Category Archives: Grocery store

Panaderia Oaxaquena

Posted on May 3, 2010 by | 5 comments

Mexican Bakery and Grocery
63 S. Murray Hill Rd., West Side
614-878-5220

Click here to map it!

Attentive alt.eats readers will recall that we’ve been more than willing, in the past, to feature markets that prepare their own food items for consumption on-premises.  With this post, we’re going to stretch this a bit to include markets that make exceptional food items which may require a bit of home preparation to complete… because damn, these guys make some amazing molé!

Tucked away just off of West Broad Street, Panaderia Oaxaquena is a full fledged grocery store which includes a meat counter, produce section, and bakery. As such, molé is just one of their house-made offerings – they also have their own Mexican-style breads, cheeses, sour creams and more.

We were tipped off about Panaderia Oaxaquena by G.A. Benton of Columbus Alive. He included their molé in his ‘Get Real for Cinco de Mayo‘ article in 2009. Good molé is hard to come by and even harder to make (making molé sauce from scratch can literally take days), so that was all the enticement we needed.

You can choose from molé negro or molé rojo, and the package gives instructions for completing the dish. You can read about our interpretation here.

As for the cheeses, highlights include quesillo, a type of string cheese that can be grilled like halloumi.

Crema comes in two varieties – the regular white and pale pink. We haven’t been able to find out much about the pale pink one, so if anyone know why it is pink and what it is used for, please let us know.

You can also find these flatbreads called tlayudas, which are often served with beans and cheese, like a large tostada.

As PO is also a bakery, we bought some bread, hot from the oven, which steamed as we greedily broke into it. Soft, light white, and delicately flavorful. You can see the bolillos below which are used for tortas (Mexican subs).

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Posted in Bakery, Grocery store, Mexican

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Mecca Market & Grill

Posted on April 6, 2010 by | 7 comments

Cuisine: Pakistani
2256 South Hamilton Rd
614. 501-1550

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Mecca started out as a grocery store and purveyor of halal meat.  When the latest owner took over the store, he decided to put a kitchen together and offer Pakistani food. In his own words,” I have meat and groceries in here, why not cook some food and offer take out.”

As you walk into Mecca Market, you will be greeted by the friendly owner and his staff. They are very helpful and eager to answer any questions about their groceries, halal meat and their menu.

Walking towards the back, you’ll see a meat counter and next to it is the counter where you order your food. Since this is intended to be a take out business, they don’t have a dining area set up in the store. However, if you really want to eat in, there is a card table that will seat about 6 people. Due to the small operation, not everything listed on the menu is available everyday. If you’re not up for simply trying whatever happens to be on offer, it is probably best to call ahead and see what is available.

Pakistani food according to the owner is  more intensely spiced than Indian food. But there are a lot of similarities with Northern Indian food because of the shared geographic region and with their use of the tandoor.

First up was the garlic naan. The naan had the perfect texture of being crispy on the outside and slighty chewy on the inside. It could have used a little more garlic but that depends on how much you like garlic. We had also ordered a plain naan as well and the execution of it was just as perfect as the garlic one. Plastic silverware was offered to us but we decided to use the naan and our hands for utensils.

We ordered a serving of tandoori chicken and batair. Batair is quail and it is a very popular fowl eaten in Pakistan. This is something that is not usually offered in Indian restaurants. If you see Batair on the menu, then you are likely in the hands of a Pakistani chef. Flavor wise, both birds were phenomenal. Intensely spiced and had the right amount of charring. The quail was definitely more tender of the two. It’s hard to say what quail taste like as the spices definitely overpowered the taste of the meat. However you can tell the difference by the texture. We will be ordering it again next time.

Next up was the goat curry. This was surprisingly not spicy and mild with curry spices. Overall it was very savory and went well with the naan bread which we used to sop up the curry sauce.

We ordered the briyani of the day which was the chicken briyani. The staff explained that briyanis takes a while to cook so they pick a different meat each day to make a pot of briyani instead of offering 3-4 types of briyanis a day. They are happy to take custom orders if you call in the morning for a pick up later in the day. The briyani was very fragrant with a deluge of spices such as cardamon, cinnamon, cumin, cloves and etc. The rice was perfectly tender and the chicken was nicely integrated with the dish absorbing all the spices and liquid that the rice was cooking in.

Lunch for 3 with two drinks came up to $20. Most dishes range from $5 – $10. There are a few vegetarian offerings like palak paneer and couple of aloo dishes. Best advice is to call ahead and check what dishes they are offering for the day or call ahead for a custom order. The people at Mecca are very accommodating and will cater and deliver their food for a function/party.

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Posted in Grocery store, Pakistani

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Salam Market and Bakery

Posted on April 3, 2010 by | 8 comments

Cuisine: Middle Eastern
5676 Emporium Square (Columbus Square Shopping Center)
614.899.0952

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There are lots of ethnic markets in Columbus that offer far more than you might guess from first glance: Arirang, Mecca and Salam, just to name a few. Salam is a wonderfully organized, clean grocery store where you can stock up on dates, olives and spices, but it is also a halal butcher (and the first place I have seen lamb tongues) and a bakery. We had heard rumors about the meat pies at Salam and were determined to try them. Our first attempt was unsuccessful and we learned the hard way that they sell out by lunchtime. Our perseverance paid off: These pies are seriously good.

Our early start was rewarded with a choice of six pies (three vegetarian and three meat): cheese, chicken, spicy kebab meat, zatar, falafel and a larger chicken pie. The regular pies were $1.50 each and the larger chicken pie was $1.99. The pies, which of course reminded me of Cornish pasties. were made from pita dough made fresh that morning.

We chose the cheese, chicken and kebab options, all still warm from the oven. The gooey cheese (possibly halloumi – we didn’t ask) was buttery and salty and fairly mild flavor-wise. It would be good with some chutney or hot sauce. The chicken and the kebab were chunky tomato and onion based sauces with meat. The kebab (of the ground and seasoned meat variety) had some chili heat and the chicken was milder but fragrant with cardamom. The bread was light and soft and it wasn’t hard to see why these sell out quickly.

The open kitchen means that you can watch them making pita bread (they supply restaurants such as Jeddo Kebab and Lavash). The dough is mixed and kneaded, divided into balls, rolled into rounds and left to rise before it is baked. The guy in the red cap is taking hot pita breads out of the oven.

The pies were not labelled but the staff were friendly and happy to explain the fillings and prices, and let us watch what they were doing. As well as buying our pies we also explored the stores and found these interesting green almonds, a Middle Eastern spring time snack.

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Posted in Bakery, Grocery store, Middle Eastern

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Arirang

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 18 comments

Cuisine: Korean
1526 Bethel Road
614.459.8070
Open until 9pm

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Arirang was first recommended to me by a Hungrywoolf reader (Thank you Molly). It has become my favorite place for Korean food, and I thought that it was still a wonderful secret until G.A. Benton from Columbus Alive wrote his humorous post about it this week.

From the outside you would never guess that this little grocery store has a restaurant in the  back. You order at the store’s front counter and then take your ticket to the open kitchen at the back of the store. Find a seat and wait to be signaled to when your food is ready. There is no table service so you go up to the counter and collect it yourself. The menu has recently been updated and is in English and Korean with a clear indication of which dishes are spicy. There are three price brackets ranging from $4.95 up to $8.95.

With its extremely bright fluorescent lighting and slightly sterile feel, Arirang is not somewhere to go for the atmosphere but what it lacks in ambience it makes up for with the food. It is also extremely clean, good value and you can do some shopping while you are there.

Your meal will come with the traditional banchan (a selection of small dishes, including the requisite kimchi.) and there is an urn of complimentary barley tea as well as a water cooler.

My favorite dishes tend to be the spicy ones but there are plenty of options for people who do not like spicy food. Some of the beef soups are very lightly seasoned. The dolsot bibimbap (mixed rice in a stone pot) is also not spicy and comes topped with lots of vegetables, sprouts and kimchi. The egg was fried with a soft yolk rather than the raw egg that is often served. As well as large steaming bowls of soup and noodles there are also stir fried dishes and I really enjoyed the stir fried pork.

The picture at the top of the post is kim-bap, a Korean roll (a vegetarian sushi style roll) and we have enjoyed the crispy pancakes both mung bean and seafood.

The soups are extremely hot in temperature and usually arrive at a rolling boil. If you are really hungry, order a pancake or a roll to eat while you wait, to prevent searing your mouth. Also a good idea not to go right before they close – it’s hard to eat steaming food in a hurry!

18 Comments

Posted in Asian, Grocery store, Korean, Restaurant

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Los Galapagos

Posted on March 9, 2010 by | 5 comments


Cuisine: Ecuadorean & Colombian
378 S Grener Road
614.878.7770

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Los Galapagos is a family run grocery store and restaurant specializing, as the name would suggest, in Ecuadorean food with some Colombian dishes thrown in for good measure. It is definitely off the beaten path, on Grener Avenue, south of Broad Street near the exit from 270 but well worth searching out. A couple of notes: It closes at 8.30pm so get there early if you want dinner and some of the Ecuadorean specialities (such as the hornado) are only available at the weekend.

It was a cold night and the morocho (a hot spiced milk drink made with dried corn kernals) was a very popular choice.

The food is all cooked to order and while we waited for our main dishes we snacked on some tostados (roasted corn kernals).

We also shared some empanadas. They had two varieties, chicken and cheese of which the cheese was most popular.  Taco Drew thought that the chicken tasted like pot pie.

And we couldn’t resist some plantain maduros.

Hunger staved, our eyes almost popped out of our heads when we saw the size of the main dishes. The prices make for an extremely good value. This was my chaulafan, an Ecuadorean take on chicken fried rice with ham , bacon and vegetables. It was really good and enough for two people.

CMH Gourmand and Taco Drew opted for the bandeja paisa, a Colombian platter with rice, avocado, ground meat, pork rind, egg, plantain, chorizo and arepa and beans (served separately). It was a feast of a platter and neither came anywhere close to finishing theirs.

The arepa was different to the ones we have had at trucks tasting more like grits than yellow cornmeal. The chorizo was particularly tasty and I was pleased to find that I could buy some to take home. Our friend had a soup with shrimp and plantains, not really a hit because the plantains gave it a peculiar texture. Although we didn’t try them on this visit we heard that the broth based soups are very good.

Like Restaurante Salvadoreno on the opposite side of town, Los Galapagos offers the chance to experience a different Latin American cuisine from the more common Mexican fare. A visit to one of these restaurants is a step beyond arm chair travel – when you walk in the door you almost feel like you have left Columbus. This is a no frills, yet charming, dining experience with satisfying, unpretentious food, generous portions and genial hosts.

5 Comments

Posted in Ecuadorean, Grocery store, Latin American, Restaurant

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