than Starbucks across the street.
Insider Tip: Order your iced drinks with Gaylord's Coffee Cubes. They are essentially ice cubes made out of coffee so that as your iced drink starts to melt, it gets diluted with coffee instead of water. Take that, Starbucks!
