ragin' at the rose

You know what: I've never encountered a family-owned ethnic food store where its owners are mean old dogs. I can't vouch for any of the Chinese or Korean grocery shops I've visited here, because they're bigger than God and routinely give Safeway and TJ's a run for their money. My only memories of the stores include getting shoved in the ribs by shopping carts and overzealous ajummas (memories of being in the Korean subway flooded back to me, I'm happy to say). The British and Indian markets, on the other hand, were run by warm and affable creatures - the former an elderly Scottish woman with a chin so tremendously turkey-like that I probably stared a little longer than I should have, last I was there with Bernadette to pick up scone ingredients and clotted cream (mmm). A few days ago, I went to the Rose Market on Castro street. It's a little Persian market with a hole in the wall that serves various dubious wraps - falafel, hummus, kebabs. Obviously, I was dying to go, because I sure as hell have never had the chance to buy food from home in good ol' Nor Cal. Now that I finally have my own car and can drive wherever I please on my own (okay, maybe not on the freeway just yet...), I zipped over to the Rose with Patrick to get my Middle Eastern food fix.

I found pretty much everything I wanted - including delicious halawah, (slightly stale) sangak bread, rose water - a decent selection for such a small market. But man! the dudes who ran the place were assholes! It took a good few minutes for someone to show up at the cheese counter, even after I waited a while and then rang their obnoxious little service bell three (yes) times. No apologies, just a casual smirk and a "whaddya want." The dudes at the checkout counter - two or them - weren't serving any customers because one of them was busy being a snarky little twerp on the phone. Now I appreciate snark; hell, half the things that come out of my mouth are snarky, much to my parents' distressful efforts to make me more lady-like. But these fuckers were fairly rude and ridiculously inefficient. Dude #2 could have been ringing up the three or four customers in line while Dude #1 performed his little comedy act on the phone.

Now, Yelp tells me that other customers have found them to be quite rude, too, and I have it on good authority that they tend to be less affable towards women. This would probably be grounds for me to make that my first and last trip, but hey - I'm Arab and I need my goddamn fix, so I'll probably keep patronising these dubiously sexist motherfuckers for a little while longer. I'm just disappointed that these fools couldn't show a bit of ethnic solidarity (what? my grandfather was Iranian...) and some good old-fashioned politeness.

Also, your sangak bread, Rose Market? Not even that great, assholes. Go to SoCal and learn how to make some decent bread while you're down there!