How Do Dairy Kosher Restaurants Differ?
There are many Jewish kosher restaurants in the United States, but only a small percentage of them are dairy kosher restaurants. If you are not Jewish, you may not understand that there is a difference between these two kinds of restaurants. Some Jews may not even know the difference between these two types of restaurants if they have not been raised in orthodox homes.
The difference between dairy kosher restaurants and that of a regular Jewish kosher restaurant is the fact that no meat products are served in the dairy kosher restaurants. The Jewish dietary laws demand that dairy and meat products not be served together. In fact, even the steam from a food warmer is thought to contaminate one food group or the other if the steam arises from one and mixes with that of the other food group. These two food groups are not supposed to be co-mingled in anyway. Separate plates are needed for each food group, and even the utensils cannot be used for both a meat food and a dairy food during the same meal.
Not all Jewish restaurants or every dairy restaurant can be categorized as being a kosher restaurant. In all Jewish kosher restaurants, the kitchens must be kept meticulously clean to be certifiably kosher. Rabbis will not actually bless a certain food to make it kosher; they merely inspect the restaurant premises and ingredients in the foods being served before they will certify it as being kosher.
Rabbis can come in and inspect all fruits and vegetables to make sure there are no insects in them and that the utensils being used are exclusively dedicated to kosher use. All things used in a kosher dairy restaurant kitchen and the foods they prepare must meet strict Jewish dietary guidelines for butchering and preparation, set out for them in the Torah.
Orthodox Jews will not eat meat and dairy prepared and mixed together. Some orthodox Jews will even wait a certain amount of time before they will eat one food group after the other. If a Jewish restaurant wants to serve both meat and dairy products, they must have separate kitchens in which to prepare these foods. Some restaurant owners decide to own two restaurants, one for dairy and one for meat. If they're specializing in and serving one food group only, they only need one kitchen. This is where the dairy kosher restaurants come into being. The Jews can have these two different types of restaurants in the community where they choose to eat to help them observe orthodox dietary laws.
At the dairy kosher restaurants, dairy products like milk, cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese are used as ingredients in their meals. The menu will have lots of vegetable side dishes and fruits. Jewish laws allow fish with scales to be served with dairy products, so you will find many items such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and pickled herring at a Jewish kosher dairy restaurant. For example, a typical dairy meal served in a dairy kosher restaurant would include cheese blintzes, noodle or potato kugel, and gefilte fish or other type of fish with scales dishes. Certain fish such as lobsters are considered unclean and would not be served in a Jewish dairy restaurant.
