It’s 11:45 on a Tuesday and Spice Bazaar is already half full, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s walked past the place on State Street and wondered why there’s always a line of foam containers stacked by the register. Lunch here operates at a pace that the neighborhood has apparently decided to trust entirely.
The restaurant sits in a stretch of State Street that doesn’t get much ink — not far from the hospital complex, surrounded by check-cashing storefronts and a cell phone repair shop that has been “opening soon” for approximately three years. Spice Bazaar doesn’t advertise its presence beyond a hand-lettered sign and the smell, which on a cold afternoon carries about half a block and makes a compelling argument all by itself.
The room holds maybe thirty people if everyone’s friendly about it. There are four tables along the left wall, a long counter that faces the open kitchen, and a chalkboard menu that gets partially erased and rewritten most days depending on what came in fresh. The owners — a husband-and-wife operation out of Lahore by way of Queens — are behind the counter during every service I’ve ever witnessed. This is not a place running on autopilot.
Order the saag paneer if it’s on the board. It almost always is. The cheese is made in-house, which you’ll figure out immediately because it doesn’t have that rubbery squeakiness of the stuff that arrives in bulk bags. The spinach has real body to it — not the watery slick you sometimes get — and the whole thing arrives with enough heat that you’ll want the raita they’ll offer without being asked. Take the raita.
The lamb karahi is the other thing people drive across town for, and I mean that literally; I’ve met people from Shelton here on a Wednesday. It’s dry-ish, cooked down in a wok-style pan with tomato and ginger and green chili, and it rewards the kind of eating where you stop talking for a few minutes. Naan comes fresh to the table in a cloth-lined basket. Plan accordingly.
Lunch runs about ten to fourteen dollars per person if you’re eating a main and bread, which is essentially the only way to eat here. Dinner service starts at five and tends to draw a different crowd — longer meals, more families, occasionally someone who has clearly brought out-of-town guests specifically to show off that they know about this place. You know the type. Maybe you are the type.
They’re closed Mondays. Friday lunch gets busy fast enough that arriving after noon means waiting, which is fine because the wait happens outside on the sidewalk and gives you time to read the chalkboard through the window and make decisions you’ll immediately second-guess once you’re inside.
Bridgeport has accumulated a reasonable number of South Asian restaurants over the past decade, and most of them are perfectly competent. Spice Bazaar is not trying to be competent. It is trying to serve you the food it actually wants to cook, and on most days, that’s a distinction you can taste.
