you could drive by a restaurant 10 times
and not even really know that it's there
we're not near anything you have to make
an effort to come to our place so it's
us here from all these different
backgrounds coming and doing phenomenal
work blows people's minds away pandan
rice you add to that very creamy very
strong curry chicken it's all about the
curry this is the Durga it's a
functioning sheep farm I don't even
think a lot of people in New York know
that New York is like this people can
happen into the restaurant and they'll
say where am i how did I end up here I
kind of like the romantic notion that
people stumble across it and it is a
word-of-mouth place yeah
- Hassan tzatziki I am the general
manager and part owner of the tulip in
the Rose my name is Erik damn coffee Oh
Lou I am a former general manager and a
part owner of the tulip and Rose cafe
we're about three hours north of New
York City Delaware County upstate New
York in the Catskill Mountains we
feature cuisine from all over the world
Indonesian Malaysian Thai Mediterranean
North African classic American we try to
branch out and kind of check all the
boxes special for vegetarians called
load a vegetarian Malay curry very
subtle very light but it's very rich and
it's very satisfying even though it's
vegetarian this is the dish that you
want we started cooking at the farmers
market nearby the locals insisted we
open up a restaurant we opened in July
2014 one thing that people love for
breakfast is we make this Japanese
noodle bowl there's people in the
Catskill Mountains we're eating noodles
for breakfast so I think that's kind of
a miracle or a thing what we're most
known for is our other than a kebab yeah
sandwich that's what started this whole
thing
also known as the gyro even if it's not
a gyro everybody calls it a Jess not a
gyro but people call them gyro
this is the osmanli dergah it is a Sufi
center following the Osman the
naqshbandi tariqa the Sufi way we have
Malay we have Indian we have Turkey we
have Egypt Syria Russia Cuba Cuba
America / Peru China so it's pretty
diverse old times it was somewhere that
people could stop and have a bowl of
soup and have a meal and have a place to
stay and we carry that tradition every
person has to have food you know but
when you transcend that need to say I
want to show you where I'm from I want
to explore your culture by learning what
you cook that's when there's a different
taste that comes that's when there's a
different beauty they come because they
appreciate our food they start to
appreciate the people who make the food
and the people who make the food are
coming from all different backgrounds so
it helps to break some barriers or some
stereotypes too because maybe something
that they hear in the news about a
certain type of people as like a
boogeyman how is it possible that they
make such such good food
we omit Aswan the equal total Nigeria so
ischemia may choke fundamental challenge
can be amicable
the Gila monster
who a mystery gingka bandit give me
partition we must Chopra's evolution you
may say that I see you dude this is the
Durga it's a functioning sheep farm were
about 10 minutes from the restaurant in
Sydney centre we moved up here around
2004-2005 back then our shake already
had a small flock of sheep it's a
beautiful place our Sheikh he bought
this property because it had a spiritual
pool our flock is not for commercial
purposes it's part of our tradition is
to always have that connection with
nature and always have that connection
with the animals and to take care of
them
Sufi Islam is traditional Islam it's
Islam the way that it was practiced by
our great-grandfather's it's Islam that
focuses on yourself when I go to sleep
at night
I'm gonna take an accounting of what I
did today what did I do that made people
happy and what did I do to break
people's hearts you're gonna have a love
for your Creator if you make something
delicious one of the chef's cook in our
kitchen when the food is prepared even
when the ingredients are bought they're
bought with the intention to say I'm
gonna cook food that's gonna give people
energy to worship I'm gonna cook food
that's gonna make people happy I'm gonna
cook
would that make people think they're
creative so her than his backgrounds
turkish mic background is Pakistani
Indian the way we practice our religion
we can't practice in our home countries
to have this amount of freedom to have
this diversity it's not gonna happen
anywhere else you know this is really
like lightning in a bottle
when people think upstate New York they
don't think Sufi Muslim group some
people were complaining that there were
men with turbans on a hill people
thought like this was a terrorist
compound the FBI raided us over here
Homeland Security FBI local police force
they shut the roads down and then they
took everybody's ID we let them look
anywhere they want and we don't have
anything except for some sheep and
chicken there's some knives in the
kitchen yes we do have knives but to cut
meat and vegetables so we have a small
cemetery of a couple people buried there
for my community and the local Town
Board of Sydney without contacting us or
reaching out to us had voted to try to
dis entire bodies the town supervisor at
that time had said that if we dysentery
from the cemetery maybe this will make
the Muslims to leave this area it picked
up some steam in the media and a lot of
people came to support us and it helped
us to become known in the area people
who you look at him first glance and you
would think that they would hate to have
us here they came out and said we do not
agree with this a lot of that spurred us
to open the restaurant to kind of give
us a little bit more of a presence in
the area
locally at least in this county people
don't look at us as like the boogeyman
anymore they realized that worth we're
human too Americans too we just come
from different backgrounds maybe have a
different spiritual tradition we don't
hold grudges it's not something that we
live in we don't live in that time in
2010 when everybody was against us you
know like we live in the good that came
from that the ease that came after that
hardship when you break bread with
somebody and you get to know them the
barrier start coming down hate like to
go away to be a diamond in the rough
that's just kind of a bonus there's a
different pool to this area there's
something else going on and I think when
there you get people together who
acknowledge that they kind of abandon
that this is weird and just give in to
it and say okay there would be this
crazy restaurant somewhere around here
because this place is created a good
crazy
