WORLD TRAVELING VIA SHOPPING CART--New York’s place for Asian groceries? (NY PRESS)

Whenever the New York Times or Gourmet runs a recipe that calls for an unusual ingredient, they almost always direct the reader to Kalustyan’s, a small shop in Murray Hill that stocks a mind-boggling number of products from around the world. This excess of choice is exactly why I usually walk out of Kalustyan’s empty-handed. I just can’t force myself to choose.

I have always dreamed of having an Indian aunt or a Lebanese cousin to guide me through the maze. But Aziz Osmani, the smiling Bangladeshi proprietor, is a good substitute. I visited with him recently and asked him to show me what he considers to be the best items in the store.

Our first stop is the spice section.

“Once you use our spices, you don’t use somebody else’s spices,” he says. “We clean them here and we grind them according to our consumption.”

Besides offering over 800 different kinds of spices, Kalustyan’s sells special homemade blends like Barbere, an Ethiopian mix; Rasel Hannout, a Moroccan spice blend; and Garam Massala, the classic Indian seasoning.

Next, we move on to the wall of home made chutneys. He recommends the lime-mango and ginger-mango varieties.

We tour the front of the store with its overflowing containers of dried fruit and nuts. He hands me a fat, juicy Medjool date that’s at least twice the size of your average supermarket specimen.

Then he points to the Turkish pastries in the glass case near the register.

“The difference between the Turkish baklava and the Greek and Lebanese baklava is that the Turkish filo dough is handmade,” he says. “Every single layer, you feel the juice. The other kinds, you feel the juices only at the bottom and the rest is all dry.”

He points to the fresh, handmade South Asian breads in the adjacent case. “Spinach paratha and fenugreek paratha are very special items,” he says.

He motions towards the second floor. “We also have prepared Middle Eastern foods upstairs. It is all prepared here, daily.”

Arpiar Afarian, who learned to cook from his mother in Lebanon, makes the food. Aziz recommends the mujadhara, the falafel and the giant baked beans.

And last but not least, he leads me to a wall of beans and grains—staple foods the world over. There are over sixty varieties of beans and fifty varieties of grains—way too many to choose from. And yet, this no longer seems such a problem.

Kalustyan’s
123 Lexington Ave. (Between 28th and 29th)
212-686-3451