Apna Bazaar

I normally avoid this restaurant because I had bad experiences with its food in past. However, my craving for a Paki food made me forget about my bad experiences and I thought I could give them one last try. Being from Pakistan I know what an authentic Pakistani food taste like.
This time I ordered chicken Karahi $ 8.99 and two Naans for $ 4 which is not a bargain price. I don’t mind paying these prices if the food was worth it. The curry was greasy with three pieces of bony chicken thigh which has hardly any meat on them. They used the cheapest part of the chicken meat. The naans were better tasting than chicken but they have pieces of dirt in them and when you chew your naan, you chew pieces of dirt in them as well which sometime hurt your teeth. I don’t know how they cook their naan in clay oven that collects dirt. I could hardly finish my half a naan and thew the rest of the food. I don’t know how this place stays in business. I will not be coming back!

tl;dr They’re racist/​discriminatory — don’t support these terrible people.
So I’ve been here a few times, usually to grab some samosas or a small curry deal or whatever after hitting up Columbus Asian Market across the street.
I, however, had an absolutely terrible experience there the last time I went.
So it was the first time we went to actually grab dinner from the place. My two friends (both white — this is applicable) both received their meals relatively promptly, within 5 – 6 minutes. I had ordered a kebab roll, and being ethnically Indian, but relatively white bread, I was explaining dishes and spices and whatnot to my friends.
The guy who was working the till/​taking orders kept giving me rather weird looks, and was really rude when I ordered my food, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Well, the minutes go by, and 25 minutes in, I’m certain that I see my food sitting on the counter (it had been there for a good 15+ minutes by that point) and ask him if it’s ready. He said it’d be a few more minutes. Well, I ask the guy every five minutes thereafter if my food is ready, and 40 minutes in (I only stayed because I had already paid), he hands me the food that had been on the counter for a good 30+ minutes already.
This is utterly unacceptable. These guys are extremely racist/​culturist.
Do not give them your business, they discriminate and give awful service based on one’s cultural upbringing. I highly suggest never going here, and boycotting this store. The way I was treated was absolutely deplorable and hurtful. There are many other places to get Indian food in Columbus, do not go here.

I really liked the food in this place. Unlike a lot of establishments they were not at all shy about giving out full spice to a non-​Indian/​Pakistani. I thought the food was fabulous, will be back for sure. A couple of things that would help is the ability to maybe order a lassi while waiting, which takes a bit, maybe being able to order an appetizer? All and all not too different from the food next door and while the service isn’t the same, the pricing makes up for the difference very well. Have not checked out the grocery part of the store but sure will next time!

oily, yummy, but room for improvement. Good serving sizes.

This place is great. The goat curry and tandoori chicken are especially money. They more or less have the same menu as Tandoori Grill next door, but it is a bit cheaper and they also have several other thing on the menu. Hands down best Indian/​Pakistani food for the money in Columbus.

Since my exuberant, pleased review of this place almost a year ago, it seems Apna Bazaar has regressed. I visited last night with a couple friends hoping to show them what real meat biryani should taste like. Seeing that the kitchen moved from the back to taking up an L-​shaped space from the left side to the back, I presumed that its customer base had increased, and that could only mean the food had gotten better.
Wrong.
I like to give purveyors of ethnic fare great latitude, taking care not to conflate taste with quality, ever certain that they know more about their region’s cooking than I might. But on this day, I was expecting a little more than «thank-​you-​Apna-​Bazaar-​for-​being-​here» dishmaking. Columbus is no Devon Avenue in Chicago, with its adjacent storefronts of top-​notch Indian cooking — but that doesn’t mean you don’t try — at ten bucks for the special and 2 naans, especially when there are 4 other places within five miles.
My friend and I got the beef kofta curry, and another friend a chicken dish. Sure, the meals were savory and richly spiced, the brown hue dense with flavor. But the brown hue also glistened, and the dense spice had to be spooned from a thick veneer of oil. Interspersed from each other, like the humps of two Loch Ness monsters on a break-​up avoiding one another, sat the koftas, and one spoon in, we discovered the ground beef was devoid of any taste, a very covert yet conspicuous denouncing of its very identity as a kofta (kofta is a spiced ground beef).
Apna Bazaar prices its food from 7 – 9 dollars per dish, sans rice or bread, which you have to pay extra for. If that’s the case, expectations run higher. The last two times I was here, even its meat biryani lacked the minimum amount of meat, the joint pieces instead accompanied by a chewy cartilage.
I’m still holding out for the biryani’s sake. I’m a big believer in that you shouldn’t have to go to Chi-​town to eat good meat biryani. Apna Bazaar’s biryani has the hard parts down — the color, the flavor, the spice, the sheer skill of presentation.
Now, if only it could take care of what’s easy.

I’m giving this a five stars, my highest rating ever for a restaurant. It’s authentic, the folks are warm and friendly and the food is so good, it could rub shoulders with the best that New Delhi offers. A friend of mine took me there, swearing by their Biryani. Biryani is a richer, meatier version of a Pilaf or Pulao, enjoyed by everyone from the Middle East, South Asia, East Africa and even Latin America.
The place is bare bones and most of the space is dedicated to run of the mill Indian/​Pakistani/​Turkish? grocery items. But behind the shelves is a brand new kitchen with a Tandoor. There are a couple of tables and it’s best to order ahead if you want carry out. The proprietors hail from Pakistan and are welcoming hosts. The food speaks for itself. I tried the boti kabab, 4 chunks of marinated chicken cooked in the tandoor, the most authentic naan outside of Old-​Delhi and mint chutney with raw thin slced onions, under 10 $. I was bowled over. The menu held promises of Halim and Nihari, items that cannot be found in most of the North-​Indian themed curry houses here in Columbus. Do call and place your order before you go there, even if you plan on eating in. Oh, and they sell GOAT MEAT!!!