MuslimFoodies Take on NYC
By: Souria Dabbousi / Arab America Contributing Writer
Jiniya Azad, Sameen Choudhry and Tahirah Baksh are the founders of MuslimFoodies. So what is MuslimFoodies? Having a passion for food and exploring, these three friends first started off by posting on their Instagram of Halal restaurants in the city. Over time they begun to include in-depth reviews providing more detail which eventually led them to start their own blog. Blogs dedicated to Halal eats aren’t as common as you’d think which is why it became a great resource for Muslims in NYC.
Here a few questions that were asked at a Q&A with the friend trio:
How do you discover new halal restaurants in the City?
“Social listening is a major tool. We scan through a pool of hashtags on social media to see what people are posting and talking about. Sometimes we even find places to go to on our TikTok feed from individuals who don’t necessarily have food blogs. Our followers have also messaged us about places that their family members have opened or places they went to and loved and want to show support for.”
How have you seen your blog and coverage of halal restaurants inform the dining landscape of New York City?
“Our blog and reviews have motivated more and more halal restaurants to step up their game and provide a greater dining experience. Sure, there are Yelp and Google reviews, but we see that our blog brings a new dimension to halal diners and influences how restaurants can improve. For example, Chicky’s in Queens reached out to us several times because they saw a boom in business after we featured them on TikTok. We also made a TikTok featuring Black Nile, a soul food restaurant in Brooklyn, that went viral—we were even credited in Crain’s New York as contributing to their uptick in business. We’ve personally experienced restaurants’ food quality improve from one visit to the next.
Having a prominent halal food blog also iterates the need for more halal options for a more inclusive New York City. We’ve also seen more and more people start their own halal food blogs, which you wouldn’t have seen five years ago.”
MuslimFoodies’ blog includes a Halal map, which is a map of NYC that includes pins of restaurants on a scale of:
Blue pins = Partially Halal
Green pins = Fully Halal
Yellow pins = Partially Halal/Alcohol Served
Where to Find Halal Dumplings in NYC, The Cheesiest Mac & Cheese in NYC, Must Visit Halal Spots, are all reviews you can find on their blog. Each one with an in depth and detailed review giving readers easy access to find these restaurants.
The team has built a solid rapport with their readers and restaurant owners over the course of their years of running a food blog. Their followers respond to their posts with their own ratings of the locations they’ve evaluated.Occasionally restaurant owners request Muslim Foodies to visit their business in the hopes that a positive review from the group will increase sales.
“Our reviews are very to the point, and very honest,” says Baksh, continuing: “A lot of people say, ‘Well because you guys rated it X, Y, and Z, we are not going’, but we always tell them to just go.
“We review the place so other people can know about it, not to say ‘Please don’t go here.’ And I think the majority of our followers appreciate that.”
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