On Curtness: India Sweets & Spices
India Sweets & Spices is known for two things. Cheap food and curt service. Some people confuse curt service for bad service. Curt just means they don’t smile or joke around, they simply feed you. Bad service means they are rude and inattentive. Bad service is unforgivable, but curt service is, as long as the food can back it up. India Sweets & Spices backs it up.
There’s a menu with a dozen dinner combinations on it and none of it makes sense. When this kind of thing happens to me, I usually order the #2 (at Soot Bull Jeep it’s the ribeye). This #2 is two scoops of rice, two vegetable dishes (don’t bother asking them what they are, just point), a samosa, a pakora, one piece of naan, and a big flaky chip. All for around $5.50. It’s one of the best deals in LA I’ve come across.
Plus it’s an Indian grocer, so if you happen to need fourteen different kinds of naan, you can cross it off your list here.
There’s always people here, but it’s never busy. I’ve seen India Sweets & Spices bring out some random West L.A.’ers, like this little anomaly.
The more you go there, the less intimidated you become by the ebb and flow of the line. As you get more acquainted with the servers, you can make fun of them and they can make fun of you. Try the dessert ever so often.
India Sweets & Spices
9409 Venice Blvd.
Culver City, Ca 90034
The ultimate in bad service is Gaby’s Mediterranean Cafe ten blocks down Venice, at the northeast corner of Mentone.
The ultimate in curt service is any restaurant in Chicago’s Greek Town. The way the waiters refill drinks and furnish new bread is astonishing in its dickish efficiency.
BTW, anything on the north side of Venice is in Los Angeles, not Culver City. Also, the ZIP is 90232.
This joint rocks, I used to go to the one in Canoga.
Do any of us know how many locations there are, once and for all? I get varying reports.
If you don’t know what to order, they will curtly tell you what to get, or just start scooping it on your plate.
I’m wondering if this is at all related to the one in Riverside, CA. I used to go there like once or twice a week for months on end, and every time I showed up that motherfucker would look at me like he’d never seen me before.
But yeah, this place is a market and a restaurant. And their combo meal is $3.00 plus tax. Hell to the yes son.
What is it on Confused Old Dude’s print shirt there? Old luggage tags? Liquor ads? Matchbooks? Cigarette packs? Cool as shit whatever it is. I’ll bet he found that shirt at Ross. The beret just sends it over the top. You gotta be a Man of a Certain Age to pull off a beret, esp. if you’re white. Good pick, my Senior friend.
All of the ISS used to be owned by one man named Kumar. From San Diego to Bakersfield. But he sold a lot of them. I think Canoga is still his but 2 guys bought the Culver City(LA) one about 1998. It has lost the family owned feeling although the food is better.