OK so I had an intresting Iftar with one of my friends. I will keep her identity secret so that I can protect her (and myself) from the wrath of
Chai.
We decided to have iftar together at a new Arabic resturant...one that surprisingly SHE knew of and I had never Heard of! Well we meet up ... find the place and it was still pretty bright out so I decide to show her the other resturant and grocery down the road. We find it ... we oooo and aaaaah and go back to the first place.
Its still bright out... but getting darker. Neither of us had bothered to find out the time of Iftar before we left ( I just wait for the Athan to go off while I am sitting there staring at our nicely laid out table when at home). We decide to go inside and check out the grocery part while waiting. PLUS I figured the people will probably give us free dates and juice as they are fasting too. SO we go inside ... and I must say I was very excited about the thought of our free juice (secret friend brought
medjool dates ... my favorite...so I just wanted some JUICE! we always just have water at home)
Right so only one guy manning the store... so I am starting to think we are
not going to get free juice. Unsure of the time ... we look outside and it still looks pretty bright. But I thought it was about this time yesterday I was drooling at the table and the Athan went off.
So we decide to ask the guy... the guy recognized my friend from a job she had back in 1999!!!! Um that was a bit unsettling! So he said NO NO NO the time is not for another 20 minutes. Now I am thinking he is CRAZY. (Well now I am just thinking maybe he is Shia... WHICH THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT because I just found out from my shia friend that they wait until the sun is completly gone to start eating)
So FINALLY it is the time and he offers us some dates ... boring dates... not cool medjool dates.
We order and then we go to the tables upstairs.
We are chatting ... having a good ole time ... and here comes the food.
We REALLY didnt order enough. I mean we ordered basically a light snack BUT MAN was it good!
Still chatting and having fun we are now thinking ... should we order more food or go to another place... WHile still saving room for Cheesecake factory for dessert.
The 'now starting to freak us out' owner comes up to check on us and says he is going to make some coffee or tea for himself ... would we like some. As it is FREEZING outside we say TEA PLEASE. and off he goes.
He comes back with this awesome spread puts the tea out for us (while asking my friend ... if I like hot tea. No he didnt ask me... and he just assumed I am some boring american who has never had Hot tea before ... little did he know right)
so he stands up here chatting with us about stuff he does ... places he owns .. and how he is a flight instructor. Maybe this is where I should mention he was Jordanian and one of the other places he owns is a liquor store! He finally leaves and we oooo and aaaah over the VERY good VERY hot tea...we also decide we have go go to another resturant for the entree.
Three cups of tea later the guy comes back. THIS time he pulls up a chair to our 2 seater table and decides to make small talk.
We repeatedly give each other that 'how are we going to get out of here' face as he tells us about how his cousin or nephew owns some club on 4th street and how he will give us free VIP passes if we promise we will dance. We just look at each other and laugh saying how we would just end up watching other people dance but thanks for the offer anyway.
A customer walks in and he races downstairs ... we decide this is the prefect time to make a break for it. We grab all the stuff so he doesnt have to make another trip up there and tell him we are ready to settle the bill.
He said he will not take any money from us. Because he remeber her from a few years ago that this was on him. We said NO WAY and you have to charge us. He said No this is his gift. SO we smiled and walked to the car. Fake smiles all the way to the car...Jumped in the car and took off!!!!
(wanted free juice ... got a free meal!!)
Ok so off to our next resturant. We will just call it SMOKEYS because it was FULL of smoke ... yeah right Louisville has a SMoking BAN! WHAT EVER!!!
Ok so we sit there talking and talking and looking over the pages and pages of choices and then I realized that no sever has taken our drink order. THis is nearly 20 minutes now. SO what had to be the manager must have noticed the same thing and comes up to our table takes our drink orders and brings us a free appetizer!
Yeah so that was my free Iftar/dinner
GOOD TIMES eh!