Indian Bazaar

2022.03.19I had a loft of fried foods this week so I was hungry for a vegetarian meal and I saw a bright red sign reading VEGETARIAN on the door of the Indian Bazaar Milwaukee on South 27th Street. I am not familiar with East Indian food, but fortunately, like most Asian establishments, there was a picture menu on the wall. I ordered the Vegetable Biriyani (#4 of the rice specialties). This place forked over a hearty serving for a hungry person. The store has many East Indian cultural food products throughout and also religious knick-knacks under the register desk. I will try more items whenever I am in that part of town.

We love coming to Indian Bazaar for groceries and indian food. Precovid we would order the food in the front register and wait by the seating area for food to be ready. Someone would call out your order and you can go pick up from the small window in the seating area. During Covid times we simply order in the front register or over phone and pick it up there itself. The grocery story is one of the few places where you get truely fresh indian vegetables. These are not something you can find in other regular stores like Whole Foods, pick n save or metro market, so we like to come here to enjoy some of that. Coming back to the food - it is delicious!!! I won't say it's the healthiest but definitely amazing for your tastebuds. The taste is quite authentic to indian cuisine you will find in some parts of India. If you are in the area, do check it out!

I like the market. It's tight but packed with stuffs and spices you need, for craving. Idk about authentic dishes ingredients. They have really good samosa too. They ran out of stuffs too so go as early as ... whenever you can. And for only 99 cents. I will come back to try the curry soon. I tried the samosa chaat, not the best but very big portion, so still worth trying.

Very small grocery and even smaller "restaurant area", but I like stopping in here for occasional Indian cooking ingredients, and have had their food a few times. Order your restaurant food at the front register, then pick up in the restaurant area. It's a bit disheveled, mildly dirty, nothing to write home about. Some guy will open up a small window from the kitchen and out comes your food. The food is delicious! And probably earned them another star because of it. I asked for my food medium spicy, and they got it just right. Certainly not a destination stop, but great if you're in the area, and know what you're getting into.

Needed some specific ingredients and wanted to spy their restaurant for future. They had everything we needed and I did grab a couple of things I didn't ...BUT, during mask ordinance for covid, the only other customers (2) AND the guy working the counter did not have masks on. He did put one on when we went to check out. If we could have easily found those spices elsewhere we would have left. Got in and out fast and won't be back.

The Dosa are amazing. I discovered this gem through a coworker, and she swears by them for the authenticity. I agree with the other reviewers that they have plenty of Indian street food and great prices.I've sampled 6 or 7 menu items, and loved them all. It's fun to do a food trip with someone familiar with the fare. Highly recommend the garlic chili dosa if you like spicy, or another dosa if not. Also, the samosa are great here. It's a good thing this place isn't downtown or I'd be there far too often.

This grocery is very tight and claustrophobic, but pretty clean and well organized. Good combination of South Asian ingredients, spices, produce, canned jarred and frozen goods. It's also a little veg "fast" Indian food place with some different dishes than the usual Indian restaurant in America fare. They seem to specialize in Southern Indian, the Chief of Staff and I were pleasantly surprised to find a very authentic tasting Chettinad vegetable curry. Around the turn of the last century into mid 20th century the Chettinars of Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu made little personal fortunes in finance and trade, they were a merchant clan-caste. Now scattered far from their homeland, the fascinating and beautiful Hindu-Tamil-Art-Deco architecture of their mansions make for a sad but still impressive ghost town. Their cuisine lives on, it's not spicy hot but rather sweet as the result of influence from the French in Pondicherry and spices indigenous to Southern India (chili peppers actually came from the New World, the Tainos who were killed by Columbus, so there's an ironic Indian connection). Too much information? Can't help it, I'm a sociology professor. So unlike the somewhat inconsistent version at Maharaja, you can get a pretty Chettinad Chettinad curry here. Don't expect fancy, the dining area reminds me of Southern India (less insects, cleaner), I don't mind eating here, but you might want to get it to go. Actually they also sell Indian tiffin here, you might have fun taking it home in an actual Indian lunch box.

Oh how I love me some Indian food and this place was mentioned to me to go and check out, so we did. Unfortunately, we chose to go on an evening that they don't have the kitchen open...but were lucky that the owner said he could make us anything, with the exception of any of the dosas dishes. Drat. that was the one thing we wanted to try specifically. Regardless, I didn't want to give up on trying a new place out, so we ordered Samosa Chat and Mirchi Bhaji (stuffed green chili fritter) appetizer, which was greasy, but tasted amazing. For our main entrees we ordered Aloo Gobi, that was served with rice and Aloo Palak. Both of these dishes were very good (a little heavy on grease) and chalked full of ingredients. The dining area isn't pretty, but the food impressed. The samosa chat was really, really good. I will go back in hopes that they have their Dosa dishes available.

Their online order does not work more than half the time. We order and the amount gets deducted and when we go for pick up they say they did not on their online system yet or that they did not get the order and we have to wait for additional 20 to 30 mins, what is the point of ordering before online if I need to wait for such a long time.Why should they even say that they can order online. No respect for others time.

The chefs have changed. I tried Idli and sambar. The idli was stale and awful - one star. The sambar also was bad. 1 star!The reason I am keeping this at 3 star is because I am guessing that they probably have some good food, which I have not tried (and don't plan to do so!). Years ago, they had south indian chefs, who were excellent - for dosa, idli, sambar etc. Now, they have a north Indian cook - perhaps he might be good at norh Indian dishes? I have not tried any. They had amazing rava dosa - I hope that has not changed.. Their pani puri is just amazing! Totally 5 star! That's why, over all, I am giving this 3 stars.