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Bazaar International Gourmet
Rating Details »
Category: Ethnic Food [Edit]
Neighborhood: Coolidge Corner1432 Beacon St
Brookline, MA 02446
(617) 739-8450
- Nearest Transit:
-
Summit Ave/winchester St (Green)
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
18 reviews for Bazaar International Gourmet
really cool to be able to buy smoked mackerel, pel meni, chalva, REAL garinim (the giant sunflower seeds), and prigat all pretty close to my apartment. fresh cheap produce, too.
only major cons: 1) because it's a russian grocery store, most of the things there are labeled in russian only. understandable of course, but alas, as a non-russian speaker, it makes it difficult to know what exactly you're buying sometimes. 2) there's only 1 line, and sometimes it can take forEVER to get through. if you hit it at a good time, though, then the trip is totally worth it!
I can't do all of my grocery shopping here, but I do quite a lot of it. The deli selection is literally amazing and the fetas are especially good. The produce is good, in season, but do make sure you're picking about what you're getting.
I think the staff is perfect. The are brusk, but who isn't in this city? Regardless, I went in today not really knowing what I wanted and Anya pulled me to the otherside of the deli and started asking me questions about salami:
1. Big fat or little fat?
2. More wet or more dry?
3. Spicy or not spicy?
And so on and so forth until I had the PERFECT salami.
The same for smoked fish. I ended up with smoked trout, rather than salmon because she sliced me off some pieces and then told me not to say anything until I ate it. And it was $4.
In conclusion, I love this place because the food is great, the prices remind me of home (the South), and the staff acts like my Grandma Rose.
Hungry for the random foods and delicacies you enjoyed while you were back packing through Europe (Well, Eastern Europe)? This is the place your palate has been craving! It is like walking into a shop along the streets of old mother Russia!
They carry so many different prepackaged foods and drinks and they have a fresh deli counter with about everything you can imagine!
The setup is unique and one could probably spend hours just looking through everything this place has to offer, it is pretty great.
The prices are reasonable and the food is quite good.
If you are up for an adventurous cooking session or just want to snack on something from the likes of Eastern Europe - make sure to take a trip down to Coolidge Corner! It will not disappoint.
This place is awesome. A whole cold-smoked mackerel: 5 bucks. Good prices on salmon as well. I just love browsing all the crazy-looking (to me) Russian stuff. A lot is not labeled in English, so that makes it a little tricky. But get yourself some frozen potato perogi (veronycky), some pickled cherry tomatoes, and some Russian sour cream, and you've got yourself a meal!
They got everything I miss about the homeland. That includes chocolate covered matza and gefitle fish and semechki and seledka.
Some of the staff reminds me of maza rasha too. A bit rude and inattentive, but Im willing to deal with if they got olivie and taranka :)) Try pastet and piroshki and kuleyabaka. Yum!!
i've never personally been to this place as my jaunts to brookline are few and far between; however, my friend boris frequents this place and always has some tasty treats in tow at our east meets west or meets slightly less east gatherings.
case in point: bread filled w/mashed potatoes or bread filled w/cabbage (pirozhki), yummy napolean cakes
i may have to lift my self-imposed boycott of brookline to get some delicious fried breads.
This is the perfect place to buy ingredients for a sweet-ass picnic at the nearby Ringer Park in Allston. Their selection of hot and cold deli food is cheap and delicious. I purchased some meatballs in a creamy mushroom sauce as well as a cold kidney bean and walnut salad. Incredible!
There are also lots of interesting drinks, candies, and an INSANE selection of chocolate. Definitely check this place out!
Once upon a time, a little Brookline foodie was invited to a barbeque. Disillusioned by the same old burgers and hot dogs, she decided to wander into Bazaar to see what kinds of meats they had to offer. She wasn't disappointed - meats and cheeses of every kind awaited her, tempting her with their come hither looks. Package after package was offered, but she rejected each one, knowing that in her stomach of stomachs, the right one was out there for her.
Determined to settle only for perfection, she turned the corner, and... Lo and behold! There was the perfect sausage! Fat and glistening, with the kind of girth that would make a good girl blush. But our intrepid foodie remained undaunted - without blinking an eye, she snapped up the sausage, grilled it into submission, tossed it into a waiting roll, and all around showed it who's boss. She would have asked how it liked its eggs, but, let's face it, that would have been just plain awkward.
SO ashamed that I lived feet away from this place for 2.5 years before I discovered it. WHERE have I been?!?! Super psyched that I just signed a lease to live here for a 4th year and have a feeling I will be here a lot.
They have tons of prepared food that look really good. I only tried the grape leaves but they were fabulous and very inexpensive. If you like pickled foods, you can get pretty much anything pickled here. They have tons of produce at great prices. My favorite Wasa crackers are only $1.99, when they're $3.50 at Stop and Shop!
They also have tons of alcohol, including some really interesting stuff. And Van Gogh Vodka (my favorite!). I need to recruit a friend to go in with me and just fill a big bag with all their candy (tons of it that you can buy by the piece). I have no clue what any of it is because it's all labeled in Russian, but I just want to get a bunch of it and try it all.
I also want to try all their fun little ice cream desserts, crazy teas, prepared foods and meats, and lots of stuff I've never heard of.
Basically, I love this little place, but the people who work at Bazaar are a bit rude. The woman barely helped me with the grape leaves. Then the woman who rang me up, didn't even say hi to me and when I handed her my debit card, rudely said, "You don't have cash?!?!" Umm sorry. Shopping in such a small place with rude workers brings the experience down a bit, but I'll still be back. A LOT!!!
Interesting place. Lots of food I've never experienced before, and had questions as to what I was looking at before I could buy anything,
Without a doubt the rudest sales staff I've ever incountered anywhere.It makes a potentially interesting shoping experience a nightmare , and your expected to pay for it!
They should make a trip to Brighton beach in Brooklyn to see how It's done.
It's no secret that Russian ex-pats are a-plenty in our neck of the woods. Russian delis and grocery stores have sprouted up all over since the early 90s to serve the growing populace of homesick refugees. I would like to toot the horn for Bazaar as the best in the Brookline/Brighton area, for several reasons:
1) All stores have a wide selection of stuff we remember from childhood, but this place has everything, from condensed milk to creme brulee ice cream.
2) The deli has hot and cold food that tastes like home, and not drowning in mayonnaise.
3) They have produce
4) Americans are always welcome as the signs and the staff speak English - and are friendly, unlike other places where, in the great tradition of the Soviet torg. culture, they act like they're doing you a favor by serving you
5) They also have a bigger more of a super-market store on Cambridge street in Allston
6) If you spend more than so much money ( I think $30), they give you free chocolates)
There are so much stuff here, I don't know what to buy!? Candies, breads, produce, chocolate milk, dried stinky fish, prepared foods... liquors and cakes!
I wandered around and just felt like exploring the place. One thing for sure is they seem to have good bread. I picked one up and it was HEAVY. Not the puffy bread stuff that's full of air at the supermarket.
Go here! Explore! Eat candies!!
(Candies are not free. You still gotta pay.) !^-^!
I adore this store. Why? Mostly for the insane candy. I don't know what any of it is, and I certainly don't know why most of the wrappers are adorned with things like bears, buffalo, Gulliver, and roosters (my favorite), but I'll eat any and all of it and love it. It's super cheap.
Second to the candy is the bread section-- all sorts of stuff, mostly baked within the city limits, but still with an Old World flavor. Or so I'm told.
I've always been too intimidated to order hot food, but there is quite a spread. The grocery section has a ton of strange/interesting/unique things and I like finding new things in the cooler cases-- frozen blintzes, little cheesecake bars, pear lemonade, canned kvass, and particularly the tarramoussalat....anything and everything.
Credit card minimum is something like 9 or 10 bucks-- be prepared to buy an awful lot of candy.
Most definitely not vegan friendly, but much fun for the vegetarian and omnivore contingent. Bazaar has endless types of tea, honey, and believe it or not, variations on spam (yes spam), to keep you perplexed/amused for hours. Plus aisles and aisles full of crazy and gourmet candies--a good grab for a last minute host/hostess gift. I don't know anything about meat so I'll just say there was a lot of it--and it wasn't smelly, so I'll go with that being a good sign.
For fish eaters I would recommend trying out taromsalata--a greek, caviar type spread (I tried it years ago at the insistence of an older gentleman while I was visiting greece)---it's well priced, and from the looks of it, fresh, here.
What else? Oh yeah, big selection of produce. Prices are pretty average but nothing looked mushy, slushy, or sketchy.
This place is definitively one of the oddest grocery stores I've ever stepped foot in and I've been to Super 88 in Allston. Bazaar (or as my co-worker calls it, Bizarre: HEY-OOO) is located between Coolidge Corner and Washington Square, in a store that when I first walked by, I barely noticed as being a legitimate business since all the windows were bleached out making it virtually impossible to see inside. Walking inside didn't necessarily make things better. I did manage to figure out this was a grocery store but all the signes were in Russian and I didn't dare flag any of the inattentive staff with questions. You see, I am a type of guy who doesn't normally mind asking questions. I feel like I am friendly enough person, and besides, what a better way to make small talk with someone than asking questions. But here I dare not ask anyone anything. The women that work here look like the type that should be left alone.
I browsed around the store, on my own, noticing their good selection of vodkas, as you'd expect from any Russian store. One bottle particularly caught my eye: a bottle of vodka shaped like AK-47. WTF man?
Why am I giving this place four stars? It's simple, really. Bazaar has some of the freshest and cheapest fruits and vegetables in all of Boston. Great tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, golden delicious apples, plums etc etc. at a fraction of what you would normally pay at Stop&Shop and Trader Joe's down the street. They also have a great selection of Swiss and German chocolates like Milka, although I never tried any myself. Also, you can find some cool juices here. They have anything from pear, strawberry, peach and apricot juices. So go and explore if you are in the neighborhood, because it's worth a stop.
I like this store a lot. It is THE place I know of to buy a good variety of smoked fish. The prices are reasonable, usually cheaper than I'd expect. Employees and customers tend to speak Russian as their first language, presume that I am Russian, and even seem surprised when I respond in English. Anyway, foodies should like it, because there are tons of goodies to choose from that you won't find at upscale grocery stores or specialty stores like Formaggio.
Love this store !! A bustling International food store of true variety.
A huge range of European specialty foods with a dominant Russian flair...boasting everything from smoked cheese & fish, caviar, to chocolates/ candies -coffee/teas. A truly unique selection of liquors, wines & beers! Great spot to get educated on your Eastern European and Russian Wines! In the center of all the action is a great Salad Bar & Hot take-out food (mostly very rich -please don't count your calories here..lol :-)) and a Bakery --Hot Dam!..In such a small space its amazing how much is going on here & over the years that I've been going I still always manage to find something new.... My top 10 items / essentials at the store are :
1) Turkish Coffee
2) Ahmad Tea of London
3) Chicken Kiev
4) Mushroom Julienne
5) Black Caviar
6) Beet Root Salad
7) Pelmeni
8) Vodka - Russian Standard
9) Bulochka - (Poppy Seed Roll)
10) Thin Sliced Smoked Cheese with Sour Cherry
I went into this place after walking by it so many times before. They do have a lot of stuff, but I'm really not well informed about eastern European food at all. The food looked interesting, but I can't read what the labels say (It's in Russian or Greek or whatever other languages they had) and I don't eat things that I don't know what they are. I wish I knew though, because I think I'd definitely buy some of it otherwise!
As for the salespeople - they all spoke Russian (I think?) and so did all of the other shoppers. They didn't seem interested in helping me and they served people that came after me before asking me what I wanted. I don't know if it's because I'm not a regular, but how are you supposed to get regulars if you're rude to newcomers?! Also, the one lady finally asked me "What do you want?" and I told her and she said "Just wait a minute" and walked away... and never came back! Some other lady finally came up and helped me. I just think the service is bad here.
One plus though - and that helps boost the rating a lot - is that the Feta there is the BEST feta I've had in a long time!! And very reasonably priced.
Oh - last point - their produce was pretty cheap, but it looked like it too... Some of it didn't look too fresh or tasty... Some seemed okay. I bought a lemon, but I cut it open and it was brown inside... yuk!
