Pre Dining Expectations, The Union Cabaret and Grill

Most of my experiences with American gastronomy have been with junk food like burgers, pizza, hot dogs, French fries and chicken tenders.  I wondered if I could find gourmet restaurants, apart from this type of food. I doubted the United States only has fast food.  Besides, in my Food and Travel class, I always hear to my classmates that they have visited different good restaurants close from here. I have been doing some type of research, trying to find a good American restaurant in Kalamazoo city. I am sure you can find high quality restaurants in the States, but I though all of them were specialized in other countries’ gastronomy like French, Italian, or even Japanese food and they are located in big cities like Chicago.

 My host mother, an American woman from Detroit, suggested going “The Union Cabaret Grill” restaurant from Millennium group, in downtown Kalamazoo. This is a specialized American food restaurant. As a good host, she wanted to introduce her guest to good food. “We don’t only eat McDonalds”, she says. “You will be surprised”. Surprise? What type of surprise? Maybe I will try completely new flavors. Maybe I will go to a really fancy place. Maybe I will be shocked.  I hope it will be a completely different food experience from my old ones.

I don’t really know what to expect. I’ve always had the stereotype that Americans don’t have fancy food because I have mostly visited McDonalds or Subway type of restaurants. I guess the menu will offer greasy and enormous dishes like ribs and pork meat, something with turkey, salads with different mayonnaise dressings, pasta like macaroni and cheese and probably apple pie or pecan pie. I don’t know why, but a Thanksgiving dinner comes to my mind. I imagine this place full of men drinking beer in the bar and listening to country music. Yes, I know, another American stereotype. Too many American movies! Once I went to TGI Fridays, a typical USA restaurant. The food was good, but one thing that shocked me was the dishes’ sizes. I couldn’t eat all that food! One of characteristics of American culture is that everything is BIG. Probably is this restaurant the dishes will be normal since as it is gourmet.  

 As Lucy M. Young says “Food as well can carry us into the realms of experience, allowing us to be tourists while you stay at home, go to a restaurant, read cookbooks or watch televised cooking shows”. This means I will be a tourist, an outsider, a foreigner is this place. My main purpose is to experience change. Everything will be kind of exotic. I will cross a new border. I’m really looking forward to see The Union’s dishes.  

One of my concerns is if I get disappointed. Perhaps it is only a normal place with a little bit more elaborate food, nothing especial. However, my host mother words resound in my head. “The Union” is a place I want to go not only because of its food, but because curiosity is killing me.