Milan Sweet Centre

Milan’s do a wide range of Indian sweets which are pure vegetarian. The barfis are my particular favourite. They are also sellfried savouries such as samosas, spring rolls and onion bharji’s etc. They sell curries and have a very wide variety. It’s very clean inside.

The Milan sits on the corner of Stoney Lane and Chesterton Road, right in the heart of Birmingham’s Balti quarter. A traditional, wholly vegetarian, Asian sweet centre, offering a very wide selection of good quality home made sweet delights (I particularly like the Gulab Jaman) together with an equally broad selection of savoury dishes which include several paneer or Indian cheese dishes (their saag paneer is particularly lovely) including paneer spring rolls which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else.
Add to this a fine choice in breads (try the bhaturas) and mixed pakora all of which are very reasonably priced, and you can see why I like this place.
Oh, and don’t forget the kulfi ice cream on a stick too when you visit — lovely for afters.

Wow. As a vegetarian I’m rarely at a loss for something on a menu but Milan caters solely for vegetarian and vegans. And how!
I went there after a friend strongly recommended it, and I’m glad that I did. It is a small food store on Stoney Lane, not far from the Ladypool Road, it is actually a sweet centre but the savoury food is what I was there for.
There is a vast choice of snacks (as well as full meals and sweets) and I couldn’t decide what to have, so I asked the guy behind the counter to make me a mix bag of vegetarian selections, such as kachori, batetawada, onion bhaji, palaks, vadas daal, potato fritter, among others. I asked for £5 worth and had to stop him as the food was piling up! I ended up with enough food for 3 people! I can say that every single thing was delicious. My favorite was the palak — spinach, onion and aubergine bhaji. The place went beyond my expectations. I am definitely going to be a regular!

Without a doubt one of my favourite places to get food in the whole of Birmingham.
It’s called a Sweet Centre and it does do Indian sweets, but I’ve never bought anything sweet from this place — I fill up on the savoury! There do an amazing selection of Indian snacks, currys, dips, breads and sauces that are fresh and tasty. My favourite thing is a spicy carrot and nut dish that I found out recently is actually a dessert!
When I had an office job and on the occasion of my birthday I was forced, as is the tradition, to take something in for my colleagues to eat, I always eschewed the normal choice of cakes and biscuits and instead spent £15 behind the counter at Milans. For that I’d get almost more food than I could carry and it was always a hit with my co-​workers. If you are planning at night in with friends this is the perfect place to stock up on some tasty food.
The only potential problem with this place is that it is popular, and particularly at weekends, as local families use it to cater for events and parties also. So, you can sometimes be waiting for a LONG time to be served, but I promise you it is worth the wait.

I’m going to dispense with my usual attempts at journalistic objectivity because I’m just not capable of it in this case. Milans is great, pure and simple. Although named a sweet centre, Milans serves a variety of Indian foodstuffs savoury and sweet, all of which are vegetarian and some of which are vegan. Their paneer samosas are the best I’ve ever tasted, and retail for the ridiculous price of about sixty pence each. There’s a variety of curries and main courses, all of which always taste fantastic. And then there’s the Indian sweet selection, which are worthy of a shop in their own right — I never knew an alternative world of confectionery from the land of India existed until I visited Milans. Pricing is extremely competitive, especially considering the quality — you can feed four people to bursting point for about twenty pounds.
Criticisms? There aren’t any. I’m too much in love. This is my first five star review. Milan Sweet Centre, long may you run.

If you enjoy spicey nibbles, or deep fried stuffed chillies grab your imagination, this is the place for you. A good indication that the food is genuine is that you frequently see Asian ladies comming in to order food, especially Penda and Barfi of which they have an amazing variety, for special occasions. The pickles here are yummy. The main reason I go there is for samosas, Stuffed potatoes (split and sandwiched together with chopped chilli and yoghurt, then fried in batter), a variety of lentil, and chilli balls, plus the above stuffed chillis. You need the barfi to help your mouth recover. The second thing which is glorious at Milans is Matta paneer, a pea and Indian cheese curry and Chana curry.