What is your Halal grocery store like?

[LusoHijabi]

I live in a relatively small yet diverse muslim community with people from all over the world in this small town. When you have a community like this, you need to have a Halal store that caters to their needs and various cultural cuisines. For quite a while this community never had a halal store probably because this community really used to be quite small but in the last few decades this community has really grown and become very diverse (I'm a relatively new comer). So it was a struggle for people to get Halal as people would have to drive into Paris to get halal groceries which was exhausting and inconvienient.

Mashallah, we now have a Halal store here and it is amazing. It is like you enter an international market with products from all over the world. We have Middle Eastern, Medditerenean, South Asian, African and a few European products. Alot of the products will be unfamiliar to the average French person here.

The South Asians love this store as they say it has everything they look for and even it has some stuff they couldn't find downtown. It has stuff like fresh curry leaves, idli flours, dosa flours (and even premade mix), a tawa/tava for making dosa (get the nonstick one on the top shelf), sambar, karelei, okra AND EVERYTHING to make pani puri!! (already made puri or ones you can fry yourself, mix for cumin water, masala channa!). It also has pretty much every spice under the sun. If you are a Desi you will be satisfied and that is pretty much hard to achieve. lol

It also has many Middle Eastern products like Turkish delights, fūl medames, maftool, ghee, labna, syrian cheese, yummy pita, Iraqi dried dates, Lebanese honey, cans of delicious Jordanian hummus. high quality couscous, grape leaves (for Dolma) etc.

As far as African foods is concerned there is fufu, yam, african spices, crayfish also Somali products and Ethiopian products etc.

The Butchers is like Wow!!! I dont think ive seen something so organized before. They have every cut, every type of meat (chicken, beef, lamb, goat, fish) and super clean. The gentlemen behind the counter always understand what you are looking for. And there is no weird smells.

There are many, many other products I could mention but it would take too long. This store has been a god send for the muslim community here. I work here part time (its short term, just for something for me to do. I'll be in a more long term job soon)

What's your halal store like?

 

[LusoHijabi]

I work in my store part time so that means I get a discount

It is fascinating to see people in our community from different cultures buy their food and people greeting "Salaam" to each other. On a typical day I could be serving a Turkish couple then a desi family that have two trolleys worth of stuff then Somalis then Bosnians then Arabs. It's great as I see these people at the masjid every week and every week at the store so I know the faces, the names and even have conversations with them. There is that real feeling of community solidarity among the muslims here.

We even have non-muslim customers here, maybe its the competitive prices or cos the meat is cheaper and good quality? There is Coptic Christian woman orginally from Egypt who is a regular customer, she is a very nice person. She said the store reminds her of home as she can buy stuff from here that is from MENA region.

 

[strivingobserver98]

Wow discounts I like that .

Yeah our halal grocery store is bit far away from my house, soon as you go there you feel the south asian vibe. It's massive place, so many people go there for curry supplies and things like that. I like how the community is well knitted, and everyone knows everyone.

 

[ConcealedGem]

One word....


Fish bazaar.

(actually two words)

 

[sister herb]

The halal market in my city is quite small. Many foods there are from the East Africa, some from the Middle East. I usually buy some spices, arabic coffee and halal meat. And sweets!

;D

 

[LusoHijabi]

Wow discounts I like that .

Yeah our halal grocery store is bit far away from my house, soon as you go there you feel the south asian vibe. It's massive place, so many people go there for curry supplies and things like that. I like how the community is well knitted, and everyone knows everyone.

You know you are in a good community when it is well knitted and everyone knows everyone. My community is like that aswell. Its funny as in my grocery store for some reason the south asian spices smell does have a domineering effect here ;D eventhough we sell other products from around the world and South Asians dont form the majority of the community here.

 

[strivingobserver98]

You know you are in a good community when it is well knitted and everyone knows everyone. My community is like that aswell. Its funny as in my grocery store for some reason the south asian spices smell does have a domineering effect here ;D eventhough we sell other products from around the world and South Asians dont form the majority of the community here.

So what is the majority of the products that gets sold there?

 

[LusoHijabi]

So what is the majority of the products that gets sold there?

Its hard to say, I suppose we dont really have a "majority". Its kind of equal between South Asian, Middle Eastern and African products. If there is a majority it would be Middle Eastern/North Africa but that would be very marginal. though we do sell alot of South Asian products and they are hard to miss.

 

[strivingobserver98]

Its hard to say, I suppose we dont really have a "majority". Its kind of equal between South Asian, Middle Eastern and African products. If there is a majority it would be Middle Eastern/North Africa but that would be very marginal. though we do sell alot of South Asian products and they are hard to miss.

Oh ok understood. So you have any pictures of this grocery store to share? Interested to see how it looks like!