Desi Bazaar

WOW! Good food — good people. I went with 5, Number 7 combos — chicken and ground beef kabobs and added chicken samosas, all for the lunch club at work. Fantastic stuff, delicious, fresh and different. Everybody raved. I’d give Desi Bazaar 10 stars if I could. We’ll be back.

It’s a good grocery stores with delicious foods. I tried kabob and lamb shank are my favorites Persian foods!

Pretty tasty fried chicken, you have to trust UnilocalER Naz for fried chicken. I also went for the recommended samosas I favored the potato over the chicken. The shell was inconsistently crisp and tender, I longed for a dipping sauce. I sauntered around the market which had some very interesting and dusty items. The meat looked good and the spices could be a great reason to stop by.

Some of the best kebabs I’ve had in Rochester, definitely a winner! The store has a good variety of items too, including one of my favorite teas, which was a very exciting find.

It’s a cozy place to eat. Love how they served free tea.

This place is run by very nice people and one of my favorite stores to visit.
Everything that I have tried at the food counter in the back has been very tasty and fresh, but the SAMOSAS! The samosas are the best I have ever had (chicken are my favorite), and are at their best straight from the fryer. After trying these, samosas moved up among my favorite foods. Be prepared for some spicey with the kabobs, for anyone who is sensitive. I usually do take-​out, but they also have a sit-​down room in the back which is kept clean and is nice, and good wait service. Whenever I am living somewhere else I miss this place’s inexpensive, fresh, authentic, delicious meals.
There is a pretty extensive spice and staple section too which I use a lot. Very good prices here as well.
The place also has a halal butcher, but I have only gotten ground goat once which was ground fresh and very good quality.
In the corner is a small produce section which is lacking and doesn’t seem to have much turnover.
Some deserts (baklavas and other stuff I am not familiar with) are available near the register, but I have not tried any of them. Some frozen products are available to the left.

Tasty kabob café and conveniently attached to middle eastern grocery store. Shop while you wait for food

I can’t believe what you get for the prices at Bamiyan kabob. The rice could use more seasoning and the salad could be better than iceberg but I’m not complaining because there’s also FREE TEA in the corner in addition to the yummy grilled meat! The Afghan-​style floor seating which is great if youre like me and have two small kids. The baby can crawl while we eat.
There are some good ideas happening at this place but they dont always follow through. For example beautiful square white plates but served on red plastic Mcdonalds-​type trays. A decent dining room but no music… you dine to the distant sound of meat being cut on the other side of the store. It’s a little strange to dine with no music whatsoever until you actually do so.
As for the store, the name of the place is tricky. No longer owned by Desis, it offers much more than just Desi food. I found that a lot of the random things I like to find in halal stores were available. Someone mentioned tamarind missing, I saw it when I was there.
The meat is good and decently priced. The place is clean and the customer service decent.

True rating: 3.5 stars
Desi Bazaar is a halal butcher + Indian/​Middle Eastern food/​spice store + Middle Eastern/​Indian take out restaurant rolled into one. The owners are helpful and friendly. I come here often to find the Shan masalas that I can’t locate at the India House grocery store. I also buy meat here and it has always been fresh. The butcher (one of the owners) has advised me on what cuts to get for certain Indian dishes.
The mini food counter in the back (named Bamiyan Kebab) is a hidden gem. If they have fried chicken drumsticks and/​or samosas, get one of each. If you love fried chicken, you might want 2 drumsticks. They are well spiced and deep fried to perfection. They also offer a variety of kebabs and rice dishes. The kebabs come with a mountain of rice, a little iceberg salad and an interesting tomato-​y dressing. The kebabs here tend to be quite mild but juicy. If you love spicy kebabs, you will need to add some chopped green chillis (which they sell there in the small basic produce section next to the butcher area). You can eat in if you would like — the entire space next door is a simply decorated dining area. But I recommend taking it home as the dining in setup seems awkwardly executed as of my last visit.
Overall, it is a regular stop in my grocery shopping routine and random weekend lunch pickup spots. While the grocery store offers mostly the same things as other Indian grocery stores, Bamiyan Kebab is the closest thing we have to an Afghani restaurant so I must recommend you check it out.

Desi Bazaar /​Bamiyan Kabob is my new go-​to spot in Rochester for a cheap, quick and tasty meal. Desi Bazaar is primarily an Afghani/​Pakistani/​Indian grocery store with an attached kitchen that serves up kebabs, samosas, chicken wings and rice.
While I suspect the owners originally expected mostly take-​out business, they have added a newly renovated dining area which is actually really nice. With that said, there is no official menu. Instead there are pictures of the various meal combinations (#1−16) hanging from the ceiling.
Since the restaurant shares a similar name to the popular Toronto restaurant chain, it comes as no surprise that the menu is also similar. This includes beef, lamb and chicken kabobs served as a wrap or served with rice and salad. They also offer lamb shank, curry and chicken biryani.
For about $ 8.50 you get two generous skewers of meat, a small salad with yogurt dressing and a giant heap of rice. It’s served with a spicy red salsa sauce which compliments the meat well.
I found the meat a little less flavorful as compared to the Toronto chain, but still very good. Everything tastes pretty clean and healthy. Very little salt and butter. Some nann bread would have been a nice addition to the meal, but the rice is usually enough to satifsy my carb craving. They also offer vegetable and chicken samosas, which are a little greasy, but delicious.
Overall, this is a great place for a lunch or an informal dinner. Don’t be fooled by its nondescript appearance, since they serve up some good food at a reasonable cost. I’ll be sure to come back soon. I’m officially a «regular.»

Desi-​bazaar is a great place which has clearly understood the demand of its clients for even better service. Desi has many hard-​to-​find things from many Mediterranean countries ranging from Iran to India and turkey. There are many traditional ingredients, dairies, breads and sweets. There is a great restaurant at the back which serves hot food seemingly Afghan cuisine, however suits what Persian people cook as well. The meals with rice might not be the choice for American people (as there is a lot of rice), but it has the exact amount of rice we make as side dish of Persian meals. There is a nice dining place in the restaurant. The cute thing is that it also has two areas in the dining place where clients can seat on a carpet and have their food (the traditional way for having traditional foods in many middle eastern countries). Also, it has yoghurt drink (Doogh — Ayran)!! yayyyy… hard to find in Rochester. It also has dates, Gaz (from Iran) and so many traditional ingredients of middle eastern cuisine. Food has acceptable price ranging from 7 to 11 for the meals with rice and salad. The rice is overall really delicious and Chicken Tikka ensembles Persian juje-​kabob. Overall, I’m thrilled that I found this bazaar after all. The only drawback is that the breads were not fresh, but given the fact that they get many of these items from Toronto for a small population of Turkish, Arab, Afghan, Indian and Turkish people in Rochester, it’s acceptable.

Desi Bazaar is a Pakistani/​Afghani (and maybe Indian) grocery store cum delicatessen. It is a great place to pick up fresh halal meats (goat, lamb, beef, chicken), and other grocery items. The highlight of the place I would say is, apart from fresh meats, the delicatessen, that serves buriyani rice and other dishes well prepared by an outstanding chef. This business is SOLID and I have frequented this place for the past few months.
This is a must try — food seem to be home made, and of much better quality than what you will find in Chaat House, also nearby.
Enjoy!

Desi Bazaar is a small grocery store catering to Pakistani, Afghani and Indian ingredients. Its a good place to pick up Halal meat and the only place around I know of to get fresh goat. Cheap lamb too, and a decent assortment of offal from what I can tell. They also do a little takeout business, serving solid Afghani-​Pakistani? (pretty sure) style dishes.
I’ve had the beef and chicken shami kebab and both are amazing. Packing tons of spices, not necessarily hot but bursting with flavor. The basmati with fried carrots and raisins was also a new experience for me. Their samosas aren’t bad either, and at 99 cents a piece you can’t really go wrong.
I have yet to try the curry dish, or fried drumstick and few of the other kebabs, but I will certainly be back. Lunch runs about $ 7 at Desi, which isn’t too bad for two huge kebabs and a mountain of rice.

This is a resource for those whipping up some Indian, Pakistani, or other south Asian cuisine, and they prominently advertise carrying Halal food.
There’s a good representation of bulk dried items and spices (although they don’t carry tamarind — a curious omission). They also stock the largest variety of those just-​open-​and-​heat prepackaged Indian /​Pakistani dishes I’ve seen. (These are great to whip out when the desire or time to cook isn’t there — not only are they fast and easy, but they taste good too.) They have a small frozen food section and a fresh meat section, and they carry snack-​type foods and some general grocery items. They also rent films — most, if not all, products of Bollywood.
It’s a small place, but I can find things here that I can’t elsewhere, and everything is so inexpensive I wonder how they stay in business. They recently started accepting credit cards, which has made shopping there even more convenient. If you live in Rustic Village, they’re within easy walking distance.
— and, how cool is it that they turned away a would-​be robber by leaning over the counter and punching him in the nose?!