On Mar. 8, 2016 Malden Eats hosted a dinner at the Joti Palace located at 308 Main Street in Malden. This was part of the Malden Eats Community Dining Series. People were invited to enjoy a meal while talking about 2016’s Malden Reads Selected Book, “The Martian” by Andy Weir.
Joti Palace is a family run restaurant and their menu has a fusion of authentic Indian and Nepalese styles. Joti Palace recently celebrated their 15 year anniversary. Their menu had an array of different foods including lamb curry and tandoori chicken. The food was set out buffet style and was $15, not including a tip.
Walking into Joti’s Palace, there were about 25 people there right when the dinner was set to start. After a couple of minutes one of the organizers, Michele Marcinowski, introduced herself and talked about the many events that they will have later on this year. Then she encouraged everyone to talk to new people and make new friends.
The event brought in many different people and there were multiple people talking about how Malden Eats has taken off since it first started. There were even people from other cities who attended the event because they had heard about it from their friends.
Malden Eats has been around for five years. When Paula Spizziri, one of the organizers, was asked about how they choose the restaurants for the dining series she said that they “try to choose local and independant restaurants so they can support the local businesses.” They also try to “choose ethnic places that may have been overlooked in hopes that they will gain more attention”.
At the tables there were many lively conversations going on. There were table cards with discussion topics that surrounded “The Martian.” Guests did not have to read the book to be able to participate in the discussions. The questions were not focused on the plot of the book but had questions such as “In ‘The Martian’ the main character had to eat a lot of potatoes. What would you want to eat if you were stuck in space?”
Malden Eats offers opportunities to meet new people and try new food. To get more information for future events, click here.
