Culture & Travel

Notes from the Ital Grove: January

By Gregor Altman 1/12/05

“Strictly Roots”

Central Harlem is the home to Strictly Roots, a restaurant that modestly provides positivity, with vegetarian substance, message, and a free and welcoming space. In the shadow of the bustling shopping thoroughfare of 125th Street, amidst the KFCs and other FFF (fast food franchises) stinkery, and a spanking new multiplex cinema in the theme park Harlem USA, a garden of goodness grows on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. Under an unassuming green awning, Strictly Roots beckons to the forlorn wanderer or seeker from afar.

The area was not always as it is now. Back in 1991 when DeeCee, the restaurant’s proprietor and presence, opened the place, Harlem was a dilapidated neighborhood that he equated with a ‘war zone’. “On this block the restaurant, save a couple of bodegas on the corners, was the only building that was occupied, the rest were abandoned.” It seemed like an area that needed what he wanted to provide--fresh, healthy food. When DeeCee, who grew up in Kingston, came to the States 23 years ago, he worked as an engineer, often traveling around the country. He noted that it was particularly difficult to find places to eat with good, wholesome food. While he hadn’t been a vegetarian when he arrived here, he noticed the difference in the food due to all the preservatives, antibiotics, and other chemicals used in U.S. food. Influenced by some vegans he met here, he changed his eating habits, and began to recognize the need for sources of alternate, non-meat based food. Harlem, with an established West Indian community that pre-dates those in the Bronx and Brooklyn, seemed a good place to open up shop.

Strictly Roots is a vegan restaurant, but rather than proclaim itself as such, states to those who enter or pass by that it “serves nothing that walks, swims, crawls, or flies.” This sentence is quintessentially DeeCee, I would soon find out. Upon arrival, I found DeeCee playing chess with someone on the other side of the counter. Saying hello but leaving him be, I withdrew to study the dining selections and the wall opposite the counter, which was loaded with all sorts of posters and fliers. All viewpoints were represented. My favorite was a framed poster with a drawing of a dinosaur ready to dine (replete with napkin, fork, and knife). It posed the question ”How to win an argument with a meat-eater? Outsmart him, outrun him, outlive him.” Posters of Malcolm, Marley, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Public Enemy caught the eye along with pleas for protests against the Republican National Convention.

The food at Strictly Roots is a mixture of a number of different cuisines, both Caribbean and otherwise. The clear standout of was a dish made of chickpeas in a creamy coconut sauce, seasoned with turmeric, thyme, and garlic. There were also collard greens, a fried tofu ‘tempura’, boiled cassava (made real tasty by adding “Brags All-Natural Liquid Aminos”, something akin to soy sauce in flavor), and a soy based “Veggie Beef” in a potent BBQ sauce with red peppers and onion. On other days a “Veggie Salmon” is offered, also made from soy, with seaweed added for some taste of the sea. Strictly Roots also specializes in homemade beverages that are “inspired by the Caribbean experience”. I sampled their zesty ginger beer and their sorrel, which is a flavorful vermillion colored drink made from steeped flower blossoms. The fried sweet plantains were delicious and tasted as if it had sugar added, but DeeCee professed did not because he “gets them ripe.” Each item could be ordered in 1, 2, or 3 dollar servings. The two large plates my friend and I got together cost $6. While I took my time, DeeCee made swift business by serving up veggie burgers. A plastic bottle of Muir Glen Organic Ketchup took the place of Heinz 57 on the counter.

It was clear from the menu and its presentation that DeeCee had learned to cater to the natural/prevailing sensibilities of a typical customer. He doesn’t like labels--he feels it’s more important how you live and how you treat your fellow man than which point of view you profess. In fact he intimated that he doesn’t bother much anymore with proclamations, as they tend to put people on the defensive and potentially at odds. When asked about his religious beliefs, he declined any affiliation except to say that he recognizes “The Creator”. He said he couldn’t relate to organized religions because they “trap you into a certain perspective, and tend to make you hurt others in its name.”

While he clearly had opinions about what he felt was right or wrong, DeeCee struck me as much more of a passive enabler, and with his restaurant he provides a space for others to express their views, creating a forum for community interaction. “This place”, he said, is “open to anyone promoting a good cause or seeking righteous expression.”

DeeCee’s philosophy seems based upon harmony and the resistance to divisions. He sees the “world as one race”, and stated, “that we are more similar than we are different.” The problem is that people “are conditioned to see small differences as very important.” Some of his inspirations are Selassie, Nelson Mandela, and Marcus Garvey. His deeds extend beyond providing wholesome food for the community. He also supports an orphanage in Ghana, for which he collects clothes, books, wheelchairs, and all manner of useful things. He helps to arrange transport of these goods over to Africa, and spends a few months in the year over there. He also helps to run a guesthouse in Ghana, which can be contacted thru www.strictly-roots.net.

We rounded out the visit with a shot of ‘Baji,’ a Chinese herbal wine, and an assortment of desserts, the best clearly being the gizzarda (coconut tart sweetened with brown sugar). Our bellies were certainly left satisfied, but we also came away with that feeling which comes from patronizing a place that provides needed goodness on many levels.

Strictly Roots Restaurant is located at 2058 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, Harlem, New York, NY, 10027 and can be reached at 212.864.8699.

Gregor Altman is a longtime student and willing participant of explorations in exotic cultures and cuisines. He has gravitated to those which make use of hot spices and medicinal botanicals. Recent involvements include managing a natural food producer in New Mexico, and volunteering at a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm on Long Island, New York. He can be reached at gregornyc@earthlink.net.