Have a butchery
Ryan Gate Deli is an unlikely new addition to this fair town's
shopping experience (although less unlikely than the Betty Boop place)
bringing Halal 'bakery and butchery' to the streets of Worcester Park.
And vegetables, too. It sells those (but not carrots). And Lebanese
sweets.
I went in there the other evening when I was plunged into an
onion-crisis midway through preparing a roast chicken and couldn't be
arsed to walk half-way up the hill to CostCutter. Anyway, I digress.
Worcester Park is very much a white middle-class area. Not to the
extent that licence plate numbers are noted down should you be driving
through in possession of anything other than fair skin, but it's a
pretty white area. I did wonder therefore where the market for halal
meat and Lebanese sweets in Worcester Park is. So, too, must the shop
owners - I've only ever seen three people in that shop since it opened
last month. And two of those were employees.
The shop itself is cavernously long stretching back for miles and
miles - off-puttingly long, if you ask me. It's a fair walk to the
butchery which is concealed round the corner at the end. Undeterred I
ventured in search of vegetables. You can tell you're out of your depth
in a shop when you can only guess at the contents of half the items by
looking at the pictures on the packaging (brought New Malden memories
flooding back). Row upon row of garam masala, aloo, bellawrieh, helbet
naeem and okra bamia. All this in a place where chicken seasoning is
still considered exotic.
As I wandered round the store clutching my onions (ahem) I felt a
pang of guilt. I was probably the only customer that day, and I had got
their hopes up. I couldn't just leave with three onions in a polythene
bag. My guilt got the better of me and I picked up a slab of what I
hoped was white chocolate and added that to my meagre purchase.
Fascinating place, but I give it six months.
