Abu Tafish — The Floating Fish Restaurant

Never give up on your dreams

Photo by The national.ae — Bu Tafish standing on the left.

My dad always used to say we didn’t appreciate shit back in the day, and I get it now. Now that I’m an adult. It was about the simple things in life, but of course, we couldn’t see it as kids.

I was strolling down The Old Port of Montreal this morning when a strange but familiar smell confronted me. It was a pungent mix of dead fish rotting in the humidity with a dab of sewage. But BOOM. I was transported to some weird childhood Déjà vu…and I remembered that I love this smell.

It — the smell- took me back to a place called Abu Tafish, the floating fish restaurant. The boat of wonders. A real Palestinian success story, one that makes my heart warm to this day.

We despised eating fish so much as kids — probably because my mom tried to hide it in the mash- but my siblings and I always got gaslit into eating it. Either my dad would disown us because Palestinian’s can’t hate fish, or my mom would disown us because it’s haram to diss food.

Despite Friday being called Fishday at my house, my mom had to do the weekly PSA: We’re having fish today, to manage our emotions by lunchtime. My brother would bang his head into the ground in defiance — He was four at the time- while my sister and I, eleven and seven, would scream in horror…