Ever since moving to Culver City a year ago, I’ve been working my way up the South Asian food totem pole. I started at India Sweets and Spices, which I thought was pretty amazing- that is until I tried Samosa House and Samosa House East, which were even better. I followed that up with a visit to Mayura’s all you can eat lunch buffet (for those who want meat) and ended up at what I think is the absolute best Indian food steam table on the westside: Bawarchi (and its infamous chef). Regardless of which place is your personal favorite, one thing is now undeniable… the Culver City/Palms area has the best Indian food in all of Los Angeles. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I found out about Zam Zam Market.
Located on Washington Blvd in Culver City, just East of where Washington splits into two different streets, it would be wrong to call Zam Zam a “hidden” gem. I live right around the corner from the place and had seen it a ton of times. The giant “HALAL” sign in the window was particularly intriguing to me (for reasons that should be obvious to anybody who has seen a street food cart in NYC), but the place is never open. And even if it was, looking in the window didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It’s not so much a market as just a giant space with a few half empty shelves, a makeshift cooking area behind a counter, half empty drink fridges in the back, and a few tables that always seem to have chairs stacked on top of them. I’d sooner believe it was a front for the Pakistani mafia, or a place for heroin addicts to crash before I would consider it a viable place to get lunch. That is until Profiled Lunch’er Brandon mentioned that they made the best biryani, tandoori and kebabs “in existence.” This can’t possibly be true.
And yet…
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