#Vice restaurant body series

'The girls got scared and started running away. Some of the Talibs were carrying guns, Muhammadi says, alarming the staff. Just the day before the birthday party, the Taliban's Ministry of Vice and Virtue paid a visit to check if the restaurant was complying with religious edicts, as they had at other nearby restaurants. 'The female waiters make women comfortable here,' she says.Ī visit from the Ministry of Vice and VirtueĪs owner of a women-only restaurant, Muhammadi has had to navigate some tricky situations. Muhammadi says having an all-female serving staff makes all the difference. When women's access to public life is shrinking, any move to keep this space open for women is paramount,' Shapour says. 'It's not only important for the women who work there the restaurant also provides a space for women to gather and socialize outside the home. But a whole restaurant dedicated to serving and employing women is quite rare, and, according to analyst Shapour, fills an important niche. Many restaurants have designated family areas where men can only enter if they're accompanying female relatives. It is not common for women to visit restaurants on their own in Afghanistan, for fear of harassment by men. Nava Jamshidi Bolani is a traditional vegetable-stuffed flatbread. In some rural areas, women are not allowed to leave the house without a mahram (a blood male relative or their husbands), so this limits their job options,' explains Roxanna Shapour, a researcher with Afghanistan Analysts Network. 'Some families do not want the women in their families to work in the same office as men who are not related to them. and most government jobs, women are still allowed to work in the private sector in Afghanistan. 'Even the beggars on the road come here looking for work.'Įven before the Taliban returned to power, women's lives have been strictly controlled in culturally conservative Afghanistan.ĭespite the restrictions in place for NGOs, the U.N. The word travels fast: Wherever they are, when they hear that she pays 100 Afghani ($1 U.S.) a day, they seek her out, Muhammadi says. The desperate economic situation drives women to Muhammadi. Owner Samira Muhammadi says that makes her female customers comfortable. Nava Jamshidi The serving staff and nearly all of the cooks at Banowan-e-Afghan are women and girls. There is no other way for her to bring food on the table.' 'One of the women has six children, and her husband passed away. 'I thought these vulnerable women should have a source of income,' Muhammadi says. Many are widows and often the sole breadwinner in their family. The women employed here come from underprivileged backgrounds. I had no choice but to start working on my own,' says Samira Muhammadi, 31, a mother of three. 'Last night, customers were coming but I'd already sent everyone home. It has been a busy couple of days for the woman behind this enterprise. On this day, a group of young women in headscarves and long robes had come to celebrate a birthday party - a rare festive gathering of females in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. This pop-up restaurant opened in March and within a few days was already drawing customers. The restaurant is run by women, for women: While men can order takeout, only female customers are allowed inside. She is a server at this rarest of Afghan businesses: a dine-in restaurant for women, called Banowan-e-Afghan (Dari for 'Afghan ladies'). Inside, a woman in a hijab and a white apron is starting to clean up the balloons, ribbons and empty plates strewn across tables. Or in the words of Big Body Bes, “this ain’t no Red Lobster shit.By the side of a busy road in Northwestern Kabul, the savory smell of bolani, traditional vegetable-stuffed flatbread, wafts out of a cloth-walled, temporary building. With the Dom Pérignon flowing, it was a feast for the history books. At the end of the meal, not a crumb was left in sight.

#Vice restaurant body series

The duo pays a visit to NYC’s two-Michelin-star seafood restaurant, Marea, where chef Michael White cooks up an elaborate six-course meal involving a decadent series of seafood dishes everything from four styles of crudo to fusilli with red wine-braised octopus and bone marrow, hand-made lamb agnolotti, and five types of desserts. In this debut episode, Action is joined by friend and cousin by association, Big Body Bes, a self-proclaimed performer from Brooklyn. From halal stands to Michelin star restaurants, Action and his rotating cast of dinner companions will dine in a wide range of remarkable spots to give us their honest opinions-both on and off the plate. Welcome to our new food series with Action Bronson, where we’ll travel the world with Action and his motley crew of associates to check out the finest dives and dimes of the restaurant scene.