| rev:text
| - Sitting at Fattoush for lunch early last week, I picked up a local ethnic newspaper to provide myself some lunchtime reading. There on the front page was an ad for Zam Zam Market, specializing in "fresh halal meats".
I thought to myself, in a half-interested kind of way, "oh, ok. A new Middle Eastern market named after the holy well in Mecca. It looks like Baiz (and Al Haramaine, which is a few doors down from Fattoush) has some new competition in the central Phoenix area."
But then underneath a picture of some produce I spotted key words that made my eyes bulge out of my head: "Our Z-Grill serves nehari, biryani, tikka, goat karahai, seekh kebabs...". Immediately my mushy brain had to do a quick turnaround in its thought processing. This wasn't a standard Arabic market. These were MY people. Me not having to drive to Mesa or Glendale for Pakistani food? I started drooling at the thought, even though my stomach was about to burst from lunch. And so, I paid my bill and immediately headed over to Zam Zam. I had to see this place for myself. Now.
Zam Zam, like Baiz, is situated in not the greatest of neighborhoods. It's on 40th Street & Coronado, just north of McDowell. My goal for this initial visit was to keenly observe what this place was about. Walking past the cash register, I noticed a bunch of calling cards to Africa (including one awesome looking one called "African Hero") and a bunch of random Islamic trinkets.
I then looked to see what was in the freezer section. I spotted kababs. Lots of kababs. Zam Zam apparently makes its own seekh kebabs (skewered ground beef) and shammi kababs (Mughal-style ground beef patties mixed with lentils and other spices), ready for lazy bachelors like me to take home and grill or fry themselves. Holy mother.
Then I spotted little cones of pistachio and mango kulfi (our version of ice cream). A bunch of ready-to-heat Halal dinners (aka. the Muslim version of Swanson's TV dinners), a section stocked with goat meat, meetha paan (rolled betel leaves filled with coconut and other sweet stuff - very much an acquired taste but very popular in Pakistan and northern India), and the butcher section filled with more fresh meat and chicken, plus more kebabs, etc.
The feeling that South Asia is the dominant force in the market is the dessert section - a couple of trays of baklava, sure, but the main focus is on jalebis (think of them as our version of pretzel-shaped funnel cake, soaked in sweet goopy syrup), ladoos, gulab jamuns, and halva (sweet semolina mixed with cardamom, pistachios, sultana raisins, etc.) - all sweets popular in India and Pakistan and not well-known in the Middle East. A lot of the food stuffs on the shelves also cater heavily to South Asian cooking - a plethora of Pakistani and Indian spice mixes, chutneys, teas, biscuits, dried lentils, Basmati rice, etc. They also have bottles of sodas from the homeland - including ThumsUp (a cola), Miranda (orange soda), and Limca (a lemon-lime soda, although sweeter and not as carbonated as something like Sprite or 7-Up).
There's also a small fresh produce area. Some cookware for sale, including karahais (heavy wok-like pots) and tavis (flat pans to cook chapatis on), and randomly, shelves of car oil (?!). Go figure.
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All in all, Zam Zam isn't the greatest market in the world. It's not nearly as buzzing with activity as Baiz. But having a store so close where I can pick up kababs (which I have done and they are good) and kulfi as well all the cooking ingredients I need is an awesome bonus to me.
As for the Z-Grill itself - a small counter to order on with three dinky adjacent tables - I'm going to review that separately.
Right after having another meal there. :)
Zam Zam itself gets 3.7 stars (rounding up to 4)
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