Sunday, March 30, 2008

Welcome to my Slaughter House

Location: Arizona
Time: Last week
Occasion: An Afghani restaurant opened in town.
People: Hareega and another hungry Arab guy walking towards the place.
Topic of conversation: predictions of the name of the restaurant.

Hareega, "What do you think the name will be?"
Friend, "Not sure"
"Maybe they should call it Kabul"
"That would be stupid"
"Why?"
"I don't think Americans will feel comfortable eating in a place called Kabul"
"So what can they call it then?"
"They should give it a reasonable name, something Arabic that is socially acceptable"
"But Afghans are not Arabs"
"Americans don't know that"
"So what should they choose?"
"Aladdin"
"Name's already taken"
"Sindbad"
"Taken"
"Ali Baba"
"Taken!"
"Osama"
"Osama, sure!"
"Why can't someone call his restaurant Osama, nothing illegal in that"
"Right"
"And he'll have many customers, yes all of them will be CIA agents, still he'd run good business"
"Absolutely. I think there's one restaurant called Osama somehwere. The owner refused to change the name after 9/11"
"I can imagine, you're not supposed to change your name because of one bad guy with the same name"
"True"


We arrived at the place, looked up to the sign.



So the name of the Afghani restaurant is Thabee7a.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean S-L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R

All of sudden, Osama sounded like a more appropriate name.

By the way, the food was damn good, bloody damn good.

19 comments:

Maioush said...

Thbee7a??? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
oh my god!! mesh tabeee3i :D
and sa7tean :D

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHA :D
Nice name, They should translate the name and write it too :D

Anonymous said...

LOL! Just when you thought we were predictable!

LotusGem said...

LOL

Osama may have been a better choice.

Although I would say this is a matter of perception, as I believe Afghani's use Arabic words slightly differently from their correct Arabic meaning.

I believe ذبيحة means something a little like وليمة عيد.

Qabbani said...

I guess its Persian word mean Meal ,
as u can see from the font its Persian written :) ,

I will check it out and tell u exactly what dose it mean :)

Hareega said...

maioush.. i know it's hilarious

nizar.. yes they should, in capital and bold letters

batoul.. exactly!

lotusgem and qabbani... interesting, didn't think of it that way, let me know if it has a different meaning, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hareega, you are one clever character. Thanks for the recent giggles!

Anonymous said...

that's a really really stupid choice for a restaurant's name.. jad e2rift!.. bas ya3ni if that's their choice, i just wonder why they didn't name it "thbee7a" equivalent in Afghani?

asoom said...

In Philadelphia there's a cute little restaurant in the downtown/old city area called Kabul that's really popular amongst the good and super good-so it could totally work!

I'm pretty sure they mean to spell "zabi7a" and not "thabi7a". The Kabul in Philadelphia advertises itself as a "zabi7a" restaurant.

Hareega said...

kinzi, thanks a lot!

secratea... yep would be interesting to know what they meant

asoom, whats the difference between zabi7a and thabee7a?

Anonymous said...

zabi7a bizzein...thabi7a ma feeha biz

Unknown said...

people here say the word thabeeha or zabeeha referring to meat being cut Islamicly! It's like they only eat "zabeeha" just like Kosher food, so I think they named the rest. thabeeha and at the same time they meant "halal food" as well! I might be wrong...but in our area, if you read the word thabeeha in a rest. it means: meat is halal!

As for me, I think the name Osama would be perfect for an Afghani rest. :) lol

asoom said...

hareega, like what nido said, it's in reference to the way the meat was slaughtered/prepared. Zabi7a is like kosher for muslims, sometimes it's called "halal" and some people by preference only eat zabiha meat

Anonymous said...

Ya salam, ana mosta7eel foot 3ala ma7al haik ismo, wlee! Ya ma7la Osama!!

Sharkooseh said...

loooooooooooooooooooooooool
3n ajd malo osama :P
and nice idea Nizar :P

Hareega said...

I thought they'd just call it hala meat, besides I wouldn't name the restaurant thabee7a lol!

Anonymous said...

"Thabi7a" in Arabic would not transalte to "Slaughter House" in the English language. I believe a more appropriate transliation would be : Slaughtered or if you want to be more accurate "Slaughtered Animal". "Mathba7" and "Masla7." on the other hand mean "Slaughter House"

Hareega said...

i didn't say it meant sluaghter house, that was just the title

Jundi said...

in saudi thabee7a (pronounced thibee7a in local dialect) refers to il 7aywan il mathboo7 (usually a kharoof)