[Note: this post has been updated with more information about changes to the store.]

It’s been a while since my last look at an immigrant market in the Twin Cities metro. Eight months, in fact. My last market report from the area was of the Desi Brothers store in Bloomington back in March. I have for you today a look at India Market/Spice Bazaar in Lake Elmo. Spice Bazaar is the old name and is still the name on the signage. But apparently the store is now under new ownership and the name is about to change officially to India Market. This report, however, is based on a visit there in May of this year (right after our lunch at El Itacate, as it happens). I took lots of pictures with plans to soon post a look at this large store, but the end of my spring term and our impending summer travels put paid to those plans. And then it got lost in the flood and backlog of posts from said summer travels. I’m told that as of a few weeks ago there had been no major changes to the actual layout of the store. But please know that there’s a possibility that the store now looks different than it does in the truly excessive slideshow that follows. Even if it does, however, you should still get a good sense of what to expect there.

Now, the store’s full name may have been “Spice Bazaar International Foods & Deli” but really it was always a South Asian grocery and dominated by Indian goods at that. Though there were also a few Afghan items on sale, including some of the excellent breads we’ve been getting for the last year from TBS Mart (which has been under Afghan ownership since last summer). The store is quite large. This means there’s a lot of empty space, but it also means nicely spaced aisles. This is a big improvement on Spice Bazaar’s original location in Woodbury—which I’d posted a look at a few years ago—which was the very definition of cramped. Here there’s room to roam and the halal meat counter is in the same building—they also sell the frozen Indian fish that you can now find in most desi groceries in the metro.

They also have a deli with a menu that includes a number of South Indian dishes. I believe this deli was originally run by the original Indian Masala crew but that may not have been true for a while now. If you’ve eaten here recently and can comment on the quality one way or the other, please write in below. Oh yes, there’s also a clothes shop on the second floor and what I was told was an event space—as to whether they were/are already holding events there or that was/is an aspirational thing, I’m not sure. But the main grocery itself is far from aspirational. Indeed, it’s quite comprehensive and must be a boon for the desi population of the general area. At least I assume there’s a growing desi population in the area if such a large store exists there.

Alright, it’s rather a lot of pictures. I’ve tried to make the captions descriptive but if you have questions about anything pictured, please feel free to ask.

In case you’re wondering there’s no Twin Cities restaurant report this week. That’s because we didn’t go out to eat last weekend. This weekend, however, we are booked at Herbst in St. Paul and I will report on that meal next Tuesday. And before that I really will get out some more of my Ireland and Italy reports: I didn’t have time for those in the last two weeks.