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When we meet to talk at the end of the day, Lindre comes out of the restaurant kitchen. He wears a linen jumpsuit, avi cowboy boots, he speaks Lithuanian with a charming accent that is barely felt, so first of all he talks not about the food, but about the story of the owner of Donde Food & Drink. “How to tell you here for a while …” he smiles.
New York – Austin – Vilnius
Lindre has been living in Lithuania for 13 years, has not returned to the United States for the past six years, but was born and raised in this country. Lindre’s 4 grandparents, Lithuanians, who moved to the US Due to the disasters of WWII, her parents had already been born here.
According to the interlocutor, although she herself was born and spent her first year in New York, a city where the Lithuanian community is not as strong as, for example, in Chicago, Lithuania was important in her family. For example, when he grew up, he ate traditional Lithuanian dishes, the family celebrated Christmas Eve, nothing changed, and the family moved to Texas, Austin, where Lindre graduated from school due to her father’s job.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Lindrė Silenas-Pudžiuvelienė
Here, I was constantly surrounded by a multicultural environment and filled with delicious Tex-Mex (Mexican-style dishes prepared in the United States, especially in the state of Texas). “When I went to school, I would often buy tacos for breakfast on the go, make them at home, and often my dad would bring them ready,” she recalls.
After graduating from school, Lindre entered university but, as she says now, she sought out herself: studying physics, biology, architecture, and history. “I was very interested in it, but I didn’t find my place in any way,” he recalls.
At around the same time, she visited Lithuania for the first time with her parents, and Lindrė now remembers with a smile how her parents pretended to be able to study here while walking through the Vilnius University (VU) building in the old town. At the time, she just shook her head and now this moment is sometimes remembered in the family: about a year later, after searching for herself at a university in the US, Lindre joined VU to study history.
Half a year, then a year, very quick friendships, a relationship with a future husband who studied anthropology: Lindre has lived in the capital for 13 years and her parents, who have returned from the United States, have settled here.
Julius Kalinskas / 15min photo / Restaurant “Where Food and Drink”
From restaurant kitchens to kitchens on wheels
While still studying, Lindre began working in restaurant kitchens and those that many young chefs cite as great places to study: Time and Dine restaurants (former no longer working, aut.). The interlocutor worked here for four years.
Now it’s fun to remember, but the first loyal customers of my “tacos” were employees of the US Embassy in Lithuania.
In 2016, Lindre decided to start her own business, although at first it all seemed like an interesting experiment or even an adventure. Encouraged by her husband, she bought a bus, made it suitable for cooking, and took a walk around Vilnius, stopping at certain places and selling her own tacos.
Julius Kalinskas / 15min photo / Tacos restaurant Where Food and drink
“I experienced a lot of stress, first of all it was a problem how and where to park that big car. Of course, I was a little concerned who would buy my ready-made “tacos,” says Lindre. – Now it’s fun to remember, but the first loyal customers of my “tacos” were the employees of the US Embassy in Lithuania, I drove near the embassy and sold many “tacos” made that day.
The door was opened during the quarantine.
After a couple of seasons with a bus, Lindre finally decided to open a stationary taco place – it became a corner of the Uptown Bazaar in Vilnius Naujamiestis, which had just opened at the time. If it weren’t for the coronavirus, the place would continue to operate, because the interlocutor had decided to expand, to keep both the place and a larger restaurant. However, the tacos prepared by Lindre at Uptown Bazaar are no longer available, but are now prepared in a fairly spacious restaurant on T. Shevchenko Street.
Julius Kalinskas / 15min photo / The restaurant is located in Naujamiestis, the capital
Where Food & Drink opened its doors in mid-April, so it is curious if the interviewee was not concerned that this was not the best time to open. Lindre agrees that the time was difficult, but she had no idea to freeze the project, everything was already in place and, as she says now, the quarantine time, when the food was only delivered to take away, helped to enter a new rate and volume of cooking.
As one of the most stressful days, remember when it was already possible to visit the restaurants live: the guests flooded, some of them, already faithful buyers, and new ones appeared.
Men in costumes also come to us, put their ties on their backs and eat “tacos” with courage; no special skills required.
Who eats tacos and how should this dish be properly tasted so that everything is not spilled on the table or the chest? According to Lindre, he would no longer call his guests hipsters (“because he no longer knows what that means”), but the so-called young professionals, self-employed, the largest group of people between 25 and 35 years old.
Usually the biggest wave of diners floods the restaurant at lunchtime, then naturally subsides, and then it’s time for the late-night sessions. And so, 5 days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Lindrė Silenas-Pudžiuvelienė
However, eating tacos does not require special skills; some prefer them wrapped in foil (this is how tacos are delivered when ordered at the office or home), others, served on a plate. In the latter case, take the tortilla bottom side up and wrap the filling around the sides and eat with your head slightly tilted to the side. “Men in costumes also come to us, put their ties on their backs and eat tacos bravely, no special skills are required,” smiles the interviewee.
When asked which “tacos” everyone liked the most and how Lithuanians react to spicy, because some of the sauces served with this meal are not lacking, Lindre mentions that the most popular are “tacos” with ripped pork, guests also liked their very favorite “Austin”. A tacos named after the city in which it grew up in honor. It’s a breakfast (but also suitable for the rest of the day) paired with egg-roasted bacon.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Ingredients for filling baked tacos
And the tolerance of compatriots to sharpness, according to Lindre, is very different. Some say “very spicy”, although there is nothing spicy in the dish, just a bright taste, while others feel the real thrill of eating as spicy as possible, so a trend is not even noticeable.
Everything with your own hands, from tortillas to sauces
The special place of Donde Food & Drink is also because all the necessary ingredients for the tacos are prepared on their own, although it would not be so difficult to buy and prepare or almost prepare, some of the spices are even shipped from abroad by the restaurant. The restaurant uses a special machine from Mexico to produce tortillas, mix sauces, prepare spice mixes, the beans come from Spain, fresh vegetables and greens, meat, of course, Lithuanian.
The restaurant produces an average of 400 tacos a day, about 20 percent. This amount is withdrawn when people place orders through delivery apps, some are prepared to go, others are eaten in a restaurant that seats 30-45 guests. “In fact, we can produce harder at the moment, for example, we could work more actively with food suppliers, but we do not want quality to suffer in a hurry,” explains the interlocutor.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Details of the interior of the restaurant
I long for less than Austin wander
The restaurant founded by Lindre currently employs 6 people, she also occasionally goes into the kitchen and works with orders, but, as she admits, she now contributes a little less to cooking than she would like, because working with documents and bureaucratic concerns takes long time. “It’s a bit unfortunate, but now is the time to learn to be a director,” admits Lindre.
His back, not only a small team of staff, but also a family, a man helps with communication, parents also contribute to the smooth running of the restaurant. “Here, my mother did not visit today, she would have soaked live flowers,” says the interlocutor, who inspected the restaurant hall.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Details of the interior of the restaurant
Although Lindre has been in Lithuania for several years, is there anything she is not used to yet? What could you miss about living in the United States? She says the bureaucracy continues to tire in Lithuania, it is gradually decreasing, there is no longer a kind of hostility towards small businesses, but the paperwork is still missing.
“I have already gotten used to the supposed ‘coldness’ of the Lithuanians, in fact this is only the first impression, then the communication becomes sincere,” he says. – And from the US, of course, I miss family, friends, as well as Austin, a free hippie city, where so well vaibaswhere nobody condemns you for anything “.
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