In Gastropolis, the author points out that restaurants are used for assimilation, because eating out is eating American and this helps immigrants negotiate their identity. But, I don’t think it’s that simple. Another dimension to it is that when people open up ethnic restaurants, they cheat on the authenticity of the food to appeal to Americans, and so the people of that ethnic group coming there are still getting assimilated. So when Chinese people open up a store that isn’t authentic to appeal to Americans, the owners themselves are assimilating and so are the Chinese people coming in. So the question is, it’s clear that a Bengali man is assimilating when he eats out at American restaurants, but is he also assimilating, and having his identity changed, inadvertantly, when going to a Bengali restaurant, because business owners want to appeal to Americans? How much of a factor are non-“American” restaurants in assimilation?