Last Wednesday, Dr. Ball-Phillips and our class went on another one of our crazy adventures for Civilizations of India, the class we by now all know and love for its many quirks and interesting characteristics. Due to an unfortunate planning incident at Kalachandji’s, which was the restaurant attached to the Hare Krishna ISKCON temple that we toured and visited with the famous Prajapati, this trip to India Bazaar was the first taste of Indian food that we were going to have in the context of this class. As a lover of Indian foods of all kinds I was very excited at the prospect of some good Indian food and the prospect of introducing those in the class to Indian food.

Now this was not the first Indian market I have had experience with. At home in Allen, Texas there is a market/restaurant called Indian Market Grocery and Fast Food that fits the description of Vik’s Distributors as outlined by Arijit Sen and what we experience at India Bazaar almost exactly. There is a small café style seating area that is slightly separated from the rest of the store. There is also a small glass counter in which there are many prepared sweets and some more common things like samosas. The actual market part consists of fresh vegetables of both the normal and more exotic varieties such as fresh ginger, lime leaves, and a multitude of fresh peppers. It also consists of a shelf area containing bags upon bags of rice, rice flower, different mixes for things such as roti and naan, every spice and spice mix that anyone could imagine in both their whole and blasphemous but convenient ground forms and many miscellaneous things such as raw sugar. Finally the store also has a large freezer section in which there is everything from Indian ice creams with exotic and lovely flavors to frozen varieties of every classic Indian dish that one could think of. Now I found it very interesting that India Bazaar, Indian Market Grocery in Richardson and Fast Food in Allen and Vik’s in Berkeley all had such a similar set up and style.

Now India Bazaar specifically had some very delicious food. Western palates do not tend to consider ideas such as spicy and cold, spicy and sweet, and savory and cold to be something that could be possible much less taste good however it seemed like everyone or almost everyone enjoyed their food. I also really enjoyed the Chaat or street food style of the meals as I am used to more “sit down” Indian food such as biryanis and dishes such as palak paneer (which happens to be one of my favorites). I especially enjoyed sharing food with Micah, Barrett and others because it allowed for a much larger range of experiences. Perhaps my favorite moment from the whole trip was when I bought some gulab jamun (another one of my very favorite Indian dishes), which are small fried balls of a milk solid dough that are soaked in a syrup of cardamom and sugar, and had people try it because their reactions of joy and “Oh my god that is delicious!” were so genuine. All in all, I found this trip to be really amazing and I enjoyed it immensely.

-Eric Wise