The Raw Lentil

THE RAW LENTIL Lentil As Anything, Abbotsford Felix Trinh Nicolette Russian

The Raw Lentil

Lentil as Anything, Abbotsford

Photographs by Felix Trinh Text by Felix Trinh and Nicolette Russian Edited by Nicolette Russian

Lentil as Anything is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2000, with the philosophy of creating an inclusive community through its “pay as you feel” restaurants. Affectionately known as “Lentils”, these vegetarian restaurants have expanded to other locations around Melbourne and Sydney with plans to spread their reach around the world.

In 2006, a Lentils restaurant opened at the Abbotsford Convent. It is currently the largest of the organisation’s restaurants, seating 160 people at full capacity. It caters to thousands of patrons every week of different cultural and moral backgrounds.

In addition to foreign and interstate travellers, Lentils is always welcoming volunteers to provide an open environment for refugees and migrants looking to gain valuable work experience.

At Lentils, everyone has a place at the table.

This book is about those people, it will focus on how Abbotsford Lentils works and show readers a personal, behind-the-scenes look at the diverse and accepting community restaurant.

BREAKFAST

Dipesh rearranges the dockets in queue for the morning rush of breakfast orders.

Instead of buffet service, breakfast is served in an Ă -la-carte manner.

With a breakfast menu of up to 7 items, morning chefs proudly serve colourful dishes for patrons who come in early for a meal.

Pankaj prepares rostis on the grill.

Iona chats with customers as she takes their order. During the morning, the atmosphere is usually light hearted and relaxed as the day begins.

Meeting the coffee demands can be challenging and stressful for the baristas on duty. The need for coffee extends to the entirety of the restaurant, and at times almost 30 order dockets are waiting in queue to be made.

Top left: Jo organises the dockets for the morning rush of orders.

The breakfast service fluctuates a lot in the morning. During times lacking of urgency, this volunteer can work without haste around the buffet.

Dirty dishes and cups are taken to the dish washing benches by customers who want to contribute to the duties the volunteers have.

Operating on a pay-as-you-feel business model, these restaurants operate on donations that come from patrons who choose their price for the food and services. There is no external funding from charities or government grants.

From street buskers to foreign backpackers, a diverse crowd dine at Lentils. It is common to hear different languages and accents around the restaurant throughout the day.

Meet Lamo. Every Sunday she comes in to the restaurant to make fresh momo dumplings by hand. Ever popular, people may wait more than half an hour to sample steamed dumplings made by the Tibetan chef.

Before Utty joined Lentil as Anything he was volunteering for an organisation called Second Bite, a food place that redistributes surplus fresh food to community food programs around Australia.

His volunteering at Second Bite gave Utty more of a perspective of food wastage, something that is also a mindful factor of Lentils.

Utty had quit his career as a business analyst to take a different direction in life. He’d always been interested in health and nutrition, and the connection between mind and body. His interest in food and his knowledge gained at Second Bite connected with the values of Lentils, ‘when I heard about Lentils providing people with no experience in hospitality an opportunity to do so, I began volunteering.’

Utty loves the different types of people Lentils caters to and attracts, and the location of the Abbotsford restaurant. ‘The staff and the patrons are open to wherever you’re from.’

Utty now works as a barista at Lentils, also training volunteers who are interested in making coffee and chai beverages.

Utty Sayami Barista

LUNCH

Top: Final garnishes added to a salad before serving. The food at Lentils is all vegetarian (and in most cases vegan) to accommodate people who cannot eat meat or animal products for any dietary or ethical reasons.

Left: Nesan prepares Boondi for the buffet. It is a dish made up of mainly fried potato, onions and a tangy dressing.

Lines quickly form in anticipation of the lunch service. People often wait more than 20 minutes just to be the first to serve themselves.

Live music is performed at the restaurant every night of the week and during the day on weekends.

Musicians from all over Melbourne (and the world) come to perform at the restaurant.

When Steve moved from Sydney to Melbourne he completed an intense two-week hospitality course.

The first time he visited Abbotsford’s Lentil as Anything he noticed a volunteer poster, and he saw an opportunity – a source of experience after his course of learning.

Volunteering at Lentils very quickly met a number of Steve’s needs.

Interacting with customers and other volunteers covered the social aspect, and the significance of doing valuable work was really important to him.

A place like Lentils offers broad experience. It is a working environment that allows you to hone your skills in areas you hadn’t the chance to. It becomes a very immersive work environment, something Steven desired. ‘The more you do, and the more you give, the more you get back, and the more it (Lentils) becomes a part of you.’ When the managing possibility came along, Steve couldn’t refuse.

‘The engagement with the values of Lentils is something that matures over time. It starts as a work shift, meeting the needs of the moment, but as you learn through the experience, you start to engage more with the philosophy.’

Steve explains that the staff do not check what the patrons choose to pay, though he stresses that it is not all about money. ‘Really all the pricing model is saying is to engage in a fair way and in whatever way you’re able to.’ Steve sees and understands the difference between someone refusing to pay or contribute, and someone who can’t afford to, but is willing to help out or make up for it next time. At Lentils, any engagement is okay. ‘We’re simply after the engagement.’

Steve now works as Lentils’ floor manager and admin, keeping an eye on the dynamics of the restaurant and making sure the volunteers are content with their experience.

Stephen Grabner Manager

Steve talking at the volunteer induction run twice a week. Inductions serve the purpose of initiating new volunteers and educating them about the philosophy of Lentils and what happens at the restaurant.

Nagarajan, Krishna, Sayan and Nesan.

Krishna in the kitchen when service isn’t too busy.

Many of the kitchen staff at Lentils are refugees and migrants from overseas. They come to work in the Lentils kitchen to gain work experience and hopefully make a better living here in Australia.

The red bowls are a signature item of Lentils. They are used for serving a wide variety of meals.

Lentils is staffed by as many as 15-25 people at any time. Being a volunteer based operation, the only people guaranteed to show up every day are the chefs, managers and some paid staff members.

Fortunately, they are never working alone.

Buffet service can be really busy. At peak times 50 people can pass the buffet every 15 minutes when there is already a huge line.

DINNER

Pankaj came to Australia on a student visa to study Hospitality Management and Commercial Cookery.

An aspiring chef, Pankaj took the first opportunity to come and work at Lentils to gain the necessary experience to gain a footing in the hospitality industry in Melbourne.

Working with Dipesh, a classmate of his and now one of the kitchen managers at Abbotsford, Pankaj has been in charge of all the kitchen logistics that help meet the demand of thousands of patrons every week.

Pankaj organises deliveries of food, the stocktake of raw ingredients and for five days a week works as either a head or sous chef in the kitchen.

Pankaj started working at Lentils in 2009 and considers the community-orientated restaurant a second home to his own of Janapur, Nepal.

Pankaj Jha Chef

Patrons begin to enter the restaurant for dinner service.

Musicians who perform at Lentils play many different types of music. Jazz, rock or even exotic sitar melodies. As a centre for culture it should be no surprise to find a variety of artists from all around the world every day.

Dining hall style tables in the restaurant reinforce the sense of community at Lentils as it groups everyone together rather than separate them at individual tables.

This is Craig. A school teacher by day and a Lentils volunteer chef by night, Craig is one of the key members in the kitchen during dinner. On Ă la carte nights when service can be really busy, Craig can be found in the kitchen dishing up one of the 3 mains with the other chefs.

With dinner service dying down these two volunteers take some time to chat. The staff at Lentils share a strong connection, much like a family would. There is a great sense of belonging here that lasts even until the end of the night.

At the end of the night the volunteers take off their red aprons and prepare for the final pack down of the day.

This is an example of what a whole day’s worth of contributions looks like by the end of the night.

Manually counted, the chef and manager stack notes and coins to be sent off to the bank.

The amount people donate to Lentils varies a lot depending on patronage, day of the week and weather. Sometimes people will not donate anything at all.

It is accepted that monetary payment is not contributed by everyone who comes to eat. Some people usually volunteer to return the favour or pay the difference the next time they visit.

On an average day at Lentils as Anything, at least 750 people eat at the restaurant with many more visiting to be a part of the community that is inherent in Lentils.

This venue is a shining example of the generosity of others, and how a human collective of goodness can together achieve something great.

Acknowledgments The staff and patrons of Lentils for being so accommodating for me to capture these images during business hours.

Nikki Russian with her sharp eye for my grammatical mistakes and exceptional proofing.

Robert Gale and Jessie DiBlasi for their critiques and conceptual direction of this book. This project wouldn’t have happened without them.

The immense support of my Photo Imaging classmates and their constructive opinions.

ABOUT THE PROJECT This book has been produced as part of a joint project between the Diploma of Photo Imaging and the Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT. This cross-disciplinary collaboration involved establishing professional relationships between editors and photographers, with editors assisting photographers in varied ways to support the presentation of their photographic narratives in book form.

“The collaborative experience for the Photo Imaging students gave them insight into both the methodology and approach taken by writers and editors. This complemented and refined the learning that was taking place within the construction and development of their narrative projects – a real-world experience.”

– Jessie DiBlasi, Robert Gale (Photo Imaging teachers) “Working not only collaboratively but across disciplines provided complex challenges for the editing students involved. Creativity, flexibility and patience proved crucial. In responding to, and supporting, each photographer’s vision, the editors deepened their knowledge and understanding of the publishing process and diverse editorial roles.”

– Stephanie Holt (Advanced Manuscript Editing teacher) “These exciting and stylish publications are the result of highly successful collaboration between students from the School of Media and Communication. The project mirrors contemporary industry practice, demonstrating the strength of RMIT’s vocational education in the creative arts.”

– Clare Renner (Deputy Dean, Vocational Education)

Copyright 2015 Photographs © Felix Trinh Text © Felix Trinh and Nicolette Russian This book is copyright.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be address to the creator.

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