Spice Bazaar

I’ll give you two words to make you come here:
Dollar Samosa.
How can you possible reject samosas for a dollar?!! Thank you spice bazaar for allowing a broke college student enjoy the delicious samosas!

So, I’d stopped in to Markheim Tropical Fish next door, and we still had some time to kill before we had an event to go to, so Lee and I popped in to this market to check it out. Well. I popped in to check it out, and he somewhat grudgingly followed in my wake.
He’s not the most adventurous type in the world.
Anyway, this place is pretty cool. I am not incredibly familiar with the full breadth and depth of Indian Cuisine, as India is a pretty ginormous country, with a number of different cuisines, but I know a little bit. It was fun to see a breadth and depth of produce, dry goods, and a lot of interesting snack foods. I love snacks, so I grabbed some savory instant oatmeal, and some other things to try, including a bag of Lay’s «Magic Masala» potato chips.
The staff was courteous and friendly, not minding my questions.
I took the chips out to the car, and immediately ripped open the bag. Lee was extremely dubious, but fished a chip out.
«These are way too spicy, he declared, yet continued to eat them. I think he was a little bit of a convert, there at the end.
I have to go back now, and get some more!

There is not a grocery store I go to where I end up talking to people more — both workers and customers. Call me crazy but my second time here I saw a group of four guys loading up a cart. So I walked up to them and kindly asked one of them to elaborate on the contents of his cart — most of the items I did not recognize. He explained them all in detail and even walked me over the the produce section and told me about some of the unique produce there that you can’t find at Wegmans. After all was said and done, I ended up checking out with a big bag of Basmati Rice, some turia and little hot green peppers. I cooked some curry with the turia (chinese okra) that week. And after reading Smita’s review of this place (which was super helpful by the way), I am ready to pick up some of that strong ginger and sweet mangoes. Bring on the goodness we shall.
I usually come here about once a month now to pick up rice, more curry powder (I like the Madras), and usually strike up conversation with another customer or employee, trying to find out something new I should try. You see, I love to cook curry and after cooking a dozen different recipes, I realized that they are all somewhat similar and once you get the hang of it you can pretty much use what produce you have on hand in the kitchen. I’m not sure if this is frowned upon in Indian cooking — I’ll have to ask next time I come here!
What I love about curry is that it is not only absolutely delicious but is basically the antidote to the American diet. The American diet, with its’ staples of wheat flour and sugar, is actually are inflammatory to your body. Don’t get me wrong, I love bread and sugar. I could kill probably half a box of Paula’s Donuts with a french press of coffee to wash it down in one sitting. Still, I can’t argue with the fact that my body feels severely inflamed after such a glorious dining experience. Certainly not a wise daily or even weekly breakfast choice for me. Indian food on the other hand, is an awesome daily (at the very least weekly) diet choice as it contains larger quantities of turmeric and ginger which are lovely anti-​inflammatories. Inflammation over time can create an environment for cancer which might help explain why India has a much lower cancer rate per capita than the United States does. You are reading this on a Unilocal review of course so don’t take my word for it. I am just trying to encourage you to eat delicious Indian food.
You’ll find me here once a month stocking up and you’ll find me once a month at Paula’s or Famous Donuts getting my fix. Both are monthly traditions for me. If you have questions, please don’t ask me. I’ll just refer you to the wonderful employees (and customers for that matter) who are always happy and proud to assist you in learning about their culinary arts.

Fantastic selection of Indian spices, rices, prepared foods, and more. I stopped in on this visit to get whole mustard seed for a batch of mustard we were cooking up – and it’s well worth the drive for us out from the downtown area. The prices are great and the selection is pretty amazing. I’m not sure I’d pick up produce here (some of it didn’t look super fresh), but everything else I got was perfect.

Usually visit once a week

What: An Indian grocery store as it is a mini India carrying the most nostalgic stuff from back home.
Aisles and more:
Spices: Ever state of India has atleast 1 favorite spice and all the stores make it a point to carry them all to keep all of us happy :)
Packaged Masalas/​Spices: Shaan is a Pakistani brand of Spice line and are the best for Authentic Indian Meats and Biryaani. Everest is an Indian brand which is the most known and used for everything else.
Ready spice mix: These are great to cook up some authentic stuff as its premixed with all the spices, oils, salt. Parampara brand is great .
Ready to eat: If you ever wondered how an authentic Indian food tastes, this is great to start with. The spices are not mellowed down neither the recipes are changed. So next time if you don’t have time for that huge Indian buffet, give this a try. They have Saag, Chana masala, Paneer stuff and most of famous stuff. MTR is the original brand from India and have the most authentic selections. Sanjeev kapoor’s brand is close enough too. The one from other American grocery stores are again not the authentic ones as they have been modified to US pallet !
Veg: This is where all the Indian women tend to get more excited to finally prove their culinary skills from mom’s kitchen or impress their just arrived mother in law from India who thinks that we just eat pizza and bread everyday! The cilantro, mint tomatoes are cheaper here than any grocery store around. Ginger is much strong and close to Indian ginger.
Paneer: There are couple of brands in frozen section but can’t vouch on even one. The Nanak brand is much closer to homemade quality.
Lentils: You can find several kinds and most of them are similar to Goya brand but again all the regional presence is there and great way to switch to lean proteins.
Mangoes: Seasonal fruit and trust me, if you want to try the real sweet mangoes, you can’t find these anywhere but here.
Rice/​Flour: Ever wonder why they sell such huge bags of Whole wheat flour? Because most of the households make their own thin flat breads/​Rotis. Yes, we do not eat Naan everyday :) Basmati is for fancy rice varities but for everyday use most popular rice is Sona-​masoori .
All the grocery store are pretty much same just carrying more or less Vegetables. As always for cilantro & mint ask the cashier to get you some fresh ones from their treasure trove at back :)

I was laughing like Cruella deVille eyeballing dalmations when I saw the goods in this wonderful store. It is 99% Indian food with some other Asian items (East Asian noodle specialties in particular) and I LOVE Indian food. I just can’t get enough. They have something for every level of cook here. They have heat and serve meals (huge selection of these, about 5 times the flavors Wegmans carries at only 1.79 a pop) that are both frozen and non and pre-​made sweets in the cooler. They have pre-​packaged marinades, doughs (for naan, roti, sweets, etc) and seasoning blends for making favorite dishes. They have raw ingredients for cooking from scratch (all sorts of flour, spices, rice, beans, dahl, etc in bulk and smaller packages). They have the craziest amount of chutneys (a sauce/​salsa like condiment for the uninitiated) and Indian style pickles. They have rows of Indian snacks — chips, snack mixes, cookies, etc (we picked up Lays manufactured in India featuring masala seasoning). The selection overall is just INSANE, the store is much bigger than it looks from outside, and the prices were incredibly reasonable for the vast majority of items. They carry a crazy amount of incense and some packages are bulk ($ 3’n’change for 120 sticks) and have a small amount of Hindu items (posters and statues of gods, etc). Produce looked decent and they had a moderate selection. They also have piping hot samosa with chutney for $ 1 each by the front counter and free ginger tea.
NiHoowa could take a note from Spice Bazaar on what a devoted ethnic grocer could be!