Maqbool’s

They sell great quality meat and chicken!
ALSO, they sell THAI MANGOES during the summer months! What else can you ask for???

This is a good clean store; for those who can distinguish, this is a store that is a little bit of everything. There is a little bit of Middle Eastern food, a little bit of Turkish food, and quite a lot of Indian/​Pakistani goods.
But it’s a place that means you can «make do» if your looking for specifics. For example when I visited there was turkish coffee, but none with «hale» (for arabic coffee, just add it yourself = make do)!
The vegetables were good too, a lot of fresh Indian veg such as karela, arbi, but also a few of the more difficult to find arabic vegetables, when I visited there was cousa (a type ofmarrow) and the small ladies fingers (bamia) that’s quite difficult to find.
Unfortunately it’s not the complete go to place for Middle Eastern clients, there’s a lot of Middle Eastern goods you can’t find here, but I’m still on the hunt for a comprehensive Middle Eastern shop in Edinburgh. But quite good for Indian food, you can even find ur kurkure chips from home here :-)
Staff are chatty, helpful and knowledgeable.

Maqbool’s is easily one of my main go-​to Asian grocers and hardly a week goes by without me visiting at least once.
Whether you are looking to buy a simple spice mix to throw together a make-​shift curry or whether you are after a commercial catering drum of chillis, this is the store for you. I love their array of spices and a Shan spice mix costing around 80p will easily cook a vat of food to feed 6 people comfortably.
They sport a huge range of nans and other flatbreads and stock a selection of Mrs. Unis snacks. This in itself should be a good enough reason to venture in :) They stock an impressive array of olives, pickled goods, grains, yogurts, fresh fruit and veg and halal meats as well as a shed-​load of other bits and bobs.
This truly is a store which needs to be personally experienced but don’t take my word for it, just head along and take a gander for yourself.

Perfect place to get spices, oils and large amounts of rice. O yah they also sell the best naan in the world!

Love this place. i think the mainstay of my shopping is done here now. They have everything you need to make some really tasty curries. I was recomended to come here for the spice mixes, as my friends mum now uses these when she just wants to throw a curry together. The directions are a little ecentric on some of the products but thats opart of the fun.
Some of my favourite items in here:
— Spice mixes mainly bombay aloo, tandoori fish, mung dal
— spices for the same price as a supermarket but 6 times the ammount
— dolma in a can, tastes the same but does 2 of us for many meals for a £1 rather than a couple of quid for 4 – 6 pieces from a chain store
— rasam, south indian tomatoe soup
— veggies fresh as you like and lots of interesting unusual items
— bread = super inexpensive nan, wraps, roti and pitta
— poppadoms, 20 for 60p that you make yourself
— asian pickles, I think I am addicted to lime and chilli pickle and here it is £1.50ish for a massive jar
Watched some of Jamie Olivers cheap eats show recently and some of the dishes he was discussing could be made a lot cheaper by shopping here. Check it out Thumbs up from me.

Great place to shop. A huge stock of all Pakistsani, Indian and Arabic delights. Good quality meat is server as well. The staff is extremely friendly too.

I wanted to write this review to say, specifically, to get the merguez from the butchery whenever they have it. Seriously. Get it. It is amazing.
More generally speaking, as stated by other reviewers, Maqbools has a lot of interesting spices and condiments (they happen to have my favorite «squid» brand fish sauce, which I appreciate). They also have a good variety of bags of rice, though if you want a nice jasmine rice, I recommend some of the other East Asian markets around the neighborhood. If I’m up for a culinary adventure, I’ll buy a mysterious box of powder and try to follow the directions on the back. Usually I end up with something interesting, if not edible.

How much do I love Maqbool’s? I adore it, and a trip here always makes me happy!
It’s a no-​frills shop; everything is jammed onto shelves as close as they can get. This means that you need to look at pretty much everything to make sure you find what you’re looking for. They have every spice I can think of (apart from cinnamon, isn’t that odd?) — so if that new recipe you want to make calls for something odd like za’atar, sumac, freekeh, harissa, etc, you’ll find it in Maqbool’s. And you’ll find it cheaply, too — this is a great shop for bargains.

A great supermarket where you can find loads and loads of eastern stuff!
especially arabic or indian stuff!
I was so happy to find my favorite white cheese ! (jibneh baida)
and also maqdoos (stuffed pickled aubergines).

This is the place to go for all your Asian and Middle Eastern cooking needs and some you didn’t know you needed. They have a million and one spices (slight exaggeration perhaps!) may of which I’d never heard of but for 70p for the smallest (and still generous sized) bag its worth an experiment.
They also have a halal meat counter which is good value whether halal is a requirement or not.
The fruit and vegetable section is limited if you want the usual potatoes or apples but if plaintain, okra or prunes are on your shopping list then this is the place for you!

Maqbool’s is a fantastic Asian supermarket, just round the corner from the main University campus, George Square.
The inside of Maqbool’s is surprisingly large and as a result they sell a huge range of foreign ingredients. They stock everything you could ever require to make an authentic Asian dish. Maqbool’s shelves a piled high with a vast range of different foods. Their herb and spices section is worth particular notice as it is truly amazing. They offer an extensive range of rare herbs and spices which you would be hard pushed to find in the high street supermarket stores.
I love to make Asian stir fry’s and Thai Green Curries and so Maqbool’s is always my first and last port of call to buy the ingredients as they sell everything I could ever need for the dishes and more. Maqbool’s sells the most delicious smelling lime leaves which I use in curries and although I was a bit dubious about using the leaves in the curry as I didn’t think it was necessary, having tasted how amazing it is with the leaves, I have never looked back.
There is also a wide meat counter at the back of the shop which sells a range of different halal meats. Maqbool’s also sells dried pulses and beans in bulk. The staff are very friendly and keen to assist you and the prices are incredibly reasonable too. Definitely a store to go to for any of your Asian food needs.

Situated just up the road from the Edinburgh Mosque, Maqbool’s is in a prime location for providing high quality Middle Eastern and Asian ingredients. Whether you’re an expert in Turkish cookery or making your first ever curry, this is the place. Apparantly the local restaurants also use it, which is testament to range and quality of their ingredients.
They sell only halal meat which, although slightly more expensive, is some of the best you can buy. Their spice rack is amazing with literally dozens of herbs and spices, dried and fresh, which I’d never heard of before.
It always feels clean and well organised inside, and the service is knowledgeable and friendly. Maqbool’s is a great place to come for any well priced and essential ingredients.

How many great Asian food stores do you need in one small square? Several! At least! I’m not sure whether I prefer Maqbool or the nearby Bismillah more. Both are asian wholefood and specialist food stores.
Come to Maqbools for all your special spice needs! As I’ve expanded my epicurean journery, an adventure of learning and discovery, I have found the local supermarkets to be inadequate for herbs and spices. How handy, then, to have such a store to cater for my culinary genius.
Maqbools also serves a good looking range of fish and Halal meats which as a vegetarian I can’t exactly appreciate, but all that flesh looks very impressive. Something I can appreciate is their great selection of vegetables. You won’t be paying more, or at least much more, for their better, non-​hemogenised selection of basic groceries.
The staff seemed nice enough too, although not keen on actually showing me where to find anything, I think they see your first time in Maqbools as a journey that has to be made alone.

Whether its a type of herb you are after, or a huge tub of tahini or Ariani, you will find it here. It’s a surprisingly large store with stuff crammed everywhere! You can get a semester’s stock of rice or choose from a variety of Turkish delight. Make sure you check out their choices in jarred and pickled goods– I mean lemons? There is also a Halal butcher inside as well. It’s best to ask at the till if you can’t locate what you want, they are really friendly and helpful.
Sadly they did not have the ground cardamom my friend was after, but we did discover a store filled with our favourite Near Eastern treats and this will be my first point of reference when seeking that one vital ingredient!

If you ever need to cook a meal in Edinburgh that requires even one Asian ingredient, Maqbool’s is where you should go first.
The spice aisle alone is a good 25 metres long, packed from floor to ceiling with sachets of every single spice and seasoning you could ever need, and then some. They stock halal meat in their very clean-​looking butcher counter, and have every vegetable under the sun. What’s more, unlike the nearby supermarkets everything in this place is always perfectly ripe on the day you go in.
I go here for two main things, apart from the amazing spice range I’ve already mentioned. One, their wraps are the thicker-​than-​supermarket ones that you get in the nearby african/​asian cafes which as far as I know you can’t buy anywhere else in the area. The second? Their fish. There is an entire double freezer devoted to whole fish of various shapes and sizes, all individually priced. If you’re having a dinner party and want to impress, or if you’re just a really economical shopper, or if you’re really into your fishing but are actually really bad at it and need something to show for your efforts, Maqbool’s has it covered.

This supermarket is a repository of many products that I can’t seems to procure anywhere else so easily. For instance, I don’t know of any other store with a wider and more extensive range of rare spices and herbs. You can also bulk buy dried beans and pulses at relatively low cost.
This supermarket even sells bags of monosodium glutamate! But don’t let this put you off. Maqbool’s Asian Supermarket is essential to my needs.