The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Sarah's hookah story still puffing away months after the fact.

Not refute Bob's good point above, a hookah does have it's own appeal, seperate of other forms of tabacco consumption: sharp tastes, heady but light buzzes, etc. I say, check it out, but having quit cigarettes 8 months ago, I can't recommend that anybody go out and buy one. And falafel sucks, lets be honest, get a gyro with some cucumber spread.

If you have a hankering for a Middle Eastern treat, leave the hookahs on the shelf and try a falafel pita instead.

I am not a smoker. Indeed, my father (a life-long smoker) died of lung cancer. But good lord, statements like that make me want to start smoking unfiltered cigarettes by the carton, just to not be on the same side of such lame wholesomeness.

I am a "regular" hookah smoker. Regular being maybe once a month. While all smoking is dangerous, I'm not too scared.

For reference: I refer to "hookah smoking" as shisha. Calling it "hookah smoking" makes you sound uninformed :)

I admit, I am a white suburbanite. I began smoking shisha with my arab friend at arab cafes.

I find the "trend" of college students doing shisha a little annoying. There is a definite cultural aspect to shisha, and there's nothing like smoking a shisha with some good middle eastern music in the background and middle eastern food on the table. I think removing the culture from shisha makes it just another stupid college trend. I try to invite my friends to try shisha with me as it's a really good way to relax and have good conversation.

However, shisha at restaurants like Nochee is just.... silly?

Maybe I'm just bitter that something I enjoyed as a novel activity has become popularized and soon we'll have shisha at McDonalds.

Also, the implication of the use of marijuana with shisha just shows that a once respectable activity is now going to take a bad name with the public. Shisha has nothing to do with marijuana.

If you want to try Shisha, Visit Gyro Land on University Ave. in Fridley, in a strip mall across University from Sam's Club. Apple is always a good "first flavor" :)

I think I'm going to start up a non-profit anti shisha hookah campaign. I need donations to stop this scourge on society. These poor filks don't know what their doing. I need education funding. OOOOOOO the sky is falling I need money to do good!!!!!

just gimme my bong and a waterbed...

a hookah?.... i saw one walking down the street in the warehouse district

For starters, any registration system that won't let me use Norwegianity (length) is kinda fucked.

As for shisha, a friend just gave me a hookah from India as a gift. It is in fact nicer than my bong, even if neither will ever have to process any tobacco.

But shisha makes sense. Before I quit smoking tobacco, I was rolling my own and the quality was at least 100x greater than anything store bought. Half of what makes cigarettes unhealthy are the junky additives.

Shisha or rolling your own is the only way to smoke tobacco.

Uhm... Not so much a leader with the hookah smoking. The trend came and went in Southern California about four years ago.

i have benn smoking hookah for almost 6 months .. maby 2 a week and i know that any form of smoking tabaco is bad for u but you have to know that people do not smoke hookah for their health they smok it when they are with there friends and all it is is a relaxing thing to do after u ate some great arbic food and just chat with friends!! but th thing i am worred about is young people getting in to hookah bars.. like me i am 15 years old and they dont even look at me funny let alone ask for i.d. i see 6th graders in them some times.. i just think they nees to do a better job of letting people somke in bars like this!

Well I am from SoCal, San Diego to be exact, my folks still live here and I am here on holiday. The trendiness of the hookah may be gone from SoCal be some of us patronize those establishments even more because of that fact, I was hoping to find a decent place to chill here and catch a whiff of sex-on-the-beach or even just a lackluster attempt at very-vanilla, but sadly as in most cases my home state tends to dissapoint. I mean seriously, anyone who has ever even attempted the simple pleasure of smoking from a hookah could never imagine it becoming habitual, so to place it in the same realm as marlboros or any other form of tobacco is idealistically ignorant. Why can't people here just let things roll, doing some "shish" might relax some of ya. So post back after you've given it a try, and get back to me with some places to light up here in the tundra, dats it, peace, Im outies...

I went to Yafa Grill last weekend in Columbia heights. The real apple shisha was really good but the service was not great. My coals were completely burned out for 15 minutes. For me, hookah is about the taste and the socializing.

I own a hookah and I do it for the intense amount of smoke, the social scene of it (great conversation piece), and it can give an extreme buzz.

I'm going to say that crack in moderation is not fine.

Also, ricin. That's not good in moderation either.

And the tv show "Mama's Boys".

Also.