On a regular Thursday afternoon in April, 81-year-old Concord resident Paul Bofinger sat down to his weekly lunch with friends at Sunshine Oriental.
He pulled up to his favorite authentic, Chinese dish: Chinese-style fried rice with saltfish and Chinese sausage.
This restaurant, Bofinger said, is far and away his favorite in Concord due to its authenticity.
“I absolutely refuse to go to restaurants that have buffet, Americanized clap-trap,” he said. “I want the real thing, and here you can get it.”
Authentic, ethnic food, often made by people from the country of their heritage, is becoming easier and easier to find in Concord. Sunshine Oriental, opened seven years ago on Loudon Road and known for its Chinese dim sum dishes, is one of many eateries offering culturally traditional meals. There are also Thai, Nepalese, Persian, Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Italian, Greek and Syrian establishments in the Capital area.
“There are many more choices in Concord than, say, 10 years ago,” said Timothy Sink, the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce president. “The increase in ethnic restaurants and ethnic variety has really made a strong case for us . . . it absolutely adds to the attractiveness of the community and the vibrancy.”
Sink said Concord – which has been branded as a farming community, transportation center and printing capital in the past – is now being marketed as a community of diverse experiences.
“We are positioning the Concord area as a cultural destination for the state,” said Sink.
Tina Zen, who owns Sunshine Oriental with her husband, Yon Yung – both immigrated here and became citizens years ago – said they’ve had visitors from the Boston area, Vermont, and even Texas.
“We have a lot of regulars and also a lot of new people,” she said.
In addition to bringing business to Concord, ethnic food establishments have been good for local new Americans, too.
Karma Gonpo opened up Katmandu Bazaar, which began as a gas station snack shop in 2010 and has been a fully-fledged market in the Lamplighter Plaza since 2014. Gonpo, who is originally from Tibet, said he began his business to cater to the Asian and African immigrant communities.
“It’s very difficult to find their own food,” he said. He buys imported products from New York City, and every Thursday, he wakes up in the middle of the night to go to Boston, where he chooses fresh fruit and vegetables – sourced from Asia and Africa – to bring back to his store.
Spices and mustard greens are especially popular, said Gonpo. Katmandu Bazaar also has a small restaurant where Nepalese dumplings, also known as momos, are cooked up and served.
Ethnic food establishments can be comforting for immigrants, said Bhutanese Community of New Hampshire executive director Tika Acharya.
“Every human being has some kind of attraction and preferences,” he said. “At the end of the day, our parents like to have our own taste and our own preferences.”
He added, “Sometimes we need some kind of healing and refreshment.”
Finding ways to integrate new American cultures into places like Concord, however, isn’t always easy. Acharya said language and cultural barriers, plus the financial and systematic barriers for newly immigrated business owners, all pose challenges.
New Americans may not qualify for loans, for example, if they don’t have credit or business history here, even if they had it in their country of origin.
“That is very disappointing and discouraging for new Americans,” said Acharya. And while there are resources in places like New York City and Los Angeles to help new citizens work through the kinks, he added, “they’ve got to learn this by themselves, especially in New Hampshire where there isn’t a lot of resources.”
Bhutanese Community of New Hampshire is trying to act as a “social broker” to help immigrants get resettled and eventually, into business. But even with those things, it can take communities time to acquaint themselves with new cultures and new foods.
Tom and Pat Saktanaset, who emigrated from Thailand, have run Siam Orchid in Concord for 21 years. When they first opened in downtown Concord, Tom said, “The people didn’t know Thai food. They didn’t know Thailand.”
Over the years, that’s changed. He’s made some of his dishes less spicy and introduced some different southeast Asia cuisine, taught his staff how to cook and explain the food, and moved to a central location on Main Street.
Now, his bubble tea – a popular Taiwanese drink – is a regular order.
“A lot of people from St. Paul’s School – everyone orders that,” said Saktanaset.
And that’s the best part about ethnic restaurants coming to Concord and other New Hampshire areas, Acharya said. It’s part of a long-lived American tradition of new cultures integrating themselves into the community.
“Everything has come from all over the world,” Acharya said of America’s identity as a cultural melting pot. “That’s how America was built and we are a part of that. It’s all an exchange of resources, exchange of manpower, exchange of culture.”
He added, “These places are in essence an opportunity where people get to know each other. It’s about respecting and loving each other, where people will start to build relationships.”
At Sunshine Oriental, that’s well under way. Tina Zen rushed over to greet Paul Bofinger and her group of regulars with a wide smile when they came in last month. As she bustled away to get the group their food, they spoke about the service she and her employees provide.
“The beauty of the place is first and foremost Tina and her husband,” said Bofinger. In the past, he and his friends have given her photos to bring back to her mother in China.
Kathy Blodgett, a Concord native who was dining with Bofinger that day, said, “It’s a family.”
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)