Eating in at Indian Bazaar

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Shopping at a specialty grocery can be a great way to purchase the ingredients for a meal you may not be able to create by patronizing an ordinary supermarket. Occasionally, a specialized market also offers prepared food probably at least as tasty as what you could prepare on your own. 

Such is the case at Indian Bazaar (5254 S. 27th St.). Stocking South Asian staples, sweets and delicacies, the shop’s narrowly spaced shelves are packed high and tight with a wide array of colorful packages filled with food and beverages that allow tastes of home for South Asian customers and a fascinating realm of culinary exploration for others. 

Shoppers can also get firsthand experience dining, in the restaurant hidden in back, on some of the fare one can fix with ingredients for sale in the front of the Bazaar. The kitchen looks strangely small for producing such a broad gamut of dishes that includes appetizers, curries, rice specialties, breads, meal combos and a more. The plates and utensils may be plastic but that in no way deters from the robust flavors. 

That array includes at least one offering that nearly fooled a friend into thinking it derived from animal protein. Gobi Manchurian, as its name signals, is an East Indian variation on a Chinese entree (also available in appetizer size at Bazaar.). Though it possesses the sort of crisp, fried coating and initially sweetly hot taste of General Tso’s chicken, Indian Bazaar isn’t giving anybody the bird. Gobi is an Indian word for cauliflower, and Bazaar’s Desi Chinese iteration is as filling as chicken, with a kind of heat that leaves a tantalizing mystery as to how much may be attributed to temperature and what percentages from spices. 

My nearly fooled friend opted for palak paneer, a meal popular throughout subcontinental Asian combining spinach, fresh cottage cheese and less bracing seasoning for a kind of meatless comfort food, texturally mellow and hearty of substance. 

On a separate solo visit, I chose another paneer (cheese) dish. Chili paneer exudes a similar boldness as the gobi Manchurian; here, though, it’s in service to walloping slices of onion and green bell pepper mixed with cubes of a cheese with a consistency like medium soft tofu. The mango lassi’s contrast of fruity sweetness and yogurt tang provided a fitting complement to the main course’s sizzle. I capped each dinner with a dessert of malai kulfi, a condensed milk frozen confection on a stick that could be viewed—and tasted—as an analog to the Mexican paleta. Bazaar’s variety taste’s slightly coffee-like, doubtless due to its infusion of cardamon. 

Wondrous and thrifty as Indian Bazaar’s fare is, newcomers shouldn’t expect environs anywhere approaching those of other South Asian establishments where serving food is the sole concern. It’s a grocery store with a pretty amazing place to eat in back.