Dining out for dummies; Moroccans & Arabs especially

Salam everyone,

I would like to open a discussion about an obscene reality I experience everyday at work. Nevertheless, I will jump to a quick introduction about myself in general. I am Moroccan of origin. I live in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Also, I am currently a student at Umass Boston.

I work in a creperie located in the heart of campus. It’s in a good neighborhood, very clean, very quiet, and has a student-enthusiastic atmosphere. I can’t complain enough about the infrastructure and design of the buildings and the sceneries and architecture design and style. It’s very beautiful. My boss owns two stores located next to each an other. One is a caffee de crepe and the other is a shawarma deli with authentic Moroccan dishes. I love working there except for some circumstances which i will explain further in this free-writting.

This is what ticks me off. Moroccans and Arabs! I will lay an outline to explain the outrage I face whenever I look upon the face of my brothers and sisters of origin ordering food from us. As soon as “akhina” - a term we use specially for Moroccans and Arab customers- enters the store, my coworker and I give each other dull faces because we are about to experience hell in the kitchen. This is what an ordinary Moroccan person would do. The person would come in smiling and greeting us but with a hint of a rush, they always are in a rush, and would skip the reading process of the menu. Akhina would automatically ask us to make him “something”. Puzzled, as we don’t know what the fuck he means by “something”, we have to explain the menu and every of its components to him. We pretty much have a selective menu so it takes a good 5-10 minute per person to order. Imagine when we have a busy rush hour. It’s just a waste of time.

Second of all after reading the menu to our dear customer like telling a bedtime story to a kid with sugar overdose, the Moroccan would then create his own dish. Mixing from here and there, akhina doesn’t like what’s on the menu, he wants to fabricate a meal fantasy. Akhina becomes creative. That leaves us under more pressure since most customers, secluding our favorites, normally just order by what the board. Anyway, after ordering, we are constantly under the eye of akhina as he has to see how we make a fucking sandwish. Sometimes, he has the audacity to re-design by substituting or adding more ingredients as soon as it is in the plate and ready to be consumed.

Ma3linach! As long as I know what they want I can pretty much do it even though they create delays and over drawn us with tickets that should’ve been made on time. So the process of just the fact of akhina ordering what he desires, before cooking, of course while cutting the line with his sneaky craftiness, takes a good 10-15 minutes which I can’t afford.

The food is ready and being served to our special guest, he looks upon it before eating it and desires extra stuff. There is always this constant interruption for the Moroccan or Arabs who come in to eat, wanting always extra stuff and sometimes other dishes to take out it’s a pain the ass basically.

After akhina is done, we have to escort him to the restroom of course because he can’t READ the sign where it says RESTROOOOM. So finally comes the part of paying up. It’s my favorite part. I love the look on their faces, confused when the check is high and they can’t believe that they have to pay as much. I, once again, have to tutor them and go through all what they had in the course. Some ask to talk to the manager for a chance to get a discount and some of them pay angrily with teary eyes. Literally. You could see those bright wide eyes and looks as they enter shapeshifting into watery eyes with a sad confused face as they leave. And they leave without tipping!! They rarely do. OH MY GOD!

Sometimes I experience the fatigue of a whole day shift while serving just a party of few Arabs or Moroccans. Seriously. Some of them bring a shit load of god forsaken kids with them because they don’t want to hire a babysitter but I HAVE TO DO THE BABYSITTING FOR THEM. Their kids are very rude and trash the whole goddamn place leaving me with the same dilemmas and the stone age tipping. They don’t know that the minimum tipping for large parties is 15% of your check. I m lucky enough if i get a 5%. Just lucky!

These people do not know how to go out and have dinner or lunch somewhere. Just because I am Moroccan and you are Moroccan it doesn’t make us Best Friends For Life. No sir I will not hook you up with extra meat, or extra bread unless your business is worth it. In my dictionary extra item means extra money. No discussion whatsoever. And remember, if you keep bugging the line cook about how to make your food, well you won’t get it the way you wanted it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my story with the world. Wherever I worked it’s always bad Moroccans and Arabs. Very uneducated creatures with low respect and a lot of expectations. ALOT! These people don’t have the privilege to go out and have a meal. They should sit their back hill ass at home eat whatever is there to eat and keep nagging about the bills. But as I work I am strict with these dumbasses and try to teach them how to order and how to eat without messing a table like a 2 years old etc…

This saddens me although I am not necessarily stating that all Arabs and Moroccans are not legit. Of course not. Some are elegant in style, polite and focused. Some are smart and know how to deal with people to avoid hassle. But there is just a very few of the :frowning:


This is a list of do’s and do nots for akhina:

Do not cut the line to be served first, I will serve you last.
Do read the menu. Do ask everything ahead and I will manage to accommodate the timing of your main dish with your desert and drinks.
Do not talk to me about your personal day when I am serving 10 other people.
Do eat with order and please don’t feed the floor and your clothes.
Do not come behind the register counter or i will kill you.
Do not go down the basement as you wish whenever you want to pray just because you are my bosse’s best pal. If my boss ain’t around, you will be sent back!
Do look for the restroom sign before asking.
Do not bring your children to the restaurant. Hire a babysitter. If you cant hire one, THEN EDUCATE YOUR FUCKING KIDS
Do not ask me for free food.
Do not ask me for discounts.

Thank you for reading. hope my experience will entertain the readers :stuck_out_tongue:

Wow! You really did accumulate some frustration and anger. It’s still vivid and alive just by telling the story, or did you just go home after a day loaded of akhina experiences?
It’s sad to see what image Moroccans and Arabs give about themselves, even if you said by the end that there are a few that are classy and focused. I always believed that our problem in the Arab world in general is mentality.
If you want to reduce the fantasy part about meals, why don’t you just whisper to these favorite customers of yours, as for BFFs, that any change in the menu will result in a higher check. I think that it will work.

It’s pretty entertaining to read your story, indeed. [Apart from all the F words]
Thanks for sharing.

PS: And oh, welcome aboard.

Firstly Mar7ba bik ! :welcome:

secondy I don’t think arabs are that bad well maybe some of them
and you didn’t metnion the good side of the arabs being genorous welcoming… etc
anyways I liked your story an it reminded me of a funny post I read on several blogs

they’re not all true but still funny

U KNOW UR AN ARAB WHEN…

you know you’re an arab when…

  1. A visa is not a credit card

  2. Your refer to your dad’s friends as 3ammu

  3. Your dad and his friends fight over whose going to pay for dinner

  4. Your family always stops in the way of others to talk, or look at something; which pisses people off, and pretty much embarrasses you.

  5. Your mom tells you not to walk the floor barefoot or you’ll catch a cold

  6. You hide everything from your parents

  7. Everyone is a family friend

  8. You are going to a university that is as far away from home as possible

  9. Your walking out of the custom with a trolley in the airport, and atleast 25 of your cousins are here to pick you up, including your grandparents

  10. Weddings last 5 hours, and the reception? 15 hours

  11. You have code words

  12. Some relatives mention to your father that they have a child the same age as yours: “hint, hint”

  13. You feel all proud when you see Americans wearing those black & white Arab scarves

  14. Your grandfather was racist. Hey, it’s normal!

  15. You insist that ba8lawa isn’t Greek, it’s Arabic!

  16. While dancing the dabkah, you’ve lost track of the beat and ended up kicking the person next to you

  17. Yahoodi is a masabba

  18. You cant resist saying “6ayyeb” “ya3ni” and “yallah” to non-Arabs

  19. You can’t sleep before 4 AM, and can’t wake upbefore 4 PM

  20. You have 4 cousins, 3 uncles, a (great)grandfather, AND a brother with the name Mohammed or Khalid

  21. Your parents don’t know the real you

  22. You either tip 2% or 50%, never 15%

  23. Your grandmother insists you eat something everytime you visit her. The thing is, she gives you a HUGE plate with a mountain of food

  24. You listen to anything but country music and rock

  25. Your parents have lived in America for 20 years, but still can’t pronounce the P

  26. Your parents swear at you with words that affect them! (bent kalb, …elli jabatek)

  27. Your family owns at LEAST 3 cars

  28. Westerns often ask you “do you have a camel?”

  29. You have an endless supply of pistachios, dates, and pumpkin seeds

  30. Your parents say you’re becoming Americanized anytime you get into trouble

  31. You curse at your teachers or strangers in Arabic

  32. You use numbers when you talk in arabic on msn, and when you don’t want your parents to understand

  33. You can spot an Arab a mile away and they have spotted at you because they keep staring

  34. After a family meal, the women fight to the death over who should wash the dishes while the men sit on their behinds and discuss politics, waiting for their tea

  35. Your parents want you to become a doctor or engineer

  36. You use your forehead and eyebrows to point something out

  37. Your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner even if you’re in the next room

  38. You have at least thirty cousins

  39. You arrive one or two hours late to a party and think it’s normal

  40. You are standing next to the largest suitcases at the Airport

  41. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone’s house

  42. You say bye 17 times on the phone

  43. When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover they know one of your uncles back home

  44. Your parents don’t realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making long distance calls

  45. Your mother does everything for you if you are male

  46. You do all the housework and cooking if you are female

  47. Your relatives alone could populate a small city

  48. You still came back home to live with your parents after you graduate

  49. You teach Westerners swearwords in Arabic

  50. Correction, you teach them “ANA” instead of “INTA” so they would diss themselves

  51. You have a difficult Arabic name, so you come up with an English name like “Sam” or “Mike”

  52. You have a playlist on your iPod named “Arabic” or “3arabi”, maybe even “e7m”

  53. When you refuse to try a new food, your dad tells you “yooh dont knoh wutt yooh arr missingg”

  54. Your parents hate it when you correct their English, or make fun of their accent (even though it’s HILLARIOUS)

  55. You still have stored suitcases of clothes, that you used to wear when you were five

  56. You ask your dad a simple question, and he answers by telling you his long story of how he used to walk miles just to get to school

  57. You hug and kiss relatives you have never before seen in your life!

  58. You constantly remind your American friends to remove their shoes when they enter your house

  59. You wear more cologne than deodrant

  60. You brag about your kids even if they’re bad

  61. You are always right

  62. There is no such thing as a quiet time

  63. You have a persian rug in atleast 3 rooms

  64. You say ‘H’ as in “etch”

  65. You talk crap about your own family… with your own family

  66. Your parents hate “3abeed” but you love them, and get mad when they call them 3abeed!

  67. Your family has creative nicknames for you, like Susu, Lulu, or Tantooneh?

  68. You go crazy for soccer

  69. No matter how fat you are, you are always too thin

  70. People ask if you are ‘yahoodi’ , and you despise them after that

  71. "Palestine belongs to Arabs, and if you don’t agree, then…

  72. You end up in a lousy place for college and still bump into the relative with the biggest mouth. You know what I mean?

  73. You think you are liberated when you can’t even talk to the opposite sex in public

  74. For some reason, your aunt is always asking when she can dance at your wedding

  75. You call your mom Mama

  76. You call your dad Baba

  77. Your mom calls you Mama

  78. Your dad calls you Baba

  79. You’re so pissed when an Arab is displayed as the terrorist in the movie, when the yahood are the good guys!!

  80. Atleast one conversation a day is about being ARAB

  81. You always say “open the light” instead of “turn the light on”

  82. Your parents drink 6 cups of tea a day

  83. Your parents would kill you if they found out you have a myspace

85.You’ve had a shoe thrown at you by your mother

:oops: it’s too long sorry

You might be an Arab if…

your parents never think that it is possible that you are, in fact, full.

LOLOLOL ur story is so entertaining & hilarious no JOKE!! i know exactlyyyy how that feels, so frustrating at that instant, and hey it’s not only arabs that do it but TURKS too, seriously… like SM said, it’s their MENTALITY that’s the problem… turks and arabs are alike in many ways (mostly the -ve) :lol: inshaAllah more of them are being educated now so hope our people get a grip of themselves and smarten up…