Khosh Kabab: Family meals-on-wheels!

Driving into the narrow inner roads behind the New World Center (also known as Souq Nabina) in Doha city, I am stuck midway between five SUV's that are parked right in the middle of the road. Upon inquiry, I figured out that it was something normal. They were having their dinner and they shouldn't drive while eating right? Although I was sort of frustrated at first, I decided to join the party. There was a young Nepali man who was hurtling between cars every now and then. He was taking the orders from the cars and all of this is happening midway through the street; and yet no one's honking and no one seems to be in a hurry.

Five minutes later, here I am, ordering a huge set of kababs from my car;  I'm now aware of the social norm in the situation and so I go with the flow. Welcome to Khosh Kabab, an Iranian kabab center that is located right in the middle of the city, in fact in a place where you wouldn't probably expect to have a great family dinner. But here's the point, they serve the tray of kababs to your car and so it's just so convenient and at the same time hot and fresh and to be honest, extremely delicious.

Truly amazing kofta !

    

I find this really interesting, especially since the communities around in the different cars are so diverse. Most cars I noticed belonged to Qatari families. It was a good chance for them to be together and enjoy a lavish meal in their SUV's. I noticed that almost all of the cars there were heavily tinted and so I could barely see anybody behind; not until the father opened the door by to throw something in the trash and the light shone on the family inside. It was wonderful to see an entire family of six, enjoying a great meal together. Having taken a few classes on sociology, I began to observe the people around closely and I saw a very common trend. Almost all the cars there stayed for a long time, completed their meals and then started to make a move. On average, each car hung around the area for at least half an hour. 

Another interesting observation was the communication between the customers and the waiter. Most often, the young Nepali waiter would converse using the little Arabic that he knew. In other cases, the customers would improvise with a little bit of Hindi or Urdu that they knew. It was interesting to see the intermingling of languages and culture, probably based on the large number of Urdu/Hindi/Persian speaking population in Qatar.

In conversation with the manager or mudeer of the restaurant, he informed me about their plans for expansion. He mentioned that the business was doing really well (pretty obvious) and that the goal for them was to have two new branches by the end of the year. This sort of resonates with the capitalistic idea that we discussed in the sociology class at NU-Q, where in the profits of the coming year has to be much larger than the profits of this year. 

In a country like Qatar, where the economy is booming, we can see a lot of international brands and this has had a huge impact on the lives of the people. Global franchises like McDonalds and KFC etc.are flourishing in Qatar with the globalization boom. An interesting point to note here is that the population of Qatar has the highest rate of obesity. 

The usual rush at fast food outlets

While it is normal to have quick, unhealthy drive-thru meals in the busy lives that we have today, it is worth checking out this kabab place which offers relatively healthier food and that too with the trays delivered to your car. How much better can it really get!