-My name is Fozia.
-And I'm Fahim Siddiqui.
-We do restaurant business,
Zam Zam Market.
This is a family business.
-Do you like working
with your husband
and you working with your wife?
-We have a good understanding.
We help each other.
If he's tired, he go home.
I look after everything for him.
[ Telephone rings ]
-So you were talking about
working with one another.
[ Telephone rings ]
-Yeah.
-You're popular.
-Yeah.
[ Telephone rings ]
Zam Zam Market.
♪♪
-[ Singing in foreign language ]
♪♪
-We do Pakistani food, barbecue,
chicken curry, lamb curry.
-Pulao, kebab, biryani.
-Biryani make with tomato,
yogurt sauce, ginger, garlic,
turmeric, chili powder,
and cilantro
are all the spices
we add together,
and it's steaming with the rice.
-My parents don't do the
traditional, like, Americanized
or, like, Westernized dishes,
so you will not find
chicken tikka masala
at my parents' restaurant.
It's a culture experience
for them,
like, to serve something
that people cannot find here.
-We are in my house
in Torrance.
We are going to my work
and start working.
Mostly, I do, like, cash
and then helping
with the packages and food,
just look after the restaurant.
That's all.
Me and my husband
and one more employee.
Fahim, my husband,
he's the main chef, yeah.
We sell our grocery,
and we sell the food,
spices, lentil,
these kind of thing.
Okay, this one, we put
in the korma curry,
and we put this one all together
grounded and put in the meat.
Vegetables, naan, parathas,
and some muscles,
like meat, beef, and chicken.
I'm from Pakistan.
-Pakistan.
-Everybody need a more, like,
a better life,
so we move in America.
-My mom came to America
in 1988
as a single woman
and scrapped together.
She worked at Del Taco.
She did graveyard shifts,
and my dad came to America
in the early '90s
to support his family
and support his older brother.
-My brother flagged him
for total arranged marriage.
He found him.
He knows his family long time,
so we met here
in Shahnawaz restaurant.
Then we talked together.
Then we decided marriage.
-How was that for you?
-[ Chuckles ]
Opulent.
-Yeah, yeah.
-How would you describe
your husband?
-Oh, wow, oh,
I say that describe...
He's nice, and he's gentle,
caring, loving.
-And how would you
describe your wife?
-[ Laughs ]
-Is good help.
-I told you they're so shy.
They don't talk that much.
-That's okay.
-What defines my parents'
relationship
is that they're very willing
to compromise,
so it's not like one person
is overbearing over the other.
I think their flexibility
and compromise
is what has helped them to be
successful in their marriage
and also be successful
in running a business.
My grandparents were born
in Delhi and Agra in India,
and then my parents were move--
born and raised in Karachi,
and then I was born
and raised in LA,
so that's a very unique dynamic,
culturally speaking,
and I think that's also why
our food is so important to us
because if you go back,
we don't have a lot
from my grandparents' generation
because they lost everything
in the partition,
but what we do have
is our food.
Our food is what has helped us
travel thousands of miles
in perilous conditions
in different countries.
Since he got married to my mom,
they decided to create
their own restaurant.
That was the first
Zam Zam Market,
and they had that
for 10 years.
That was next
to the King Fahad Mosque,
which is one of the largest,
most popular mosques
in the greater Los Angeles area.
That's when my parents'
business really picked up,
and they created
a name for themselves.
Then fast forward 10 years in,
2014,
they were evicted
with 60 days' notice,
and my parents
lost their business
because of gentrification,
and they had to scramble
to find a new place.
It took 14 months.
My parents' story is definitely
a story of resilience,
grit, and staying determined
and finding opportunities
wherever they are.
My parents definitely raised me
to be religious.
They're religious themselves,
so we're pretty devout Muslim.
One of the key highlights of,
I think, of me,
like, interacting with
my parents' business
is during the month of Ramadan,
which is when Muslims across the
world fast from dawn to dusk,
and that's a ridiculously
busy time for my parents
because they personally
deliver food
to a lot of the local mosques
in the Los Angeles county
and also provide breakfast,
so the 3:00 a.m. meals
to the local community,
and what I help out with
in that period of time
is actually going to the mosques
and delivering the food,
and that's, I think,
what really shows my parents'
dedication to the food
because they spend hours
and hours
making sure
the meals are good
because they want to make
the people happy.
-Best part,
everybody like a family.
They come over and talk
like a family,
so we are happy for that.
They're all happy with that,
so they're nice people,
and I love cooking food,
and I love cooking.
[ Telephone rings ]
Zam Zam Market.
♪♪
♪♪
