Guest Column By Nathan A. Waxman

It’s hard to feel nostalgic about the days when eating out in Manhattan meant choosing from pastrami, cheeseburger, or two slices of pizza. Today we, and our friends on the mainland of the US, can partake of a veritable cornucopia of world cuisines, authentic or naturalized to New World tastes, ranging from Uzbek shashlik to a multitude of Chinese regional cuisines through Colombian – or, if you prefer, Venezuelan – arepas, all the way to the newly discovered “authentic” gourmet Sicilian cuisine.

The efflorescence of exotic cuisine choices in this country was fueled by the entrepreneurship of recent immigrants from Bogotá to Bangkok, Jaipur to Jogjakarta, who brightened up the American landscape with stores and restaurants purveying the foods and goods of their homelands. These restaurants flourished by employing the labor certification/immigrant visa process to secure the employment of qualified chefs from the old country. This mechanism assured the immigration and continuing services of innumerable “specialty chefs,” thereby allowing the expansion of restaurant cuisine offerings, even in middle-American shopping center and strip malls.
Continue Reading Is That Chipotle in My Sushi? – U.S. Immigration Laws Spoil the Flavor of Dining Out