I caught sight of this entry on the blog Jowhara's Chamber about the state of Muslim-run restaurants. The author explains how she passed a restaurant at which she had become quite a regular, stopped as she fancied an ice-cream, and found that the place had been closed down, for stomach-churning reasons:
So i was walking to this cafe and it was closed for the first time ever and there was these signs up on the shutters from enviromental health people so i stopped to read ir and it said 'extensive mice and rat excrement found on the food preparation surfaces, large infestation. No running water for staff members to wash there hands with which could lead to contamination of food', yuck yuck yuck.
How many of us are scrupulous about what we eat? There has been a discussion going on lately at various blogs ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]) about Muslims and attitudes to ethnic foods, specifically the belief of some converts that they have to give up their "western" food and adopt Arab or Pakistani cuisines. Although this is a mistaken belief with no basis to it, it is a quite sincerely-held one and people should not be laughed at for thinking this way. There are, after all, quite a number of Muslim authorities who say that we should abandon western dress styles in favour of shalwar-kameez or jalabiyyas. Still, the way most converts get into "eating like a Muslim" is not through thinking it is compulsory and that eating western food is "imitating the kuffar", but because most of the halaal fast food available to us - in the UK, certainly - is ethnic food.
Sadly, a lot of it is not of very good quality. I have never worked in food preparation myself, but I've come across food handling practices in some Muslim establishments which really lessened my desire to eat there, to say the least. The one I come across most usually is spraying cleaning fluid right in the direction of food. I don't care if it's "food safe". Unless I know what's in it, and that it's OK both religiously and in health terms, I don't want it in my food, full stop. On one occasion in a certain Edgware Road restuarant, I saw one staff member spray cleaner at the glass behind the curry buffet without covering up the dishes, and spraying the stuff onto a table from a great height, producing a big cloud of droplets, of which no doubt not all landed on the table over which it was sprayed. When I complained, the staff showed no understanding of why I didn't want cleaning agents in my food.
Then there was the fried chicken I had at the only halaal food outlet at a certain shopping arcade in Kent. Or rather, ordered; I ended up not eating it, because the chicken wings were cold in the middle. Now, I've been eating chicken wings from Chicken Cottage for years, and I've never had half-cooked chicken from them, but I do remember ordering fried chicken from the student canteen in Aberystwyth several years ago and sending it back more than once because it was not cooked properly. I therefore concluded that people either know how to fry chicken so that it's cooked to the middle, or they don't, and these people didn't. So I asked for my money back, and to their credit they gave it to me.
Then there is the plain bad service. Haroon of Avari wrote about this with regard to an Egyptian-run restaurant in New York in 2004; I wrote a reply which seems to have got lost in one of my many switches of blog tool or upgrade mess-ups. There's one particular café in Kingston which I visit regularly because it's got no real competition in terms of halaal eating in Kingston but at which I've found the service very often rude, stand-offish and hostile. In particular, I get brushed off when I complain about the newspapers not being there because the staff forget to pick them up and can't be bothered to take out a subscription, or that the dead pot plant with sharp edges could injure someone. I've found my own newspapers put in the house paper rack and had to then seize them off other customers, and had the staff ask me about my marriage plans in front of the female staff, and even suggest to me, again in front of them (mostly not Muslim, none of them in hijab), that I marry them. The staff at this place have also been known to bang on the door repeatedly when I am in the loo.
The thing is that a lot of us eat in Muslim restaurants because, besides the food being halaal, we assume the hygiene will be better than in McDonald's or KFC, and that the staff will treat us like Muslim brothers or sisters if we give them salaams. If you live in a house where the kitchen utensils, pots and pans are regularly used to prepare things you can't eat and even those that aren't are washed in the same water with the same cloths as those that are, you might often prefer to eat out than in (even though it costs more), but I must admit that the number of places where I will eat has gone down drastically over the years, now excluding for example nearly all the restaurants on the Edgware Road.
Frankly I can't understand why anyone would think someone would want to be served by the guy who's just been cleaning the tables or dealing with the rubbish, or be served cleaning agents with their biryani or their coffee, and given that people go to halaal restaurants expecting the food to be wholesome and the staff as conscientious about food as the customer, it's particularly sad that many of our community's restaurants are in some ways no better, and are in some ways worse, than everyone else's. Perhaps the community could establish some sort of rating system, whereby both food quality and hygiene standards are inspected and the results published, so that restaurants whose staff contaminate their customers' food could be exposed and experiences like Hibba's mouse-dung ice-cream could be a thing of the past.
salam alaikoum
one thing that irks me in paris are "muslim owned" kebab places that sell alcohol and pig, and then they have the big halal sign on the door. I ask them what is up, and they say that the beer and pig are for the tourists, and the rest of the food for everyone else.
Even if a place says halal on the door, if it sells beer inside, i don't eat there.
As-Salaamu 'alaikum,
DP: that's another thing. There are some "halal" places which sell haraam turkey rashers as bacon, because they suppose that even if it's haraam, at least it's not real pork ... there is at least one "halal" cafe in Kingston that does that. It is actually possible to get halaal turkey rashers to use in place of bacon, so why on earth can't this guy make the effort to get hold of them? Stupid.
You'd think that Muslim restaurants would put a premium on hygiene, as the food laws are about hygiene and health.
I've eaten in a fair number of Turkish restaurants in London that claim to serve halal meat. (I'm not a Muslim, obviously, but I have a couple of (not very strict) Muslim friends, so that's where we went.) They did serve beer - I had one, my (non-Muslim) boyfriend had one, and the two Muslims had cokes.
What goes on in the kitchen, I'd rather not know about. But Turkish is your best bet for Muslim restaurants, unless you're really rich, in which case Lebanese.
Salaam 'Alaikum
You guys seem to have more take away there than we do. I know the attitude that I was referring to, and a few of the brothers, was people eating ethnic foods in their *own home*. Most of us eat in Arabic or Indo-Pak places when we go out, b/c that's what's halal. I'd reckon the ratio of halal pizza / burger joints in an E. Coast city w/ thousands of Muslims is probably along the lines of 30:2.
But at home? Why would biryani rice be more "halal" than long grain? It isn't, but there's this attitude among certain particular groups of Muslims (converts and otherwise, although it seems to be more converts) that food from an Arab or Persian or Indo-Pak origin is halal but food from non Muslim lands isn't. Not b/c of pork or wine, but b/c it originated in "the lands of the kufar." If Christian Arabs eat hummus, why is that halal, but the food of Christian Italians isn't....
cncz wrote: "...are 'muslim owned' kebab places that sell alcohol and pig, and then they have the big halal sign on the door."
Heh. That is almost the situation here with most of the Turkish kebab places here in SG. My wife and I have passed by a few of these places, looking to see if they have the proper halal sign on the premises. These guys will always trot out some Turkish halal certificate, but they never have a Singaporean halal rating because they serve beer. As a result, my wife and I will eat elsewhere.
Regarding cleanliness at restaurants, the SG gov't authorities rate the restaurants with either an "A," "B" or "C." ("A," of course, is the highest.) But most of the halal hawker centers that my wife and I buy food from get "B's" and "C's" at best. When I first moved here, I was a bit leery about buying food from these guys, knowing that conditions weren't the most hygenic, but after three years here I always buy from them and never bat an eye about how dirty the places are. ;) (I've never gotten sick from any of the food, either, alhamdulillah.)
The more non-halal (or "corrupted" - even if halal) food one eats the more one's body would find it difficult to do the halal.
In other words, the more haram (or "corrupted") food you eat the more your body/mind would find it easy to do/think the haram.
Allah says that He created everything in/with Truth (including our body). Hence, every food that goes in there ought to be gathered with Truth and cooked bismillah (in the Name of the Truth) in order to maintain the body's Truthfulness.
Otherwise, you would find it pretty hard to walk straight in this life regardless of your aqeedah, miswak, trouser lenght, madhab, cultural diet/recipe, curry viscousity, and so on.
It won't affect your akhira -inshallah - unless you have been eating such foods knowingly particularly haram foods (i.e. if you have been stubbornly and "rejecfully" disregarding religious guidance on diet). In this case the food would work its way in to the soul - not substantially but in terms of the habitual obstinacy in consuming such foods. This makes the soul highly inflammable. The bad habits and dodgy intentions.
It is like committing suicide knowingly - you would die in this world and then go to hell in the next world. But if you eat poison unknowlingly not intending suicide, tho you would still die in this world (unless Allah obstructs the 'natural' order for you), but you won't be damned for it in akhira.
The modern people (muslims or non-muslims) have destroyed the natural world including the foods. So one ought to be very carefull of what/where one eats. Astaghfirullah!
Don't be fooled by the 'halal' signs. Halal is a standard, and there are different standards - even different standard bodies. Each body gives its own stamp. One Imam told the butchers in his town that it is okay for them to electrocute the animal before slaughtering it, and that is halal?
I asked why, the butcher told me that it is easier. And they are able to get through more sheep per day.
The hygiene factor doesn't really bother me - as long as najasa (as defined by Shariah) doesn't fall into the food. Anything other than najasa should help sort out our weak stomachs and make it stronger (of course within reason). hehe!
The germs may also help speed up our metabolism :) ...especially in our obese climate.
The most important thing is that the food is tayyib. It is Halal and put together Truthful (not just to make money).
My favourite take-away conversation would have to be the time when I walked into the fried-chicken place and, though it had the halal sticker on the door, asked, "Is it all Halal?"
"Yes it's all Halal brother," says the waiter.
I look around for the certificate, but then decide to take his word for it. "Okay," I say, "I'll have the spare ribs."
"Sorry," he replies, "they're not halal."
Amazing!
The best food would be the one that you, with honesty, planted, harvested and cooked all by yourself! or by someone you trust.
hmmm, not so easy.
Assalamu Alaikum,
There was an awful case in Algeria whereby a patisserie owner poisoned a number of customers. He had a rat problem, so before closing the shop would sprinkle rat poison on top of the flour. In the morning he would remove the top layer of flour (as well as any dead rats, one presumes) but one fateful morning he forgot to do so and stirred everything up...
All you Muslims no about how you should handle doubtful matters. Just leave it all. If worst comes to worst eat kosher. To think I was looking forward to come to London and have easy take-away Indo Pak food.
In the states if you want Indo Pak food you gotta do eat in style.
eat kosher
Food for thought. What the first generation of Muslim immigrants did before there were halal shops.
Kosher is more strict than halal, so if you eat kosher, you've got it covered.
Just forget the politics - "it's easy if you try," as John Lennon said.
Just forget the politics - "it's easy if you try," as John Lennon said.
He also said in that song "imagine no possessions" even though the video is set in his mansion.
Those halal "American" fried chicken places are awful and very dirty. Good if you're on a student budget, but you do have to ask yourself the quality of the food at the prices you're paying.
Kosher and halal are different; aren't some things that are kosher not halal? (And there's more than one standard for "kosher", too, isn't there?)
Bikhair, I'm just curious... why are you going by the name "Taqiyyah"?
As salaamu alaikum,
I have seen so many halal restuarants open and close due to low standards of cleanliness.
There are so many vegetarians in my city, so it really isn't that hard finding alternatives with higher standards and better service.
I think that now, many Muslims with food-centered businesses are getting the picture. My local grocery store will order certified halal products if I need them to, but I wish to support the Muslims.
I think that initially they thought American Muslims were being snobs, but we are just used to generally high standards of "service".
May Allah guide Muslim business-owners.
One thing you could do to minimise the risk of bad hygiene is to visit places that have branches. Because that way keeping a good reputation will be more important for them, thus they will pay more attention to hygiene.
And visit proper restaurants rather than takeaway places.
There's a Pizza and Italian fast food joint outside of Honolulu, Hawaii in a place called Kailua Town. Its owned by an Indonesian family and strictly serves halal meat, turkey pepperoni and so on, not to mentiona a sign saying alcohol was not allowed on the premises. I would swear that they had an Italian cook in the back, but they didn't. That's how good they were. Service is flattering, and both of these reasons were my prime motivations to keep going. Its called Amina Pizza, Kailua, Hawaii. Try it out next time you're in town!