Tabz Does Danbury & NYC: Recap

^ proof that Tabz still prayed even while his BIL, Sayeed, was in Pak

You have reached the voicemail of...

Ok, that has nothing to do with the recap, but I simply love the passion and intensity of which Tabz says that on his VM. Here goes the recap of Tabz’s visit to Do-me-bury last weekend:

Tabz had confirmed that he would be done with his meetings and available on Saturday around 1pm. So, in typical Pac fashion, I got there promptly at 2:15pm. In this case, however, I am totally going to leverage the I-brought-my-wife-and-kid card as the main reason for being late. TBHWU, I didn’t want to bring the wife and kid, but the day before I was out all day including the better part of the evening due to a work team building event, so I had a hard time telling my only friend in Danbury, my wife, that I was going to be gone for yet another entire day and, on top of that, to NYC – home of civilization as it relates to CT. Fortunately for me, our guest didn’t mind nor did he even give me a look of, Really, Pac? You’re bringing your wife and daughter to hang out with?! Ma sha Allah, Tabz is a nice guy.

Anyway, as you would expect, Tabz stayed in a baller Marriot hotel which was literally in the heart of Times Square. When I picked him up from the lobby, he greeted me with (1) his baller designer name brand two-piece luggage set both with an Admiral’s Club nameplates in black and gold (probably 24k gold) and (2) a box of sweets he picked up from his client, APPNA. I guess at this point, it’s fitting to point out Tabz’s APPNA experience...

“Very Paki” is what he initially told me about the organization. Immediately I thought to myself, Oh,that means there was probably complete segregation, lectures on the deen, and RGs everywhere. But, much to my (cough, cough) surprise, by “Paki” he meant “Hydro,” which meant that it was pretty liberal. For example, namaz was never on any agenda item; clothing was probably optional; and bhangra-ing was definitely mandatory (note: Arif Lahore – whom I’ve enjoyed since my childhood thanks to one of my uncles – was going to perform later that night and Tabz had two tickets! Man, why oh why did I bring my family?! #missedopportunity). Outside of his description of APPNA, which really wasn’t a surprise to me (unfortunately), Tabz kept pronouncing “Pakistan” like “Pack-is-tan” like he was a lifelong Texan governor running on the Republican ticket. In fact, my wife still can’t get over it. I avoided the temptation of asking Tabz to pronounce “Islam” and “Muslim” for fear that he’d say “Izlam” and “Moozlum.” Maybe it’s Tabz making up for his fobbiness? Maybe it’s the East Coast making people into ECJBs? Whatever it is, I pray it stops. It is an affront to me and my fellow Punjabi and new dance partner, Sami.

The initial plan was to take Tabz to “the usual” places with a stop in Brooklyn and particularly the DUMBO area with visits to Grimaldi’s pizza and a gorgeous view of DT Manhattan. Unfortunately, with the day being overcast, it started raining, so we decided to hit up Little Italy (i.e. NoLiTa) and try out another popular pizza joint very well known in NYC – Lombardi’s (supposedly the first pizzeria in Amreeka). Our overall verdict of Lomardi’s was that it was very legit, very good pizza. Everyone enjoyed it. But I have to ultimately agree with my wife and say that Grimaldi’s has a slight edge when it comes to both restaurants’ Neapolitan style pizza. Regardless, Lombardi’s is still a good place to throw back/fold up some NYC style pizza.

Soon after, we hit up Rice to Riches. This was a place that Tabz had been to before. It’s basically kheer gone crazy: just imagine kheer (rice pudding) but with a million different flavor selections like tiramisu, custard, caramel, rocky road, etc. On one hand, it might sound really bad, but on the other, especially for kheer enthusiasts, it sounds like a must-try. The three of us (four, if you include lil Suhaylie Pie) really enjoyed it. It’s small inside so we stood while eating and enjoyed the creative marketing slogans of the restaurant. Just check out these pics to know what I’m saying, in addition to some of my own:

Immediately after Rice to Riches, we passed by a Pinkberry (they’re adjacent to one another), so we were of course compelled to go. Tabz tried a sample or two whereas I hit up a small original with strawberries and chocolate crunch toppings (the chocolate crunch being Pinkberry’s primary attraction to both me and the wifey).

After that, Tabz, thinking that Sayeed was just around the corner, requested that we go hit up a masjid for Asr salat. MBN being RG in NYC whilst being an ECJB whilst also trying to DM. So we walked a few blocks to some random masjid (thank you, Zabihah.com iPhone app!) before we left the general SoHo/Nolita/Chinatown area. It’s nice that there are so many masjids/places to pray in the City – you could probably say it’s a 1:1 ratio of halal carts and masjids, which is saying a lot.

BTW, side note: I found out that Tabz knew a lot about NYC eating namely because he was out in NJ for a while about a year ago and in that time, he hung out a lot with his brother’s sister’s first cousin’s aunt’s neighbor’s babysitter’s friend’s cousin (OK, the chain was actually the bolded part of that description, but it felt like it took forever for Tabz to provide the chain of friendship). Anyway, his friend is a guy named Sameer. Sameer has a blog that I’ve actually come across in the past and probably many Muslims are aware of it, too – Sameer’s Eats. Pretty cool.

Ma sha Allah, Tabz’s connections run deep. As does his family (ma sha Allah, ma sha Allah). Another new thing I learned about him is that the guy has four sisters! I had NO idea! I always thought it was just three bros. I’m beginning to think with his connections, family secrets (OK, I guess it’s probably not a secret to his family that they have four girls, but you know what I mean), pronunciation of Pakistan, that there’s more than meets the eye with Tabz. That maybe he’s more than someone who likes to watch movies that don’t require thinking…

After our eating and praying escapades, we were planning to hit up 53rd and 6th for some combo platters to take back home, but before going, Tabz called an audible: “I’ve always wanted to see Imam Siraj Wahhaj’s masjid.” So we happily obliged our RG guest. Truthfully, I’m glad that he wanted to as not too long ago it just hit me that indeed Imam Siraj is from NYC and that I should check him out one of these days, so I was happy to oblige. Alhamdullilah, our Lord has His amazing ways. Oh, plus we needed to pray maghrib. Good thing to do.

I entered the address into my iPhone from the masjid’s (Masjid al Taqwa) website and off we went. Shortly before reaching our destination, Tabz commented that I was heading the wrong way. I looked at my phone. Nope, I was still on the purple line. I realized Tabz had an older iPhone so, in true Apple elitistry, I scoffed at him. But when we arrived to our destination, we were sitting in my car outside of an HSBC bank. We were confused. We saw an HSBC bank and a lot of white folk. You know that’s troubling because if you know about Imam Siraj Wahhaj, you know that his masjid and area aren’t in the best of locations. He mentions it in his talks, so it’s no secret. Tabz and I started to wonder what type of fundraising efforts does the Imam pull off?! MBN – the masjid is now a bank!

Ok, so what had happened was that the website’s address was missing a “1” in front of the address, which meant that Tabz had the right address he pulled from Google (Google knows your location better than your website does, I suppose) and so we had to travel an extra 20 minutes deep into the less desirable areas of Brooklyn. On the way, we were shocked to go through an area that was clearly dominated by Jewish folks. Like HC/HD ones, too. On either side of the street we were driving, you’d see men dressed in all black, with long beards, and wearing big black furry boxes (ok, hats) on their heads. It was a sight to see. I don’t even think you’d see that in predominantly Jewish areas back in Chicago. Soon enough, about 5 minutes driving though that area, we were in the land of halal chicken joints and so we stereotypically knew that we were on the right path.

Eventually we get to the masjid and, ma sha Allah, it was really nice. The immediate block within the masjid also looked much nicer and safer than the surrounding areas. You’d see fellow mumins, mostly Black, everywhere, and all very friendly and happy to greet you. We also noted that almost every shop on that block was an Islamic bookstore, a halal grocery, a halal restaurant, etc. Subhan Allah. Imam Siraj and his community are indeed impressive. Tabz told us he had heard that the surrounding area of the masjid was cleaned up, and so we witnessed that indeed it was. Unfortunately, we arrived a little late so we had apparently just missed Imam Siraj himself. I felt that this community was much more community-oriented and welcoming versus your typical desi suburban masjid. It’s more of a sad reality, but I felt it as did my wife. My wife came back from the sister’s side energetic and happy because she said every sister in the room greeted her very nicely and respectfully (would our desi sub-community do the same to someone outside of that sub-community in one of those suburban masjids? I hope so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the case). I also noticed a sign posted on bulletin boards throughout the masjid: SICK LIST. Impressive; the masjid provided a list of sick people and their contact info so that you could (1) make dua for them and (2) visit them to see if you could do anything. Blew. Me. Away. Alhamdullilah. In a poor community, you had the richest of hearts. We prayed and left a little after taking the area in. Right around that time the azan for Isha goes off. It’s actually being played outside of the masjid on loud speaker loud enough for people in the area to hear. WOW. Subhan Allah. So amazing. The beauty and impact of our faith, no doubt.

Afterwards, we hit up 53rd and 6th and also Magnolia Bakery as I learned that Tabz doesn’t like dessert too much, but does enjoy cupcakes. So it was probably my fault the next morning for breakfast when I asked my wife to make her awesome Nutella crepes. Tabz ate most of it but in the end he traded me – grade school style – his crepes for one of the plain crepes I was going to feed Suhaylie with for more egg. I guess we should’ve known that the Hydro Nawab only eats kichri keema and probably biryani in the mornings. Perhaps the entire “Pack-is-tan” thing threw us off and we thought he was a lil more white washed? Guess not? Then again, why did he refuse the homemade (by my in-laws) achar? This guy is an enigma!

All in all, it was a short trip (I didn’t even have time to give him a proper, traditional tour of Danbury since his flight out the next day didn’t give us much time after breakfast), but we made the most of it and we were truly honored to have a good friend and a good guest (despite him teaching Chinese, I mean, Hydro-style Urdu, to my daughter – I’ve never heard “nakko” so many times; I really thought that word was a joke and not something really used) come visit us. We thank him also for the wonderful gift he gave us – it’s a stand that holds the lil charcoal-like thingies to make your crib smell like an RG fob’s crib (I’m so good with describing things by their name, right?). But, tbhwu, I really love that stuff; no joke. It was perfect and much, much appreciated. Alhamdullilah, I am really happy to have had that time and moments with an awesome friend, ma sha Allah.

May Allah reward Tabz and his family, most especially his mother as well as his children, with the best in this life and the best in the Hereafter. May He (swt) shower them with His (swt) infinite mercy, forgiveness, and favor. Allah huma Salli Allah Muhammad. Aameen! Please remember him and again, especially his mom, in your duas.

JZK, Tabz!

Cheers