I'm just going to talk about food because that's the only part I really know about as someone who had a lot of Hindu Indian friends and also vegetarian friends as a teen and in my early 20s (around the time period you're talking):
- No vegetarian friend I had did fish & chips tbh unless they really had a specific chip craving. But because of the lack of options (no salads, no vegetarian proteins) it really was just a fancy chip shop for them, which just wasn't worth it.
- The Annalakshmi (though I went more before it moved near the Bell Tower, before Elizabeth Quay existed), especially back in the day. I had a friend who worked in the kitchens there. We lived on dhal.
I had vegetarian friends in the late 90s in Perth and frankly it was dead easy to accommodate them and easy to eat their food. My best friend at the time - I spent many days with her per week and here's what we regularly ate in the late 90s and early 00s:
- Vegetarian whoppers at Hungry Jacks (we don't have Burger King here, Hungry Jacks is the closest cognate). These have been around for so long and back in the day were *really good* - like easily as good as a whopper and not pretending to be one. The burger was a sweeter lentil patty that was really solid in flavour. I went from 'hmmm no' to 'actually yeah I'm in the mood for this sometimes.' Obviously chips etc. So junk food there was covered. I cannot stress how much we lived on these. For K in particular, the absolute top tier cheap junk food was veggie whoppers from HJ's, and I think we actually got them *at least* once a week.
The attitude towards McDonalds - which had zero attempts to please vegetarians - was fairly low among most vegetarians at the time. Friends had varying feelings about the chips being cooked in animal fat. Some were fine with it, others not.
- Our Indian Hindu friends had zero problems eating here btw. They were all teens-to-early-20s though, so the lack of adherence to strictness re: preparation could have been that they were teens lol.
- Vegetarian pizzas from Dominos (which used to be better quality than it is there), especially those that were loaded with extra toppings. This brought me around to veggie pizzas.
- Most tofu dishes (excluding Mapo etc.) and many Chinese venues in particular offered tofu alternatives. While veganism was extremely uncommon in this period of time, vegetarianism was common, and restaurants knew it was wise to offer tofu substitutes in many South East Asian places. I had the best tofu pad thai from a restaurant that no longer exists (Bliss on Beaufort Street, which is now Monggo - I previously had the chicken pad thai and the tofu was better).
- Substitute proteins were actually quite uncommon, you could not expect to find them when eating out. You had tofu, and you had mushrooms, and that was it for substitute proteins. I think later seitan also became more popular, but no one really knew what to do with it on the restaurant/cafe circuit.
- Vegetarian big breakfasts didn't exist on menus yet really, but they were easy to 'create' and many people would get a base meal like mushrooms on toast and then add sides like beans, hash browns etc.
- The hole-in-the-wall Hare Krishna restaurant was one of the best cheap feeds in Northbridge. I have no idea if they're still around, but I think it was around $10 for all you can eat.
- Annalakshmi was a gold coin donation, though it was the norm to pay around $10-20 (you could always tell newcomers who didn't know this). That being said, the Annalakshmi (which also used to hold Diwali festivals in the 90s and early 00s and was my first experience of Diwali) were truly understanding of very elderly people and teenagers only paying gold coin donations when they couldn't afford more. Whether your character went to the Annalakshmi or not, it was absolutely *iconic* as a central Perth vegetarian (ALL vegetarian, zero meat dishes on the premises) Hindu restaurant, and also very culturally central back in the day. Everyone knew about it, had heard of it, and most who were Hindu had been there at least once. Teens may/may not want to keep going there on their own because they might have been associating it with their parents and family, but we went all the time, and there was - from memory - zero shame in doing so. In fact I remember being really delighted to learn more about Hinduism this way (esp Diwali) and frankly the food was always absolutely goated.
It's still around, but it's not as good as it used to be (my favourite Annalakshmi era was its less fancy era when it was on Riverside Drive (I think) and before it rebuilt near the Bell Tower).
- Finally, a lot of friend get-togethers centred around vegetarian meals cooked at home, usually one pot meals. During this time I was introduced to carrot and ginger soup (still a fave), dhal from the family whose kid worked at the Annalakshmi, etc. It wasn't things like nut loafs and the vegetarian stuff most white people make, and so on, it was like... the kind of junky, cheese heavy food many teens (inc vegetarians) love. Cheese toasties and tomato soup, cheese and spinach packet ravioli, pasta with jar tomato sauce and a mountain of grated cheese - vegetarian comfort food - that was huge.
This is making me miss the food of my teenage years. I cook a lot of vegetarian meals these days solely because of the friends I hung out in high school and just after, and that influenced also where I went to eat the most. It actually *wasn't* Utopia, only because I had more Indian friends and so they were choosing to go to the Annalakshmi and the Hare Krishna place, oh and frankly we were poor and Utopia was EXPENSIVE. So I will say that the food choices your chara has will be influenced strongly by how affluent they are. We were all working for our own money, so the cheapest feeds were the best options (like a deal on pizzas, or a two-for-one whopper meal deal (which could be used for the vegetarian whopper)).
- I will say that a friend of mine who was a teenaged girl from India (immigrant parents) during that time was quite soft-spoken and well-mannered around her parents. To my knowledge, she had an arranged marriage but was also pretty fine with it. This still continues in many parts of Perth (one of my partners now works with people who are in arranged marriages all the time). But she wasn't soft-spoken and well-mannered around us, lol, people in their teens/early 20s are going to be rebelling generally no matter what in their friend groups. How she behaved around her parents was pretty radically different, and her I remember her father was extremely strict BUT that could have just been her family and not reflective of anything else, y'know?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2024-04-19 01:07 am (UTC)- No vegetarian friend I had did fish & chips tbh unless they really had a specific chip craving. But because of the lack of options (no salads, no vegetarian proteins) it really was just a fancy chip shop for them, which just wasn't worth it.
- The Annalakshmi (though I went more before it moved near the Bell Tower, before Elizabeth Quay existed), especially back in the day. I had a friend who worked in the kitchens there. We lived on dhal.
I had vegetarian friends in the late 90s in Perth and frankly it was dead easy to accommodate them and easy to eat their food. My best friend at the time - I spent many days with her per week and here's what we regularly ate in the late 90s and early 00s:
- Vegetarian whoppers at Hungry Jacks (we don't have Burger King here, Hungry Jacks is the closest cognate). These have been around for so long and back in the day were *really good* - like easily as good as a whopper and not pretending to be one. The burger was a sweeter lentil patty that was really solid in flavour. I went from 'hmmm no' to 'actually yeah I'm in the mood for this sometimes.' Obviously chips etc. So junk food there was covered. I cannot stress how much we lived on these. For K in particular, the absolute top tier cheap junk food was veggie whoppers from HJ's, and I think we actually got them *at least* once a week.
The attitude towards McDonalds - which had zero attempts to please vegetarians - was fairly low among most vegetarians at the time. Friends had varying feelings about the chips being cooked in animal fat. Some were fine with it, others not.
- Our Indian Hindu friends had zero problems eating here btw. They were all teens-to-early-20s though, so the lack of adherence to strictness re: preparation could have been that they were teens lol.
- Vegetarian pizzas from Dominos (which used to be better quality than it is there), especially those that were loaded with extra toppings. This brought me around to veggie pizzas.
- Most tofu dishes (excluding Mapo etc.) and many Chinese venues in particular offered tofu alternatives. While veganism was extremely uncommon in this period of time, vegetarianism was common, and restaurants knew it was wise to offer tofu substitutes in many South East Asian places. I had the best tofu pad thai from a restaurant that no longer exists (Bliss on Beaufort Street, which is now Monggo - I previously had the chicken pad thai and the tofu was better).
- Substitute proteins were actually quite uncommon, you could not expect to find them when eating out. You had tofu, and you had mushrooms, and that was it for substitute proteins. I think later seitan also became more popular, but no one really knew what to do with it on the restaurant/cafe circuit.
- Vegetarian big breakfasts didn't exist on menus yet really, but they were easy to 'create' and many people would get a base meal like mushrooms on toast and then add sides like beans, hash browns etc.
- The hole-in-the-wall Hare Krishna restaurant was one of the best cheap feeds in Northbridge. I have no idea if they're still around, but I think it was around $10 for all you can eat.
- Annalakshmi was a gold coin donation, though it was the norm to pay around $10-20 (you could always tell newcomers who didn't know this). That being said, the Annalakshmi (which also used to hold Diwali festivals in the 90s and early 00s and was my first experience of Diwali) were truly understanding of very elderly people and teenagers only paying gold coin donations when they couldn't afford more. Whether your character went to the Annalakshmi or not, it was absolutely *iconic* as a central Perth vegetarian (ALL vegetarian, zero meat dishes on the premises) Hindu restaurant, and also very culturally central back in the day. Everyone knew about it, had heard of it, and most who were Hindu had been there at least once. Teens may/may not want to keep going there on their own because they might have been associating it with their parents and family, but we went all the time, and there was - from memory - zero shame in doing so. In fact I remember being really delighted to learn more about Hinduism this way (esp Diwali) and frankly the food was always absolutely goated.
It's still around, but it's not as good as it used to be (my favourite Annalakshmi era was its less fancy era when it was on Riverside Drive (I think) and before it rebuilt near the Bell Tower).
- Finally, a lot of friend get-togethers centred around vegetarian meals cooked at home, usually one pot meals. During this time I was introduced to carrot and ginger soup (still a fave), dhal from the family whose kid worked at the Annalakshmi, etc. It wasn't things like nut loafs and the vegetarian stuff most white people make, and so on, it was like... the kind of junky, cheese heavy food many teens (inc vegetarians) love. Cheese toasties and tomato soup, cheese and spinach packet ravioli, pasta with jar tomato sauce and a mountain of grated cheese - vegetarian comfort food - that was huge.
This is making me miss the food of my teenage years. I cook a lot of vegetarian meals these days solely because of the friends I hung out in high school and just after, and that influenced also where I went to eat the most. It actually *wasn't* Utopia, only because I had more Indian friends and so they were choosing to go to the Annalakshmi and the Hare Krishna place, oh and frankly we were poor and Utopia was EXPENSIVE. So I will say that the food choices your chara has will be influenced strongly by how affluent they are. We were all working for our own money, so the cheapest feeds were the best options (like a deal on pizzas, or a two-for-one whopper meal deal (which could be used for the vegetarian whopper)).
- I will say that a friend of mine who was a teenaged girl from India (immigrant parents) during that time was quite soft-spoken and well-mannered around her parents. To my knowledge, she had an arranged marriage but was also pretty fine with it. This still continues in many parts of Perth (one of my partners now works with people who are in arranged marriages all the time). But she wasn't soft-spoken and well-mannered around us, lol, people in their teens/early 20s are going to be rebelling generally no matter what in their friend groups. How she behaved around her parents was pretty radically different, and her I remember her father was extremely strict BUT that could have just been her family and not reflective of anything else, y'know?