'Zareen's Pakistani Kitchen', Chef & Restaurateurs, Zareen Khan & Umair Khan

0:09Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast: The Making of Stories. I'm your host, Jawwad Nir. As I've mentioned earlier, this podcast still being a podcast about films, about TV series, about books, about films, but now I'm slightly deviating, but s… still keeping the essence of the podcast by having guests on who have their own story about what their life is like and what could be turned possibly into a film or a series down the road. And today my guests are Zareen Khan and Umair Khan, owner, chef, and co-owner of Zareen's Restaurant, located in California with multiple locations. I first came across their restaurant with a personal connection as one of my films, In Search of My Sister, two, three years ago, was privately screened there, and now they have come out with a brand-new book. It's called Zareen's Pakistani Kitchen: Recipes From a Well-Fed Childhood. My conversation with Zareen and Umair was fantastic. We talked about their personal journey. We talked about their business journey. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Zareen Khan and Umair Khan. I would love to know, how did your journey start, in terms of meeting each other the first time and then taking it from there?

1:16Jawad MirAs, you know, obviously I don't wanna give, have you guys giving away too much because most, some of it's in the book, so just in terms of summary. We can have Zareen start if she likes.

1:25Guest 2Umair is really good at starting with our journey, then I'll take over.

1:28Jawad MirOkay, sounds good.

1:29Guest 1It's okay. Yeah. We met up in high school. So we were right around 16, and, you know, thank you Karachi Grammar School. And, yeah, then, what was interesting was that then she stayed back in, Pakistan to study at IBA, and I was obviously, then I went abroad. So it was a nice four-year long distance AT&T relationship, $3.50 per minute, typically three minutes a week, lots of letters. And then that was sort of the f… the first part. And then after that it was, yeah, we got married in '92, and that's when, you know, Zareen came over to Boston with me.

2:15Guest 2Yeah. That's when I started, Northeastern after my status changed from F2 to F1. And, then we moved to the Bay Area, where Umair joined Intel. And, I was looking for work finishing up my master's still. After that, started, with financial analysis, then ended up as a product manager. And at some point I decided that corporate life is not for me. So many different options were there, and one thing that struck out most that was the easiest for me to do at that time was do cooking classes and teach people how to do Pakistani food. Then one thing led to another. We had kebab deliveries. Kebab deliveries morphed into corporate catering. And then one day I decided, "You know what? Maybe I should open a restaurant." So that's when Mountain View was born in 2014.

3:05Guest 2That's the start of my journey.

3:08Jawad MirNice. Do you guys still have those letters that you guys used to write each other?

3:12Guest 2That was the best part of dating in that time, you know…

3:15Guest 1Yeah

3:15Guest 2... 'cause you have those letters which you write so meticulously, unlike just messaging now. So yeah, we do.

3:20Jawad MirBut do you guys still have them?

3:21Guest 1Yeah. Yeah, we have them. Yes.

3:23Guest 2Whole, bag full of them.

3:26Jawad MirDo you guys occasionally go through them?

3:28Guest 1Yeah, I love how, Jawwad, Zareen tried to steer you towards the business side and the restaurant, and you went back to the letters. Well done.

3:38Jawad MirWell, business is not something that people connect to as much as we, people connect to personal stories, right? So that's…

3:45Guest 1We…

3:45Jawad Mir... That's pretty big. Yeah.

3:46Guest 1No, we still have that. We still have, you know... It's interesting. We don't have that many photographs from that. You know, it wasn't very much a, sort of a selfie culture at that time, right?

3:56Jawad MirYeah.

3:56Guest 1So the few we have are actually quite precious, like her pictures from IBA, where she was, you know, led student government, and she was quite, the activist there and all. Which was not fun for me being in Boston listening about all the political chicanery going on at Karachi University and all, and her in, right in the thick of it.

4:17Guest 2Yeah, I was the first woman ever to be elected, as a treasurer for a student union at IBA. And I hope there are more now, but I don't think so, though. I haven't heard.

4:28Guest 1I'm sure there are.

4:29Guest 2I asked somebody then. So it would be... I hope more women start leading.

4:35Jawad MirAll right. And I'm gonna get into all the other stuff, but just to kind of stay on the letter part, and I'm not trying to... If I'm trying to be invasive, please let me know. It's more about if there's something that you read in a letter now, both of you guys, about each other, something that stands out that how silly we were, or did we say this, or were we talking like that. Or something that's completely nice and lovely. If you're willing to share that'd be lovely to hear.

5:04Guest 1When was the last time that we actually saw all of this? Actually, it's interesting. We should actually that…

5:09Guest 2We just have those forms that we find, discover the bag.

5:12Guest 1Yes.

5:12Guest 2And then we open one or two, and that's about it, for me.

5:15Guest 1Yes. I mean, all I'll say on the subject and it's, it's, it's kind of very nicely secretly stashed away from the kids. So…

5:22Jawad MirGot it.

5:23Guest 1So I think we'll leave it at that.

5:25Jawad MirSounds good. Sounds good. And you know, I, visited, Zareen's restaurant for the first time when, we did the screening of the film, and I had no idea what it was. And, you know, I've, I visited few times, and the food is great as it is, but for me the experience was, definitely something that was different. I mean, in Toronto we had a sim… similar style, but a little bit more downscale. I don't know if you ever heard of Lahore Tando… Lahore Tandoori House or Lahore Tikka House.

6:02Jawad MirVery popular, and but this was just something different, and I really enjoyed the vibe. What was the process of…... The actual environment and experience that you wanted to create for people, besides the food?

6:16Guest 2So, when the kids were young, we would go to Barnes & Noble a lot on the weekend, to read books with them and all. And then all of a sudden Amazon took over and the bookstores start closing. So at that time Umair and I had thought, "Oh, we'll have a cafe one day, and we'll have the library, and people would read while we make coffee." So that, in a way, was our dream at that time. So when I took over the restaurant, it was really small. It was only 700 square feet, the one in Mountain View. So we had no space to even put a bookshelf there. And at that time, funds were also limited because I didn't want to, overdo it. I didn't know where I'm headed. So, that's when the book idea on the walls came about, you know? The other thing we decided at that time is we let our customers write their review on the walls.

7:03Guest 2So that was, I think, very quaint and, n… nice to see that. So, truck art was added. More women empowerment images that I found in Pakistan were brought in, to give that Desi vibe, but not overwhelmingly Desi. You know, we don't want to create an environment where you feel like you've stepped into Lahore Karachi. But…

7:24Guest 2... All phases of it.

7:26Guest 1Yeah.

7:27Guest 2And it just, overall we want people to feel comfortable, relaxed, you know. You know, make their day better.

7:36Jawad MirDo you guys remember the very first few customers or first u… days when you guys… ... Opened the restaurant, and how it unfolded, and if you had any kind of epiphany that this is going to be something bigger than I expected or we expected?

7:53Guest 2I didn't e… have much expectation. I just wanted something that I can enjoy, you know, give some, a livelihood, you know. So at that time I didn't. But initially our friends and community were the one who were... We would put them against the wall so the place looks a little full, you know. And

8:13Guest 1Near the window, right? Like near the entrance.

8:16Jawad MirYeah.

8:16Guest 1Outside it looks full. Yeah.

8:18Guest 2But within couple of months we could see that there is a huge demand, and we had lines out of the door, which we were not ready for. So Umair was get, constantly getting pulled in to help me. So it was an experience the first six months.

8:31Guest 1So I'll, I'll say the first, I think…

8:32Guest 2Yeah

8:32Guest 1... Literally the first night or second night there was a friend of ours, a couple, they came in, and there was just so much, demand this first, I think it was literally the first or second night. Because again, the community sort of showed up, that I think their food wasn't served for well over an hour. I think it was an hour…

8:49Guest 2Yeah. That would happen a lot

8:50Guest 1... Hour and 10 minutes or something. This is literally the first day. And so the restaurant essentially closed. They were still standing, you know, sitting there with like, you know, their whatever, masala fries and, you know, drinks.

9:03Guest 2That was the standard. Whenever we'd be late, oh…

9:06Guest 1Give them…

9:06Guest 2... Masala fries.

9:07Guest 1Masala fries.

9:07Guest 2Samosas, mango lassi, chai, you know. Just to keep them going and not focus on how be… how behind I was in the kitchen.

9:15Guest 1Yeah. And then I remember the restaurant closed and we just sat with them. We apologized, and we just had a meal with them. Like we got whatever was there and we just shared, and that was kind of like the end of shift one. And they were very nice about it, of course. They're lovely people. But yeah, that was there. I will say that, one, it really was, you know, well before the first restaurant, right? So as Zareen was saying, it started with the cooking class. So that journey from cooking class to restaurant itself was quite amazing, right? So, you wanna talk about

9:47Jawad MirYeah, I would love to hear that.

9:48Guest 1Yeah. Because that was a... Yeah.

9:50Guest 2The cooking classes were like, d… didn't make any business at all. You know? It was a lot of work. I would be practicing on Umair and kids, which they were very happy to see.

10:00Guest 1It was brilliant. Lovely times for us.

10:02Guest 2These kids every you know. But didn't make much, sense. Then the cooking classes, led to kebabs for the student. And before we know it, we were getting orders for like hundreds of kebabs, and Umair and I would be delivering to San Francisco, Berkeley almost every weekend.

10:20Guest 2And then the students came and said, "Oh, would you like to cater for our company? We are giving free food." So that's how…

10:27Guest 1Oh, the students. These are…

10:28Guest 2My, s…

10:30Guest 1Oh yeah, the…

10:30Guest 2As well as f…

10:31Guest 1... Cooking class students. Yeah.

10:32Guest 2Yeah, cooking class students.

10:33Guest 1As well as the others. Yeah.

10:34Guest 2So…

10:34Guest 1So we had a pretty big following already by that time.

10:36Guest 2Yeah. I think friends and community was very wel… very much there for us.

10:40Guest 1Yeah. So the best of the cooking classes made it out to sort of this frozen kebab delivery. She was, then I actually had a substantial, you know, you know, effort and sort of initiative going with the central kitchen.

10:52Guest 2Some people were a little bit like, "Oh, what's happening? Kebab Queen is here." "Is Umair's business doing all right?" And I would like... If Umair's business was not doing all right, I wouldn't be doing $1 kebabs, you know? I can get a better job than that. So, but in general it was…

11:07Guest 1Yeah

11:07Guest 2... Very positive.

11:08Guest 1Yeah. There'll always be a few detractors, and the moral of the story is not to worry about them.

11:13Jawad MirI always love the speculation, gossip, among people, how they assume things instead of looking at the actual action that's happening in front of them.

11:23Guest 2Some of the same people are now like, "Oh, "" you will do so well. Told you."

11:28Jawad MirExa… yeah, that's always the case, right?

11:32Guest 2Right. Yeah.

11:32Jawad MirI was, I was, watching this, interview. I forget the context, but the, basically the story was, this one guy, I think he was an actor, and how all these people, his teachers and professors doubted them from the very beginning. And they showed up at the awards when this guy was getting awards and he said, "Well, you know, I told you'd be successful." And the actor, just to make the teacher happy, he's like, "Yeah, I know you did." You know? But yeah, there's always that whole thing that people who claim in the beginning not to believe in you and then they later on believe say that they did.

12:05Guest 2Yeah.

12:05Jawad MirI always find it fascinating. With your lifestyle at the time, both of you guys being so busy, did it… If you look back at it, did it impact any kind of time with your kids and you wish that you had not done s… so much even though you have all the success that right now? Was, has there ever been that time where you think about that in the past?

12:27Guest 2So the cooking classes were an option only so I can be with the kids. So they would help me with the packaging of, small gifts for the students. They would help me. Umair would write the menu for me. So that was something that, was done as a family, and the kids really…

12:45Guest 2... Liked it because every time I picked them from school, there would be like roast waiting for them or…... You know, I don't know, Desi style Chinese or, tiramisu or something, you know. And just like, "Oh, this is so good." And they still miss it.

12:58Guest 2They still miss it. But the kids were a little older when I actually started with cooking, which was taking a lot of my time. They were in their high school at that time. So it wasn't that much of a compromise. I would still, I was still able to pick them up from school, drop them home, and, if I had to go back, I would go back. But, in general, we were very mindful of spending time with them.

13:22Guest 2And I always thought that my daughter would say, "Oh, you missed my, games," or whatever, because I did that. It was not an option at that time. But one day she was working with me as a cashier in the restaurant, and after that we were having, lunch together and she asked me, "Hey, do you know who I look up to the most?" And, you know, I'm like, "Oh, maybe your khala, your phuppo, daddy," whatever. It's like, "No, it's you. You know…

13:48Jawad MirWow

13:48Guest 2... You've inspired so much that I've seen how hard you work to be where you are." And I think that was the best compliment ever, 'cause I was, I didn't expect that from her. I always thought she would always feel like, you know, I was not always there for her during her high school time. But, opposite of that, I feel like very proud of her and so happy to hear that.

14:13Jawad MirNice. In terms of the book, give me the exact title of it, and if you have it with you, can we sh… show it on the screen?

14:25Guest 1Yeah, I'll…

14:25Guest 2Let me grab it.

14:26Guest 1Yeah. So the title of the book is Zareen's Pakistani Kitchen: Recipe From A…

14:33Jawad MirOkay

14:33Guest 1... Recipes From A Well-Fed Childhood.

14:36Jawad MirInteresting. And what was the catalyst of this book? Like, what was the spark that started all this?

14:46Guest 1Yeah. Yeah, so look, I, so I was the, one of the few people at MIT doing creative writing ... You know, outside my regular sort of, you know, courses for eight semesters. So I love books. You see that reflected obviously in the restaurant. Both Zareen and I are, you know, sort of lovers. And I love to write. And so any, you know, sort of, excuse to kind of be creative and to write, right, is something that I always look for. And so over the years, and actually honestly just around COVID, you have a lot of time to kind of think, and the world is upside down, and you're doing lots of, you know, walks by yourself and all. And this sort of idea came to me that, you know, I've been doing essentially these small sort of food writings, an ode to mamni samosa and this and that, in the context of the restaurant for several years. And there's a story to be told around the restaurant. There's a story to be told around Zareen. And I wanted to take that on as a writing project. And so then it took some time to actually convince Zareen to take on that, right?

15:52Guest 2Took almost a year of Umair reading me description of samosas and aloo gosh and making me all emotional. And after a year, I said, "Okay, fine."

16:01Guest 1Yeah.

16:01Guest 2"I'll work on the recipes."

16:02Guest 1Yeah. So…

16:03Jawad MirBut…

16:04Guest 1That was the start. But I will say also that we wanted from day one for it to be more than just, a recipe book. So I wanted it to have a significant amount of storytelling and creative writing. Zareen really wanted it to be a big part of it to be, you know, sort of women empowerment, spotlight on women, and so on. So you wanna talk about kind of how you wanted the women spotlights and all?

16:28Jawad MirBut before you do that, Zareen, what was, why were you reluctant to have the book written about Zareen's?

16:36Guest 2So if cooking classes were harder, hard, this is like next level.

16:40Guest 1Yeah.

16:40Guest 2And while you're running three restaurants, and another one under construction, and so much work to do. And I'm the only chef in the restaurant, so I train all the other cooks. It's, hard to find time to do a big project like that. That was my hesitancy, and I don't like to do something half-hearted, so, I knew it would be a lot of commitment and a lot of time.

17:01Guest 1Which it was. So yeah, I mean, there's five projects in one, and we can get into that. But yeah, so Zareen was very much like, "Ye kaha pasand hai," and all, because she literally cooked everything, and I wrote everything. So there's no ghost writing or ghost cooking, both of which, by the way, are options when you do a cookbook, right? So yeah, it was a lot of work.

17:23Jawad MirGot it. Sorry, Z… Zareen, you were gonna say something else, too. I just lost my, I think Umair had mentioned that... Do you remember?

17:33Guest 2I think it's just, about why highlight the women in the book.

17:37Jawad MirYes.

17:39Guest 2For me, I think despite, everything that's going on in Pakistan, I think women have done really well there, and they are being major change maker and, you know, small business, hiring so many people. So I wanted to highlight, some of the women that I, find very inspirational and, wanted to support them in my book. And, you know… I feel people should know that, you know, Pakistan is not like some, you know, poor country with women being all, in chains and burqas and all that, you know? So this was a good way to highlight the influencing women in Pakistan.

18:20Guest 1Well, and across the world.

18:21Guest 2Across the world.

18:22Guest 1So it was really about women that we look up to, both of us, and that we want people to sort of see.

18:28Guest 2There's some really…

18:29Guest 1Yeah

18:29Guest 2... Accomplished women here that we are also very inspired by them.

18:33Guest 1Yeah.

18:34Guest 2We wanted to also include them, so it's an inclusive kind of a book.

18:37Guest 1Yeah. So there's a Bangladeshi British, there's a Pakistani American, there's a Pakistani woman in Pakistan, there's an Indian Canadian, and so on and so forth, right? Which, yeah, they're women that we are inspired by and we love.

18:52Jawad MirAnd just, can you name some of those women, like, that you guys…

18:55Guest 1Of course

18:55Jawad Mir... Have sort of been inspired?

18:56Guest 1Yeah. So Nadiya Hussain, the winner of the Great British Bake Off.

19:00Jawad MirOkay

19:00Guest 1... Sana Amanat, who's the creator of Ms. Marvel. Rupi Kaur, the Canadian, poet and, performing artist.

19:10Guest 2My favorite, Ayesha Chunara of ACL Foundation.

19:13Guest 1Yes. Ayesha Chunara is just incredible, out of, Pakistan. And then Michelle Tam, who's actually the founder of Nom Paleo, and she's actually local and she loves our restaurant.

19:23Guest 2And I love her recipes.

19:25Guest 1Yes. And then Stacy Brown-Philpot, who's the former CEO of Das Rabbit and, board member at Nordstrom and HP.

19:34Jawad MirGot it. And in terms of, you know, the book, as you said, story, like story is the… ... Essence and the core of our existence, and making sure that there's a right balance between the actual journey in the story and then the actual food, did you guys, find that challenging? And how, if so, how did you sort of make sure that it blends in very seamlessly?

20:03Guest 1Yeah. So the first part of the book is, you know, it starts with kind of us welcoming the readers, and then, Zarin's story, which is from Karachi With Love, right? So how she became sort of w… what we call the accidental chef, right?

20:16Jawad MirYeah.

20:17Guest 1And then the other big story here, the big, essay here, is Midnights in Karachi, which is actually me taking the readers on a food crawl of, Karachi. So this is From Karachi With Love. That's Zarin at five, and that's kind of her story. And then after that is,.. And this was quite the accomplishment, so this is Midnights in Karachi.

20:42Guest 1Right? The accomplishment here is that we got this incredible photo, journalist Khala Jamil to, you know, take like kind of photographs of glimpses of Karachi, and she made Karachi look really beautiful and really clean. So, yeah. But then after that, interspersed with all the, recipes, I mean, the head notes of the recipes talk about like, for example, Reshter Khorma, right, how it's the dish of choice at Eid, and why that's the case, right? Or there's my Ode to M&E Samosa, which I'll read in a minute, because I'm very proud of that. But that's our…

21:17Jawad MirSure

21:17Guest 1... You know, sort of, that's probably one of our most popular items. That's what got Zarin's into the Michelin guide, and that's really one of her family recipes, so there's a whole, you know, sort of background to that. And then there are the stories of the six women that we highlight, right? So, you know, we tried to create that balance, right? So yeah.

21:36Jawad MirGreat. Do you wanna read that right now, that, the ode?

21:42Guest 1Happy to, yeah.

21:43Jawad MirYeah, I would love to hear that.

21:47Guest 1On M&E Samosa. To those of us who grew up on this snack, the samosa belongs among the great triangular concepts of human civilization, right alongside the Pythagorean theorem and the love triangle. We who first met this snack as toddlers know that a samosa must be savored hot. With our first crunch escape wisps of aromatic steam, and we smell once again our childhood. May we always savor all three sides of a great samosa: taste, texture, and nostalgia.

22:23Jawad MirThat's really well written.

22:24Guest 1Well, thank you.

22:25Jawad MirYou just gave samosa a brand new life for me.

22:29Guest 1I'll, give me a minute, I'll read you... So my favorites here are actually nihari and aloo gosht.

22:36Jawad MirSure. I'm all ears, man. Whenever you, if you want to do it right n…

22:39Guest 1I'll, I'll do one on the aloo gosht, 'cause I think that's…

22:42Jawad MirSure

22:42Guest 1... Zarin's favorite too, right? Overlooked amid kebab and curry feasts, aloo gosht was the meat and potato staple of our childhood. It is only when we glance back across many winters abroad that we savor and return its loyal devotion. Done right, aloo gosht has a confident, unvarnished richness that its flashier curry cousins envy. Its light consistency is perfect for basmati rice, so give roti anonymous and enjoy mouthfuls of blind potato and succulent meat atop sauce-drenched rice. In its nourishing simplicity and tender textures, our vagrant hearts retaste our first summers. And so we beat on, migrant boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into our aloo gosht past.

23:34Jawad MirWow. Incredible.

23:36Guest 1Thank you.

23:36Jawad MirThat's really awesome. No, I just, it just such a visual writing that, you don't sometime, you won't even need images to understand that, so really cool. Has there been ever a thought or conversation of opening Zarin's outside of Canada? Sorry, as US, whether it's in Pakistan or India or any other country, UK?

24:01Guest 2I would love to, but not at this point. I'm not ready. A lot of people ask us if you want to franchise. Again, being in the kitchen is, my happy place. And if you expand much or franchise, I will be more involved with administration… And, then the kitchen.

24:19Guest 2So at this point, maybe not. My son has actually joined me, for the last one and a half years, so that has really helped. And if he wants to take it to the next level, I would help him. But for myself right now, maybe not.

24:34Guest 1Yeah, just to give you a sense of what Zareen's, sort of got herself into, right? So we started with Mountain View, which was the first location back in 2014. We just, you know, celebrated 10-year anniversary. And then 2016, we opened up, Palo Alto, right?

24:51Guest 1And she'd already been in the food business seven years at the time. So, you know, Palo Alto was an instant success, right? You were talking about early stuff, so Palo Alto location, the second location, was this instant success, and I like to call it, like, the overnight success that was seven years in the making.

25:08Guest 1Right? And there was Redwood City, which was the third one, and now she's bought, you know, Sunnyvale, so there's a construction going on there. The Palo Alto, the second location, she bought out and threw out Starbucks, our next door folks, and then we broke the walls, and we made it into sort of this one restaurant. So that construction project hasn't finished. The Sunnyvale construction project is still going on, and there's other stuff going on. So besides being a restaurateur, she's, like, sort of full-time sort of contractor right now and, you know, working on constructions. So hopefully once things, you know, sort of subside a little and get a little bit more manageable, then, yeah.

25:47Jawad MirAnd when is the Sunnyvale location scheduled to open, estimatedly?

25:52Guest 2We're hoping June. It was supposed to open last November. But we didn't even get the permit until end of, January. So let's hope that we can be there. Because, our lease in Mountain View is with Google, and they're not renewing the lease. They want to make some apartments or hotels in that place.

26:12Guest 2So we'll be home in June. So let's see how it goes.

26:17Jawad MirGot it. Can you guys talk about, what both of you or just Zareen, you know, when you're in the kitchen, right? You said that's your happy place. But in kitchen, even if it's your happy place, there's always chaos, right? Like, there's so many orders coming in, and what's the priority? Everything is, everything is running, you know, in order. Maybe a story that you can remember, whether it's recent or in the past, where things were really chaotic and how you sort of overcame it, to…

26:48Jawad Mir... Be able to look after the, your customers, basically.

26:54Guest 2It's always chaotic at Zareen's, and I love the chaos because it reminds me of Karachi. So I very calm among the, you know, chaos. Sometime I feel like, you know, you guys are on the other side of the wall, and there is this whole steam pressure cooker environment in the restaurant. And I remember initially, when I opened, Mountain View, I had no idea how to get the food, where to get all these, items and equipment. I had no idea how to hire employees. I had no idea about the laws and all, so it was very challenging. And, there was a time when there was only one cook and me, and that cook was going through a divorce. So on the smallest thing, she just took her apron out and just handed it to me, and I was supposed to be the cashier that day. So I was cashier as well as the cook now, and my cook has left right in the middle of lunch rush. So that was like, I remember like, I...... Basically, it was this hard that day. So, but over time, I got used to it, so I'm pretty calm when things are even going the other way.

28:05Guest 1Yeah, the early days were actually quite hilarious. There's a whole separate book there somewhere because I remember having this meeting with, you know... You know, I try to take my meetings in the Mountain View place. So I'm, I'm lunch, and Zareen comes to me and sort of says, "How's the food?" I, or I think we're waiting for the food, and she's just like, "Can you come here for a sec?" And she's like, "There's no… We don't have a cashier. You're the cashier now." And I was like, "But I'm in the middle of a meeting." She's like, "It doesn't matter." So I had to go to the person and say, "I'll just take five minutes," and then I'm, I'm manning the till. And then that took 45 minutes, and the guy was very understanding because he knew this whole sort of family business type thing. But yeah, I was pulled into that. The other is, you know, I was one of the founders of Open Silicon Valley, the organization of Pakistani entrepreneurs.

28:45Guest 1It's an amazing platform here, and the annual conference is a, is a amazing thing, right?

28:50Jawad MirYeah.

28:50Guest 1So, you know, after 10, 12 years of that, you're holding court with people. And Zareen and I had a kind of a secret sort of signal. If she sent SOS on the text, that means drop everything, come help, right?

29:02Guest 2I need help.

29:03Guest 1So I'm, you know, holding court with, you know, a whole bunch of sort of young entrepreneurs and telling them about, you know, useless stuff, whatever, you know, term sheets and valuations and all. And then I get this SOS, and it says, you know, "There are no alus. Bring alus." So then I'm like, "You know, I have a very important call to take outside. I'll see you guys in a bit." And then I'm off to get alus. Yes.

29:26Guest 2I think we…

29:26Jawad MirThat's super cool

29:27Guest 2... Would not have, we wouldn't have done what we did if Omer had not worked with me through this extent. I…

29:35Guest 1Lots of people involved, yeah.

29:36Guest 2Yeah. But, you know, I, in terms of family support, you really need that.

29:41Jawad MirYeah.

29:41Guest 2But whether it's for the wife or the husband, doesn't matter.

29:47Jawad Mir100%. Sometimes, you know, we get busy with so much of our daily life that we, in the present, we forget about where we were 10 years ago and how far we have come. Do you ever have those moments where maybe you're under stress, whether it's chaos in the kitchen, whatever that is, and that, you know, that story, that story from the first day or the first month and kind of just keeps you grounded? Do you have those kind of moments just to keep you calm?

30:22Guest 2Personally, seriously, if I understand your question properly, when things are really rough and all, and I get so stressed out, then I remind myself that this is very compared to what I had gone through with my health journey. I was diagnosed with cancer while we're in the middle of catering and all. And that, when I was told about the, about the tumor, that was like... That really shakes your, you know, m… makes you look at things in the right perspective. So when things are not going right, I remind myself, "This is nothing." You know, remember that time?

30:58Guest 2You know, that was…

30:58Jawad MirYeah

30:59Guest 2... That situation, you know? Not this. This is something I can handle.

31:05Jawad MirWow, I did not know that. W… when was this? Seven, eight years ago, or?

31:10Guest 212, 2012, so it's been a while.

31:13Jawad MirAnd now you're fully okay?

31:15Guest 2I think so.

31:16Jawad MirGood. That's good. Well, I guess that does answer my question, because that is a big thing to overcome. It's not an easy task, not just physically, but mentally as well. So kudos to you.

31:28Guest 2Thank you. I think that's…

31:30Jawad MirDid that have… Sorry, go on.

31:32Guest 2That was the time when I realized how important it is for women to have something to pursue for themselves, 'cause then it keeps you focused in a very positive way, instead of worrying about things, you know?

31:44Jawad MirDo you think that was a catalyst for Zareen's, the restaurant?

31:48Guest 2I… in a way, yeah. I do value life a lot more than I did before. And, I feel like there should be a purpose for everyone to kind of follow and look forward to, you know?

32:00Jawad MirAnd Umair, how have you seen Zareen's overcoming of all these obstacles and to be where she is today? Not necessarily… When I say success, I don't necessarily mean, like, you know…

32:12Guest 1Yeah

32:12Jawad Mir... Financial success, but just to have, like, multiple stores open and a recognized brand and still at it.

32:20Guest 1Look, you know, first of all, I mean, as an entrepreneur, it's an incredible entrepreneurial journey, right? If you literally look at it one by one.

32:27Jawad MirYeah.

32:27Guest 1And Zareen's very modest about it, but even in the Mountain View location, I remember thinking, she was profitable in her second month, right? Which is very big for a restaurant, right? She returned my entire investment in eight months, which has not happened across any of the mentors fund 100 plus investments in venture and in tech, right? So, you know, but I think more than that, I'll, I'll tell you this, right? Like, and I, this is part of the examples or case studies that I do at Berkeley…

32:55Jawad MirSure

32:55Guest 1... Zareen's success. I think honestly her sort of attention to detail, right, and that consistency of quality i… is just second to none, right? And that it's the hallmark of all great entrepreneurs, right? So that, I think her,.. And I can give you several examples of that, but the best one is that in the last sort of Suhoor night, all night, when we were open last Ramadan, you know, Zareen, Salek and I told her that, "You can, you know, go home, and we'll take care of it. I'll be there for a couple of hours, and then Salek will be there till, like, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning." So she goes home, and at 12:30 AM, I get a text, right? While I'm hanging out with all our friends, and there's lots of nice crowd and hullabaloo. And the text says, you know, "There is no brown pyaz on the haleem." And I'm like, "What the heck is happening," right? And so she's looking through the camera on her phone, right, sitting in bed, and seeing that haleem. But you know how you have to have the crispy brown pyaz.

33:50Jawad MirYeah. 100%, 100%.

33:50Guest 1She can see. You know, so she's got this AI computer vision thing going, "Brown "" And I look, yeah, sure it isn't, right? So just that, like, and Mashallah, by this time, she's made it's success and all. But she never takes it for granted, right? And that's the key thing in terms of quality and consistency. The other thing is in lifelong learning, right? So with the best entrepreneurs, I've seen that, right? And she's a great example of that. So the nihari, she was a very good, nihari cook, right? Like, so she's, she's been a good cook, but her nihari was legend, like, 20 years back, right? But it still took her three years to perfect the nihari recipe at the restaurant, right? Every YouTube video, every person, every uncle, auntie, cook in Pakistan, whatever, right, she could learn from, right?

34:31Guest 2Yeah, I think there was a time I remember I would change things here and then. And the cook's favorite, like, the other cooks that we have, favorite word was, "Change again?" "Change again?"

34:41Jawad MirYeah.

34:42Guest 2I'm like, "Yeah, it's the change that keeps us going," you know?

34:46Jawad MirRight.

34:46Guest 1I think those are, just looking at that, it's, it's, it's great to be part of this journey. It's great to be a witness to that journey. I also think that it's great to kind of see, everybody else now finally coming along to give just the respect that's due, right, to what Zareen has accomplished. And also just that simple symmetry, where if I was doing 60, 70 hours a week, everybody like, "Look, what a great entrepreneur," right? But if, at least initially, when Zareen's doing that, right, it's like, "Oh, "" blah, right? And I love the fact that now there is that parity and symmetry, right? She's, you know, treated like, you know, just another very good, entrepreneur who, you know, knows her craft and knows her vision.

35:36Jawad MirYeah. And I think what, Zareen, you said is so true, that it's always... I mean, us as human beings, we're always happy when we have a purpose. That is it. Like, the, to me, even personally, there's nothing beyond that. Because if you don't have purpose... And you see that a lot of times when pe… when people get retired, like, after 65, you know, they start losing interest in life if they're just sitting around doing nothing. So it's really amazing to have people and hear that nowadays more than ever before, that you have to have purpose in life. You know, Umair, as you know, and Zareen, you probably know this, so the, one of the re… reasons I started this podcast was based on films and movies, and now it's sort of pivoted to, you know, talking about books and stories, and I think your story is very fascinating, especially which we never got into detail about those wonderful letters. And obviously your restaurant, your journey. Would you like one day to have… A TV series or a movie made about your journey. I know it's not, you know, just to kind of put it out there because I think it's, people are very visual in terms of, and especially with what you're doing is even more visual.

36:44Jawad MirWould that something that you'd be interested in if an opportunity came?

36:49Guest 2I would be thrilled, but I don't know if this would make a really good movie or not.

36:54Guest 1Yeah. Look, I think from my side, the book was such an incredible creative journey that I'm interested in lots more. So I teach at Berkeley. I was a teacher at 17 at the City School Karachi. I see myself as a teacher and a, and a writer. So any and all creative projects and storytelling projects I'm, I could be part of, it's amazing. The book itself, by the way, it was about a year and a half of rejections before it came through, right? So approaching publishers, then realizing you actually need agents to approach publishers, getting rejected by publishers, getting rejected by agents, getting an agent, then getting rejected by publishers when you went with the agent, and then finally landing Sasquatch Books, with this division of Penguin Random House, which is amazing folks, right? It was very humbling, right? You were almost again a 22-year-old, you know, entrepreneur with no network and no reputation because nobody knows or cares about us in the New York publishing world, right? So it was a, this amazing journey and I'll just say this, to see the reception happen for this book has been amazing. It's obviously, it's part of the fact that, you know, the book cover is absolutely gorgeous by Iman Ahmad.

37:59Jawad MirIt is.

37:59Guest 1And the photographs inside are gorgeous, and the spotlights, the recipes, the writing, everybody loves it. But just to give you a sense, right? These people at PRH, they took a chance on us, right? This, for them, completely unknown couple, no writing experience, you know, one restaurant and all. And they took a chance on this, and they are just blown away, right? So just to give you a sense, there's been 12,500 orders, pre-orders by the bookseller, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and so on.

38:29Jawad MirWonderful.

38:30Guest 1And the first printing was 9,000 copies. So the book went into a second printing before launch.

38:36Jawad MirThat's amazing. That's amazing.

38:37Guest 1And we are giving half of our royalties to charity. So the six women spotlighted picked their charities. Zarin and I picked our charities, so Bahood, Pakistan, Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, Doctors Without Borders, and so on, right? So we want this to do really well. Like, I'm an entrepreneur. She's an entrepreneur. We want this to absolutely crush it, so we're writing, you know, big checks to charity. And the fact that this is an ode to Pakistan, right? This ode is heard, you know, around the world for many years.

39:09Jawad MirThat's amazing. And I'm, I'm glad that you shared your journey about, the rejections, because that is very important. And, you know, you see the end product, but some… you just don't know how you got to where you got to. So it's definitely great to hear all the stuff that you have shared. I think it's, it's fabulous. I'm looking forward to reading the book. And, if there's something that you guys want to add at the end, maybe a message or anything else, the floor is yours for the last few minutes.

39:42Guest 1Yeah. Zarin just gone to make sure the dog is nice and quiet. Somebody just come, but she…

39:47Jawad MirNo problem. We'll just wait for her. We'll be wait, we'll wait for her.

39:51Guest 1Yeah. We'll, we'll share a final message right now. Yeah. So Jawad, if you wanna ask that…

40:01Jawad MirYeah

40:01Guest 1... Now that Zarin is here. Yeah.

40:04Jawad MirI was just, saying that as we wrap things up, is there some message or comment or thought that you want to share, with the audience? The floor is yours, both of you guys.

40:17Guest 2For me, my message is to the women out there who are in a job that's not very satisfying or are thinking, "Oh, what should we do next?" And, I think through my example, I would like people to see that we are all skilled, you know? Like cooking is a skill or anything that you do is skill. And, no one told me to think or just because they're in the house, they don't have a skill, or it just because they're caught in a, in a, you know, unsatisfying job, there is no other way out.

40:51Guest 2So it depends how you approach things, how you continue to persist and not give up and, you know, and then slowly find a change where things will go to the next level. That's, that's how I see it. I see a lot of people with really good ideas, and they start the execution, but very soon they give up.

41:14Jawad MirYeah.

41:14Guest 2So I think instead of giving up, we should look at how we can change further to take it to the next level. If I had thought about cooking classes and where it was headed, it was headed nowhere, and slowly opportunities come, and you change your route, you know? Is my message.

41:32Guest 1I'll go slightly different. I'll, I'll say, yeah, I mean, the entrepreneurial stuff Zarin's completely covered. I'll talk about sort of our community, sort of Pakistani diaspora and the Muslim diaspora. I feel that it's very important for us, right, to be ambassadors of our culture and our heritage and our brand. If you look at all of us here in America and Canada, and actually across the world, right? I think we've been far less, sort of activist and outreaching, right? We've been far more insular. We haven't told our stories. We haven't invested in, you know, professions like journalism and media, right? And so we find ourselves with reasonable amounts of affluence and success, but no influence, representation, or voice, right? And I think that's something that we have to change consciously and mindfully, right? So we need to mutually support each other, just like you're supporting us, right? And hopefully we are supporting others within the community, but that outreach part is very important. We have to lean into our identity, right? We, you know, this is, a big part of this is, and we love it when folks are buying this book who are not from, you know, South Asia or from Pakistan, right?

42:40Guest 1Same for folks who are eating at the restaurant who, you know, don't know about it first, but get to know about us through our food, through our creative projects, and so on. So I would urge everybody to lean into their identity and to be sort of more, sort of outreaching and activist and outward-looking in all of this. Give you a very small example, right? So I've been teaching for many years at Berkeley. Not once in the last seven years did I say, you know, "Eid Mubarak" to my students. Last year was the first time that I took some mithai and wrote Eid Mubarak on the board. Now, imagine every professor, lecturer, high school teacher doing that for the last 25 years. Just on that simple play, we would not be the other, right? Previously, when Zarin would have somebody come and say, "Wow, this food is great," she'd be like, "Thank you so much," and, you know, "Let us know how we can improve it." Now she lean and say, "Oh, you know, yeah, this mamni samosa, this is my family's recipe. I grew up in Pakistan eating this." Or, "This is the food we have on Eid."

43:35Guest 2Yeah, same with, like when we serve, during iftar time, we serve dates to everyone.

43:41Guest 1Yeah.

43:41Guest 2And when I take the dates, I just say, "Would you like to have a date?" You know, I say, "Would you like to break your fast with this date?" Even though they, I know they are not fasting.

43:49Guest 1Yeah.

43:49Guest 2But just to kind of bring fasting a norm, you know? Something that it's not like all or next thing.

43:56Guest 1So I think the key thing is that I think we all need to work hard and be amazing entrepreneurs and create lots of success, but we also need to be ambassadors for ourselves and our community and our brand.

44:09Jawad MirAnd I'm glad you said that because that's something that I have been talking about to people for almost 15 years, especially from my standpoint, that one of the things that we really lack in is storytelling. And it is so important because without that, nothing moves forward. And not because I am doing this, just because I just feel that's very pivotal. So I'm glad you said that. Thank you so much.

44:33Guest 1Thank you, Jamal. This was such a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you.