I’ve speculated before on the likely growth of the Indian population in the South Twin Cities metro. In recent years there’s been an explosion of new home construction along the Cedar Avenue corridor extending from Apple Valley down to Lakeville; and this has been accompanied by an uptick of Indian restaurants and groceries in the general vicinity. Most of this has been concentrated in Eagan but now Apple Valley appears to be on the move as well. Kumar’s opened right before the pandemic in the massive strip mall at the north-west corner of the intersection of Cedar and 140th St (I think it might be called Times Square), as did Mantra Bazaar, the grocery run by the restaurant’s owners. Mantra Bazar has expanded quite a bit from its original store (which I reported on a while ago). This in itself is evidence of the growth of the desi population in the area that it feeds. Now, both Kumar’s and Mantra Bazar have competition in their immediate vicinity. Spice Village opened this summer on the other side of the strip, with a restaurant and grocery adjacent to each other. I finally made it there this past weekend and here is a look at both.

The restaurant and the grocery have a shared exterior entrance. From the little foyer you open the door to the left to go to the grocery and the door to the right to go to the restaurant. If you’re doing things right, you go to both in sequence. I started out in the grocery but then decided to give their Sunday lunch buffet a go as well. Here first is a look at that buffet. Scroll down after the first slideshow for a quick look at the grocery store.

Restaurant

The restaurant is large and bright and quite attractive. The first part of the dining room has regular two and four-tops that can be rearranged to seat larger parties. There are a few booths along the large windows that let in a lot of light, and then more booths along the rear wall. A large, attractive mural of a peacock presides over the entire space (whose colour palate is a soothing blue). I got a two-top in the front (I was by myself) and got down to bidness.

On weekdays the restaurant offers only a la carte dining at both lunch and dinner. On weekends, however, they offer a large buffet. It’s quite reasonably priced at $19.99 before tax and offers quite a lot of options for the price. I did also look at the regular menu (though I’m not sure if you can order from it at weekend lunch) just to get a sense of what their likely focus is. As at Kumar’s, and the new(er) wave of Indian restaurants in the Twin Cities metro that has completely altered the Indian food landscape of the region from what it was when we arrived in 2007, both the menu and the people eating it are predominantly South Indian. I was pretty sure from looking at the menu that the owners must be from Andhra Pradesh/Telangana and this was bolstered by what was on offer at the buffet and then confirmed by the manager at checkout. It could also be confirmed by listening to the conversation of people at tables around you. Most of the clientele were Indian, and most of them were speaking Telugu.

The buffet is divided into two sections: vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Each side has some snack’ish dishes and a bunch of mains. There’s also a separate snack area where you can get idlis on the one hand and fixings for diy panipuri on the other. And there’s a small selection of dessert as well as dispensers of tea and chickoo/sapota milkshake.

I started out with a mix of snack’ish things. Of these the upma, idli and chicken kabab were creditable but I am sorry to say that, despite looking like a nice setup, the panipuri disappointed: the water was just too insipid for this Delhi/Calcutta boy; it needs more tamarind and mint. From there I moved to the biryani section. Both the Hyderabadi chicken biryani and the thalapakatti mutton biryani (a Tamil style that originated in the 1970s in Dindigul) were rather good—and both had a fair bit of heat, suggesting again that the restaurant’s primary address is to their (South) Indian clientele. I also enjoyed a big serving of the crisp Andhra kodi/chicken veppudu alongside the two biryanis. Now, I was pretty full at this point but it was necessary to do more research. And so I also got some of the shrimp gongura curry and the Malabar chicken curry. The former features sourness (from the gongura, a relative of sorrel) and the latter mellow creaminess (from coconut milk). I liked the Andhra curry more than the relatively generic Malabar curry. I also liked the bit of curd rice I got on the same plate.

There was a lot more to try but I was rather full (I didn’t eat dinner that night) and so I regret to inform that I cannot tell you anything about the vegetarian side of the buffet or about the butter chicken and naan. The evidence of the rest suggests the likely quality of everything ranges from decent to very good. And I suspect that at dinner the quality of the a la carte offering will be higher still. I’ll try to go back with the family next year to check that out.

Okay, launch the slideshow for a look at the restaurant and the buffet. Scroll down for a quick look at the grocery.

Grocery

And so the grocery. Just as Spice Village the restaurant is a lot brighter than Kumar’s, the grocery is much brighter than Mantra Bazaar. It’s also quite a bit larger and so feels less cramped. It’s not quite as large as Pooja Groceries in Hilltop or the mega groceries in Eden Prairie but odds are good that most people shopping for Indian ingredients will be able to find them here.

They have a butcher counter at the end of the  first aisle where you can purchase goat and chicken and so forth; and a small freezer section next to it with packaged frozen Indian fish. There are also freezer and cooler sections elsewhere with other prepared foods and ingredients (including idli and dosa batter). They also sell house-made pickles. I was excited to see shrimp pickle listed among these at the cashier but they were, alas, out of it. As for the rest, from grains to lentils to spices to oils to snacks to sweets, you can find it all, with a good variety of brands to choose between. And there’s also a small section with kitchenware and clothes and so forth.

My guess is this will become my go-to desi store south of the river. Here’s a quick look at it. Scroll down to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Alright, next up on the food front will be the last of my reports from Seoul in July. Then I will get started on my Kyoto reports from July and get further into my New York reports from October. My last two Delhi reports from July might not be out before I get back to Delhi for another two weeks in December. Let’s see how it goes.