Across the Counter: Aladdin

My shop is in Botany Junction Shopping Centre in Auckland. After working here for years, I have become used to seeing the same places around me every day: Western food, Chinese food, Indian food, Thai food, and shops serving Middle Eastern-style dishes. Most of the time, I walk past without thinking much about who owns them or where the people behind the counter came from. At lunchtime, the question is usually much simpler: what should I eat today?

Recently I had another idea. Since I am here every day anyway, why not walk into these places one by one? If it is a restaurant, I can sit down for a meal. If the owner has a spare moment, I can have a chat. No rankings, no rush to reach conclusions. Just another way of walking through a place I already thought I knew.

Two in the afternoon, and the shop to ourselves

We walked into Aladdin at around two in the afternoon. The lunch rush was over and there were no other customers, just Katherine and me. My first impression was how clean the place was. The tables, floor and counter were all tidy, and without the movement of the lunch crowd the whole shop felt quiet.

From the outside, Aladdin immediately suggests the Middle East. The red sign says KEBABS, with Aladdin riding a flying carpet in the middle. Inside, the wall decorations continue the same theme.

We first sat down at a table near the front. It was still winter in Auckland and, after a little while, the chair felt cold. Looking further inside, we noticed several padded leather chairs, so we moved.

The seating was not all the same: some chairs were hard, others upholstered. I did not ask whether they had simply been added over time or were meant to give customers different choices. On a winter afternoon, we naturally chose the softer ones.

Names on the menu I did not really know

The menu included kebab, hummus, falafel, dolma and souvlaki - names that may not be immediately familiar to many Chinese readers.

I looked them up afterwards. Roughly speaking:

Kebab is grilled or roasted meat; hummus is a chickpea dip; falafel is a fried legume-based patty or ball; dolma often refers to grape leaves wrapped around a rice-based filling; and souvlaki is a Greek-style grilled meat skewer. There are many regional variations - this is only my broad, beginner's understanding.

While we were reading the menu, Katherine suddenly asked, "They don't have pork here, do they?"

I said that if it was a Middle Eastern or Arab-style restaurant, probably not. Pork is prohibited in Islamic dietary law, so many Muslim-run restaurants do not serve it.

Katherine said that made sense. One of her friends not only avoids pork but also eats halal food. When eating out, if they are unsure whether the meat meets halal requirements, they sometimes simply order vegetarian food.

A NZ$22 plate

Katherine · Kebab

NZ$22

Chicken & Beef Kebab Wrap

NZ$18.50

Katherine ordered a kebab plate for NZ$22. When it arrived, my first thought was simply: that is a lot of food. Fries underneath, meat, salad and sauce on top - a full plate. It was not trying to be delicate or carefully plated. It looked direct and substantial.

Katherine ate for a while but did not finish it. I ordered a chicken-and-beef kebab wrap for NZ$18.50. A wrap is easy enough to understand: meat, vegetables and sauce rolled inside a flatbread.

Mine was generous too. But with the first bite, what I noticed was not the size. It was the temperature. The whole thing was hot, evenly, from the outside right through to the filling.

This wrap was not quite like the Subway I usually eat

I eat Subway from time to time, so it was natural to compare the two. This felt different.

I watched how the owner prepared it. Rather than simply placing prepared ingredients into the bread, he first reheated the meat and some of the fillings on the hotplate. Then he put everything into the wrap, rolled it, and toasted the whole thing again.

That meant the bread was hot, but so were the meat and fillings inside. The temperature was even all the way through. Outside it was a New Zealand winter, and earlier even the hard chair had felt cold. Holding a wrap that was properly hot from the centre out felt especially welcome to me, since I am used to eating food hot.

"Where are you from?"

Later, I started chatting with the owner. His English was not always easy for me to catch. I asked where he was from. He first gave me a place name, but I did not understand it. Seeing that I was still unsure, he explained again.

"Nepal."

Ah, Nepal. That I understood. I told him I knew a little about Nepal - that it was near India and that the Himalayas were there. He nodded immediately. "Yes, yes. Himalaya."

So I asked, "Have you ever climbed in the Himalayas?" He said no. Ordinary people generally do not, he explained. It is too difficult. You need proper training before attempting those mountains.

Our conversation was not especially fluent. Sometimes I missed a word and he would explain it another way. But once we reached a word we both knew, the conversation suddenly moved again.

Nepal.

Himalaya.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

After we had talked for a while, he looked at me and said, "You look familiar."

Then he asked, "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

I said that was possible. My shop was nearby, directly opposite the medical clinic. It was a health-products store.

He recognised it immediately. "Yes, yes, yes." He had been into my shop and bought something there. We had probably spoken before.

Once he said that, I looked at him again and felt the same faint sense of recognition.

Last time, he walked into my shop.

This time, I walked into his.

Then, he was my customer.

Today, I was his.

Once I knew the owner was from Nepal, I looked at the shop a little differently. The sign said Aladdin. The menu listed kebab, hummus, falafel and souvlaki. Katherine had just been asking whether there was any pork. And behind the counter stood a man from Nepal.

If I had only kept walking past the shop every day, I probably would never have known any of that.

A little after two, we finished and left. Some of Katherine's NZ$22 kebab was still on the plate. I finished my chicken-and-beef wrap feeling thoroughly satisfied.

Before walking away, I looked once more at the red Aladdin sign.