Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Sep 03/99) - The eclectic look and menu of the Inuvik Blue Moon Bistro reflects the background of its manager, Riad Abouchami.

Originally from Rachaya, Lebanon, Abouchami has placed photographs of his homeland on the restaurant's arched Mediterranean walls -- between dreamcatchers hanging from the ceiling, a bear skin and with an ice cream freezer humming by the kitchen.

The bistro offers Middle East dishes like shawerma, falafels and donairs but also serves up steak and chicken and Italian and Chinese food.

It's not gourmet food to be sure, but the combination is tasty and serves a prime example of what it is to be Canadian -- accepting what the world has to offer and presenting it for all to enjoy. Abouchami describes himself as an enthusiastic advocate of this philosophy.

"I didn't come to Canada for the money -- I can make money anywhere," he said Saturday. "I'm a liberal Moslem and respect people of all origins, and it was the Canadian law and its justice and openness that made me want to come here."

Abouchami said he left home at the age of 17 and went to Saudi Arabia looking for work. Perhaps he was fated to do so since his first name, Riad, means heaven in Arabic and is also the capital of Saudi Arabia. He said he spent the next 16 years living in Jeddah, employed in construction and getting his first taste of the restaurant business.

Abouchami said it was there that he first began hearing about Canada's tolerance and liberal policies -- and began to understand their attraction.

"It wasn't too hard to make money in Arabia, but as a foreigner I wasn't able to open up my own restaurant," he said. "I had to open the business up under local ownership and have had to pay the man."

So after returning to Lebanon at the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990, Abouchami applied and was accepted to come to Canada. But he said he found Ottawa frustrating.

"I wasn't happy there because my restaurant couldn't make any money," he said, "but I read in a newspaper there was a guy looking for help with a restaurant in Inuvik."

That guy was Syrian Tahlal Khateb, an Inuvik businessman who now lives in Edmonton. Abouchami now owns the Blue Moon bowling alley and manages the cafe for Khateb as well a couple of housing complexes.

All this work keeps Abouchami hustling. But the good news is he recruited a little helper last week -- when his wife, Latifa, from Paulatuk gave birth to their first child, Charifa.

Abouchami said he hopes to one day bring his family to visit his parents in Lebanon and to see the Middle East -- a place he misses every once in a while.

"I miss the weather in Lebanon, the sun and the blue sky," he said, "and when Adam and Eve came from heaven they came to Saudi Arabia -- all the prophets came there, and I visited those places."

So it's a good thing Abouchami is creating his own bit of heaven here in Inuvik.