India Sweets & Spices

I shopped at this store today for the first time, no doubt this store keeps everything that I want but I personally think that prices are bit too high here comparatively to the other Indian stores. What I really liked about this store is that they keep utensils also, the one specially that we use in India or Pakistan so I will give an extra star for that.

Lunch combo is quite affordable. Food is not healthy but it’s a café — so I didn’t expect the food to be too healthy.
The low rating is because of the staff there — they are indifferent and can be rude to some folks specially to non-​Indians. They sometimes joke about women’s bodies in Punjabi which is embarrassing and enraging at the same time. I had to stop one of the men behind the counter from making misogynist comments about an Asian and White woman couple who were in front of me. They had asked for extra plates and it seemed to irritate the men behind the counter. As a result, they singled me out and almost never complete my order unless I ask for it twice.

I’ve been coming here for years, initially cause mom needed to make a pit stop for atta, butter and basmati rice and in more recent years, to pick up Indian groceries and spices for my own home.
They carry an extensive selection of spices, Indian flours, lentils, rice, ginger & garlic pastes, etc. Their fresh produce section is tiny though.
On the other side of the building is their restaurant section. They have a variety of hot vegetarian foods to choose from or you can have certain things made up in the kitchen. We’ve had their Chana puri, dahi wada, pani puri, paranthas, etc and their selection of Indian sweets are pretty comprehensive and good quality to boot. I love their ladoos and gulab jamuns and hubby loves their ras malai.
Also, you’ve gotta know your Indian food if you’re ordering something to eat here because nothing is translated on the menu and the hot foods up front aren’t labeled in any way.
Now for someone checking out the place for the first time, this isn’t your local grocery store, it’s a hole in the wall and parking is in the back and sometimes difficult to find because of the lunch rush, or cause of the crap parking jobs. Don’t let the dumpsters by the back entrance scare you, you’ll get used to it and the otherwise sketchy feel you get upon entering. It’s an ethnic food market, not Ralphs, it’s part of the charm.

Where the heck else can you get an amazing, hearty, fresh, homecooked meal for two for $ 10?! We love this place. We love the food. We love the friendly people. The mattar paneer and the samosas are our favorite. The chai tea and the mango lassi are also out of this world. They have many different Indian vegetables and other groceries for sale so you can also pick up a few things after you eat your dinner. Love love love!

If you are expecting a fancy Indian buffet setting don’t come here. It is one of the original if not the original India Sweets & Spices. They have an array of vegetarian dishes for a reasonable charge around $ 5.00 for garbanzo stew, naan, rice and veggies. Everything is super spicy and cannot be adjusted to accommodate the faint of heart. They have lots of Indian deserts as well to help extinguish the fire. It is worth a visit.

This is a market with all types of Indian items from fruits, veggies, condiments, spices, sauces, drinks, house hold items and more. Seems like if you were looking for something Indian to try this would be a good place to check out.
This review is about the little restaurant section in the corner. I went in for lunch with my dad who knew about the store and the restaurant. He seems to enjoy the food there.
The restaurant section has about 10 or more tables and it’s not the nicest thing ever but it does the job. Seems like they have water for every table and a area with utensils and napkins and such.
The menu which is located on the wall features sweets, snacks (by the pound), hot foods, South Indian specials and more. For under $ 7 (excluding tax I believe), you can get a choice of one of three various lunch specials. Honestly, it does the job for decent cheap and tasty Indian food; if you know to expect that then all will be good. For each lunch special you get to make a choice of a vegetable dish or other item that comes with it plus the other items described with your meal. Seems like it gets busy for lunch time because of the reasonable price and decent food fair.
They have parking in the back.

food is ok and consistent. love the flavor.
people who work there on the deli counter, maybe because of culture, is little intimidating to talk to sometimes.
the market overall provide a great deal of good spices to use for cooking. price is reasonable when possible.

The food here is bomb. This is the best Indian food I have ever had, and it is an amazing deal. I get one of the special #3 to get a little of everything and have left overs for days! It usually comes out to about $ 6! It is vegetarian but as a meateater there is nothing missing. It is often hectic so you have to know what you want by the time you get to the register. If you dont know the name of the food they are very understanding and you can point to things in a timely manner. There options are already made but change by the day, I always try something new and am not disappointed. The service is fast. I recommend eating out since the store can get so hectic.
I strongly recommend you get sweets as well. The special comes with one peice of your choice. I recommend the kalakand and gulab jamun!
Check out the store while you are there a lot of good deals.

Growing up in England, I can tell you that I know I love their samosas. I have tried a few other their dishes as well. Everything is great. Everyone working there is nice, and you can find all kinds of Indian sweets and spices as the name suggests. If you need help with any of the spices, someone will come out and make suggestions. You can also eat there. There are always people of Indian origin eating in the restaurant part of the store. When ethnic people show up in droves to a place to eat, you know it is home-​away-​from-​home cooking.
Prices are reasonable, and the quality of the ingredients is excellent.

Restaurant — Perhaps if you’re a big fan of really hearty Indian Food, then you’ll probably like this. But for those who are into «healthy» eating, at least when I went there, the food was way too salty. If you have health issues, may not be the ideal place to eat. My brother’s gout acted up, perhaps from the excess salt & spices.
But for the price, you could take a chance, and see for yourself. ;-)

My go to for Indian
The dal though extremely spicy to me is still my absolute fave and the samosas are brilliant

One of my favorite Indian places to eat.
For about 5 bucks, you will have an amazing vegetarian meal. I am in no way a vegetarian and really did not notice I was not eating meat.
Ambiance is non existing, service is meh, but it’s all about the Indian food which is fantastic!

This is a small yet buzzing grocery store with an awesome deli. They offer 3 different lunch combos. My boyfriend and I ordered Combo 2 and 3, for which we got 2 samosas, 2 pakoras, tons of basmati rice, 4 different types of vegetarian dishes, 2 chapati, 2 poori, 2 types of chutney, raita, and dessert (rasmalai).
You bet that they give you SO MUCH food. All the dishes were well seasoned with a lot of delicious spices. I loved their saag paneer (I just love paneer, period), and you should definitely get the okra dish.
Next time, I’ll try their dosa and sweets (barfi!!).

Been coming here off and on for almost 15 years. The 3 stars are for the food and prices, not for the service or friendliness of the staff. This is a great place to get a quick Indian craving kick with good food at a reasonable price.

Lines till the end of time!
They do speak a modicum of English unlike the one in Northridge and are very helpful when it comes to ordering. I let them know that it was my first time (a slight lie as I did go to the one in Northridge before, but they were not helpful at all) and they gladly suggested what was good and what the dishes were.
Five dollars for a very filling meal can’t possibly be any cheaper. It’s healthy (I think and hope anyways) and it’s all vegetarian from what I can tell.
The line does move fairly fast as it’s a cafeteria style eatery.
There was a nice couple sitting beside my friends and me that also gladly helped explain what the random assortment of dishes we got were. Truthfully they were probably half-​snickering as we were guessing what certain things were and critiquing each dish. The place looks fairly worn down but in a way it makes it that much more authentic. Lovely place and lovely people.

I have gone to three different locations of the Indian Sweets and Spices and this location by far is the best location out of the three I have been to. The Los Feliz one is actually pretty good, but the food was not great. The Northridge one was terrible. Not only was it terrible service, the food was terrible!
This place offered so many choices of fresh vegetarian curry and they were all delicious! I mistakenly got the paneer which was literally sweet and sour sauce with paneer (cheese), bell peppers, and onions. To my surprise I actually liked it but I will not likely be getting this again. The eggplant curry was amazing. It was delicious and I enjoyed it very much. The curry’d rice was THE BEST. It had large chunks of eggplants which complimented the turmeric-​rice.
I got the $ 7 deal so it came with a samosa, naan, yogurt, and dessert. I bought two of these combos and the guy only gave me one yogurt and one dessert! I was ripped off! But whatever. The dessert was this milky sweet dessert that I didn’t enjoy but my coworker did.
Overall this place was amazing, the food the affordable but beware of the lines. I was lucky in that I was able to get to this place before the lines started to form at 12:45. I think there is a lunch rush around that time.

This is typical behind the grocery store kind of Indian restaurant. No frills, just plain simple food.
I would give 4 – 5 stars to some items on the menu — Hot samosas, sev puri and other chats, mysore dosa. 2 – 3 stars for some other items — chole bhature, sambar, most of thier curries.
I know this is supposed to be completely no frills place, but it would nice to have a little bit of cleaning the tables between guests, having a number based system to actually write down orders and announce when food is ready.
Every time I went there for some reason people behind the counter are adamant on not writing down the order, asking you to repeat everything 2 – 3 times. And every time forgetting to serve something. Please just drop those egos use a pen so we actually get what we order everytime.
But what works for them is lack of decent food of similar kind in the vicinity and some things as mentioned above are delicious. Overall pure lack of consistency in food gets them 3 stars. But I wish they improve these things so I can keep going back for some yummy samosas.

So my very quiet work neighbor always has the best smelling lunch and one day I had to ask for her source of this beautiful and fragrant food. She told me it was «ISS» I thought «What the f**?». Then she offered to take me the next time she went. I knew this place was the business when we parked in a makeshift parking lot behind a pretty dilapidated strip mall. We walked into a market and immediately saw a line about 8 people deep formed that lead into a hidden dining area and everyone in line seemed to be of Indian descent. SCORE!
My colleague is Filipino and admittedly didn’t know a ton about the dishes on display, she just pointed at what she recognized and advised me to do the same. I didn’t ask too many questions and did the same, but for $ 7 I got a huge bag with naan, a crispy like naan, a samosa & cilantro dipping sauce, a yogurt like thing with chickpeas in it and my main dish, rice with an eggplant concoction and fried fritters in a curry and yogurt based sauce. I also sampled their paneer dish with peppers in a thick tomato base. I didn’t care for the fritter dish, but everything else was delicious! I saw that a popular item was something called a DOSA MASALA… lots of people were ordering that, so next time I will follow suit, but this «hole in the wall» was a fantastic find!

I was recommended this spot because I was craving good samosas. I was in line, two people ahead of me, five behind me. I paid and then waited and waited and waited to be served. The two men behind the counter helped every other person in line, dishing out multiple items for each person before they finally grabbed a box for my samosas.
My food took them half the time any other person’s yet I had to wait the longest. I found it funny since they didn’t hesitate to take my money yet actually providing the product and service seemed to evade them.
For that kind of rudeness I expect my mouth to be blown away by amazing flavor– something akin to the soup Nazi from «Seinfeld» but I wasn’t feeling it. Sure it had good heat but the flavor– meh. The dipping sauce was perfection but if the samosa isn’t there what’s the point?
After I left I asked the person who recommended them to me about the service and he said he had the same problem as well. At least their rudeness wasn’t just for my benefit.

If you find yourself to be in a long line for Indian food and the only non-​Indian person at a restaurant, that would be a good indication to me of the authenticity and quality of the food served here — this place is legit.
I asked an Indian friend where I can find the best Indian food in the Valley outside her mother’s kitchen, and she told me to come to India Sweets & Spices in Canoga Park. There are other locations she said, but she said that this one is her favorite.
I’ve been eating Indian food more often these days because my sister and her boyfriend love it so much. They took me a couple months ago to Dosa on Fillmore in San Francisco for my birthday dinner and I absolutely loved it. Unlike India Sweets & Spices, Dosa was upscale, super trendy, and expensive. I’m not sure why it took me so many years to try the Indian food here. I guess I thought maybe it was only a grocery store and not a restaurant.
It’s a hole-​in-​the-​wall place. You don’t come here for the ambience, but for the food. The small cafeteria-​style restaurant is located in the back of the grocery store where you can buy Indian food products, teas, and also candy bars such as Lion.
I asked for a recommendation of their dosas, and he recommended the masala dosa which seemed to be what a lot of other people were ordering. I also ordered samosas as a side dish and a medium cup of chai. I was surprised the dosa was only $ 5 and $ 8 total including the side dish and chai. A bargain, considering how much we paid at Dosa in San Francisco.
I’ll definitely be back again whenever I’m in the mood for Indian food!