Thursday, January 28, 2010

Fresh Curry Leaves At Eastern Bazaar


New recipes call for new ingredients, and you should check out the fresh curry leaves and new a lentil dish by stopping at Eastern Bazaar in Laurel.

All the Indian grocery stores have freezers, but Eastern Bazaar stands out because it offers cool along with the icy cold -- fresh produce, including specialties like the fresh curry leaves required by the recipe that I tried out this week.  I had seen them at the H Mart in Catonsville, but my shopping list was specialized enough to send me to an Indian market, specifically to Eastern Bazaar in Laurel where you can get the standard spices, flours and frozen naan along with unusual peppers, squash, and other vegetables.

You can also get curry leaves.  They're in a basket in the refrigerator that faces the freezer in the back.  They're more than $20 a pound, but that's meaningless when my recipe called for only six leaves.  I picked two fresh-looking sprigs and didn't even notice how much they cost in the end.

Any basic vegetables that you can't find at Eastern Bazar are probably available at the Panam Supermarket in the shopping center that backs against Eastern.  If you are looking for Indian groceries inside Howard County, check out Apna Bazar in Laurel, Food Cravings in Columbia or Desi Bazaar in Columbia.  

Eastern Bazar
15101 Baltimore Ave # 100
Laurel, MD 20707
(301) 490-4666


NEAR: The market is just east of U.S. 1 near the intersection with Rte 198.  It actually faces onto Rte 198, although you can only reach it from the north-bound lanes of U.S.1.  From Howard County,  you need to take U.S. 1 south past the Five Guys, then U-turn back onto north-bound U.S. 1 and turn into the last parking lot before the Rte 198 intersection.  Turn left in the shopping center and drive past the Aunt Jenny's Jamaican restaurant to reach Eastern Bazar.

6 comments:

Flissy said...

Yum! Curry leaves! The smell is fantastic!

We regularly shop at the Patel Brothers on Route 40 near Rolling Road. I'm not sure how it compares to Eastern Bazaar, but it's bigger than both Food Cravings and Desi Bazaar. In addition to having bulk lentils and spices, they have a wonderful produce section (including curry leaves, fenugreek, peppers, etc.) and occasionally set up a bar of sweets or fresh samosas to go.

Anonymous said...

I heard that the owners of Mango Grove opened a market called Curry N Spice. Anyone know anything about it??

MonkeeDog said...

You can get these in upper Howard County at Ganesh Brothers Indian grocery on Rte. 40 in the Normandy plaza just east of Rte. 29.

dzoey said...

How did the recipe turn out?

HowChow said...

@Dzoey -- The lentils were good, although I don't know that I could taste curry leaves with the coconut milk and other flavors. I'm still working through an Indian cook book.

Anonymous said...

curry n spice used to be located off dobbin near mango grove, but it closed many years ago. not sure if they are ressurecting it.