Tonight after work I went to the Punjabi Market to see if I could pick up a lantern because I read a teeny bit about the Dilwali celebration the day before yesterday. If you’re a local, Little India is on Main and East 51st in Vancouver – yes. It’s true. I had a person tell me today she had no idea there was an area in Vancouver called Little India. And she was born here. It’s not a huge area, by any means. There are a few blocks of sari stores, grocery markets and when I walked past one shop, I got a huge whiff of all kinds of spices – the exact combination of smells I remembered and recognized instantly from our shopping trips to Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
I walked passed few more shops that had Diwali sales on. I picked up all the fixin’s – clay lanterns, wicks and mustard oil for the lanterns. I found other interesting related items…but I’ll save them for tomorrow.
In my travels through the Punjabi Market, I passed many jewelry shops like the one above – in Khobar gold souq (sounds like “sook”, but not spelled that way 
– Thanks Kelaine!) style. It’s the souq! I just kept flashing back to various Saudi shopping sprees with my mom (she’s a super shopper) and my sister. It all looked so familiar. However, these souqs had all kinds of tiny elephant statues and I think some cows, too. We would never see that kind of thing in the souqs. No idol worshipping in the Saudi gold souqs.
Next stop – dinner. I picked the restaurant with the biggest table of goodies. Because of this holiday, the restaurants were rocking huge long tables filled with various sweets. It was a serve yourself situation – just pick the ones you want with the tongs and fill up a handy empty box. I also ordered some rice, your standard butter chicken, and some curried lamb. Guess what? That’s shwarma meat EXACTLY. I’m going to find the recipe and whip that up.
All in all, the Punjabi Market is a friendly (everyone thinks I’m a tourist whenever they see my camera around my neck, so I had strangers just say hello to me randomly) and fun place. It smells good and tastes good and the jewelry souqs are amazing.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes I get horrible cravings for falafel (green balls) from the side of the road and the closest I can get is the local greek restaurant.
Though I’ve also had success with this book http://www.amazon.com/Fruga...
Though I don’t own a copper cauldron large enough to fry 6 year olds in.
PS Your arabic teacher would scold you. Souq.
i wish that we had "little …" areas is halifax … i loved chinatown in t.o. … they had $18 tokidoki purses (no, i didn’t buy one … but i wish i had)!
there are a handful of specialty grocery stores, restaurants and that sort of thing, but besides that we are pretty bland.
Yalla yalla! http://www.souq.com/
I am sooooo jealous! We finally have an Indian in town, but surprisingly, just 2. I miss the selections.
Next visit we’ll have to go. It would be nice to have a shwarma again. I wonder if we could find something like zatar?
Zatar? The spices? I’m sure they would have some in the one little market I walked by on 51st. We will definitely go! The sari stores are amazing.