Enlarge Susan Pierson, David Ashley, and Sheena Bossie on the Taste of the World tour.

Posted: October 12th, 2010 Greg Lacour

“Well,” said David Ashley, settling heavily into his seat on the bus, “I’m still hungry.”

This was a joke. No one was hungry. We had just pulled away from Saigon Bistro, the third and final stop if you didn’t count coffee and dessert back at The VanLandingham Estate, where we were going now.

Now, at 8:30 p.m., three hours into Taste of the World, eyelids drooped. People emitted Oh-I’m-stuffed groans. And we were heading back for dessert?

We were. And not just us. People in 15 more buses were wrapping up their excursions into East Charlotte’s corridor of culturally diverse restaurants, from Vietnamese to Greek to Somalian to Salvadoran – 24 in all signed up for the event, preparing sample dishes for the busloads arriving at roughly 30-minute intervals.

Crossroads Charlotte was the presenting sponsor for Taste of the World, encouraging interaction between guests and with restaurant staff through <a href="Xchange" _mce_href="http://www.crossroadscharlotte.org/signature_event/5/Xchange-Tastes">Xchange">http://www.crossroadscharlotte.org/signature_event/5/Xchange-Tastes">Xchange Tastes</a>.

The annual event sold out again, and over 200 people sampled the food and atmosphere of Charlotte’s developing international corridor along Central Avenue.

“The immigrant community in Charlotte is growing and changing so much that to not reach out and experience some of that, it seems you’d be missing out on a big part of what Charlotte’s becoming,” said Pamela Johnson, “Plus, the food is really good.”

Neither Johnson or her friend, Caroline Stoneman, live on the east side, but they made a pact with each other to eat at its ethnic restaurants more often. “Charlotte can be kind of homogenous,” Stoneman said, “and the east side gives you a break from that.”

That’s the kind of sentiment members of <a href="Eastland" _mce_href="http://www.charlotteeast.com/index.htm">Eastland">http://www.charlotteeast.com/index.htm">Eastland Area Strategies Team</a> (Charlotte E.A.S.T.), Taste of the World’s organizing body, likes to hear. Charlotte E.A.S.T. was founded seven years ago to support economic development in the area surrounding Eastland Mall, and Taste of the World is its showcase event, introducing people to a rich mix of cultures and cuisines they may not have seen or thought about.

Take Jamile’s, a tiny Somalian place in a strip mall off Central that you really have to look for to find. Traci Lacavia, another first-timer, remarked afterward that she would’ve thought Jamile’s was a laundromat from its exterior.

But the food: roast goat meat, curry chicken, combinations of rice and pasta, flat bread and a spicy sauce. Everyone wolfed it down with vigor, even if they weren’t sure exactly what they were eating.

“OK, this is goat,” said Susan Pierson, who’d come with Ashley and his girlfriend, Sheena Bossie. She nudged morsels with her fork. “And this is … chicken?”

Pierson snagged one of the servers. “Hey,” she said, “could we get a rundown of what everything is?”

“Actually,” came the reply, “I’m Egyptian, not Somalian.”

Another notch for diversity. Pierson eventually got her answers as she cleared her plate.

“Yeah,” she said, satisfied, “I’d eat here again.”

Replied Bossie: “They should do this every month.”

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