Saraga Supermarket

I go to this place frequently. Though it’s not a clean n organized place, I find everything here. They carry all Indian grocery, vegetables and frozen items. Their prices are same as any other Indian store. If you can shop in a not very clean environment with little help from staff, it’s a place for you.

I always enjoy checking out various ethnic markets wherever I happen to be. Today I found blade mace, saffron oil from Iran, and dried chamomile flowers… Fantastic stuff!

I have been a customer occasionally, and shopped at this location in my neighborhood ever since it opened. I am extremely disappointed with the disorganization and cleanliness of this store, and the employees are not friendly and do not ask customers if they need help. On my visit there Monday ¹⁰⁄₆ they had NO fresh mint. It is difficult to find what you want there and even other customers are unfriendly.

This place needs some work. At the very least, they need to clean up the place, arrange the shelves better, and take care of the fresh vegetables so they do not get too dry. Sadly, right now it is kinda dingy and dirty.

My experience here is limited to getting tahini for hummus and sticky rice. Found choices and that works for me. Overall the place seems like it could be a little cleaner and the people (shoppers) there always seem to be working over the fresh produce pretty hard trying to find good quality. You could wait in line for a while because there is usually only one cashier. Overall I think it’s a neat place, perhaps the competition and standard is lower on the south side for now.

I will never buy anything here unless it’s dry. I have try many times thinking it was just a mistake. It never proves me wrong the bread and pork bun always has mold. The place need state to come in and clean the place up! The place is dirty, rude, untrained worker over all bad.

Let’s cook up a recipe.
3 eggplant stir fry with pork belly. Garnish with sambel oelek, fresh bamboo and gai-​lan.
Cooked properly this can be one mean dish. All the ingredients are here.
The produce is as fresh as it can be. Real yams, garlic and ginger are cheaper than every other grocer.

I needed some items for some Japanese-​style soup that I was making for dinner. I was surprised to find Saraga Supermarket on the Southside of Indy, which offered food items representing most Far East, South East, South Asian as well Middle Eastern and African cultures. The store is spacious compared to most of its Asian market competition and offered a good selection of dry goods, produce, fresh meat and seafood. I found the ingredients I needed without a problem. While it still pales in comparison to the Asian markets found in Northern Virginia where I live, Indianapolis doesn’t have a large Asian community. That said, the under 15,000 Asians living in Indianapolis especially those living on the Southside are well served by Saraga Supermarket.

My typical diet consists mostly of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean food. Saraga International Market helps me find what I want.
I buy mostly packaged or dry foods. The store has these in abundance. They also have a wide range of sauces, oils, and marinades. As they are an international grocery, they have everything from Asian to Middle Eastern to German to Hispanic foods. They also have fish, meat, and produce.
I find their ramen, udon, somen, and soba noodle selection to be a wide variety of products and brands from all over Asia. They also have Japanese and some Korean gyoza, otherwise known as potstickers in English. The store carries some frozen Thai soups and Chinese and Japanese frozen entrees that are quite good. At my request, they started to carry bagged, ready-​to-​heat Indian entrees. These are not likely as good as a home-​cooked meal in an Indian household but an Indian friend finds them quite good, as he doesn’t cook, and I agree.
If there are negative things to mention, it’s mostly that the store inventory is inconsistent, especially with drinks like Japanese tea and coffee. Besides products being inconsistent, I’m not sure about their equipment in the freezer section. During one visit, they had no frozen food at all and all the freezers seemed to be in need of repair.
I like the store and the staff are busy but friendly and helpful.

It is smaller and may not have as much as the other location, but it still has plenty and you should be able to get most, if not all, of what you need. I also find them to be reasonably priced. Just a couple of warnings:
The produce is not always very fresh, and it seems like the fish may not be either. And some of the frozen stuff is freezer burnt. Also, make sure to check the dates on dry products, you will find that some things have expired well past their date.
But other than those problems you should be able to find a lot of basics/​staples there (just check dates) and they also have a nice selection of snacks and beverages. They also have a selection of cookware, dinnerware and other products. The location is also very convenient for those of us on the South side.
Just a quick edit to mention that they made their freezer section larger, a lot more items there now, including a decent ice cream selection.

We stopped at Saraga and did some browsing for our first visit. We’d been warned that this location doesn’t quite match-​up to the Lafayette Road location but we wanted to check it out anyway. I really don’t know what to make of this store. A lot of interesting produce but so much of it seemed to be old, limp and way past it’s prime. Also, a lot of the frozen items that are in see-​through packaging seemed to look oddly freezer-​burned. And, the fresh fish department tucked-​in a back room of the store had some really sad-​looking fish with murky glazed-​over eyes and a definite non-​fresh odor. But, on the other hand, there were some really good looking fresh meats that seemed reasonably priced. The fresh beef and chicken and some of the lamb looked great. They also carried goat meat which I found interesting. But, if you want to stick with packaged items like canned goods, sauces, etc there are a lot of really unique foodstuffs to check out.

It’s so good to have an option to shop for asian/​international groceries without driving the west side or the two options on the far north side. This place is not as big as their store on Lafayette road but it has a small fish market in the back that is kind of separate from the rest of the store and that helps with the smells too. They have a little less of everything but it does the job when you are looking for the staples.