A few years back I wrote about finding an Indian restaurant tucked away into an old truck stop along I-80 in western Nebraska. The post was titled Butter Chicken on I-80. I tell everyone I know who travels that route to stop in for some great Indian food.
Since most people think scrambled eggs, bacon, and burgers when it comes to truck stop food people are surprised to hear about a place that serves biryani and chapattis.
Our local public radio station did a wonderful story over the weekend about the growing number of recent immigrants who are taking up long-haul trucking and the eateries that are popping up to cater to their culinary tastes.
Truck driver Aman Singh, 30, must traverse the 660 miles from northeastern Pennsylvania to Louisville, Ky., on an overnight drive. Before he saddles up for the long haul, he settles into a booth at Eat Spice, a truck stop/Indian restaurant off I-80 in Luzerne County, Pa., with a plate of chicken curry and a stack of roti.
“I’ve tried American food too,” he says, before a long pause. “But mostly I don’t like it.”
Singh came to the United States from New Delhi and says he’s not used to all of the frozen and processed food options in the United States.
Eat Spice caters to a unique intersection: where rural America meets an increasingly diverse cadre of truckers looking for a taste of home as they jockey between warehouses and retail outlets.
Go here to listen to or read the entire report.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m on my next road trip (next week, perhaps?) I’m going to keep my eye out for truck stops that serve Indian food.
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Photo by Todd Lappin, via Flickr
Just west of Laramie, Wyoming there is an Indian restaurant at a truck stop. Guady, sticky, plastic table cloths for those who want to sit and eat with the white plastic ware, napkins ripped in half and opened jars of spicy hot mango Achar sitting on the tables to enjoy while waiting for your food. If you speak a little Hindi/Urdu they will refuse to speak English to you for the rest of the visit. Great food, good price and thankful for a good restroom at the Laramie hotel, which I seemed to have used most of the night, because apparently it was really authentic food. Also have multiple Indian truck stop restaurants along the I-5 corridor throughout Oregon and Washington and I’m sure California but I don’t go that way so cannot speak from experience. Based on the number of Indian subcontinent Asians getting in and out of trucks at every truck stop, I’m sure that there are are numerous Indian restaurants further south into California as well.