Maninder Kaur: Bringing healthy food to Guelph
August 23, 2011
Maninder Kaur and Balbir Singh opened Tangy & Tasty at 75 McDonnell Street in December 2009.
They did so after people would sample their hearty and healthy food at the annual Multicultural Festival at Riverside Park and ask where they could get the delicious fare all year round. Maninder and Balbir had been vendors at the Multicultural Festival since 2002 and felt very supported by Delfino Callegari, the festival’s director.
Maninder likes her adopted city of Guelph. She moved here with Balbir in 2001 from Uganda, East Africa. Her sister was already living here along with a number of friends. She has never regretted her decision. She feels that Guelph is a secure, supportive city where people are concerned for each other. Her involvement and volunteer work with the Shelldale Centre and Onward Willow’s Better Beginnings Better Futures program has helped her to find her way in her new community.
Maninder notes that among her key clientele at Tangy & Tasty are the wonderful youth of Guelph who appreciate the healthy halal food they serve. So much so that business has been steadily growing, primarily through word of mouth and with a little help from her son setting up a Facebook page. “Good food speaks for itself, we’ve never advertised,” she says.
Maninder and Balbir, not unlike many new to Canada, continue to face many challenges. Both have advanced degrees and both have struggled to integrate into the workforce in their fields of expertise despite years of education and experience.
Both Maninder and Balbir put in many hours each day to make the restaurant successful. Maninder, ever the optimist, notes that “we are looking at a full glass with so many opportunities in how we can support ourselves in our adopted land.”