It's approaching 8 p.m. on a Sunday night, closing time at the India Bazaar. Sweatshirt-clad University of Colorado students are wandering in. Owner Mohammed Nuruzzaman chats away in Bengali with the Mukhobadhyay family, of Golden, as he rings up their groceries.

Tucked away off 28th Street near Arapahoe Avenue in a strip mall behind another building, the Boulder shop is easy to miss.

But for Nuruzzuman's loyal clientele, mostly international students and metro area families from the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, many of whom he knows by name, the two-room grocery is a valued link to a faraway home.

"We like this place," Debalina Mukhobadhyay, a native of Kolkata, India, said. "There are specific Indian spices which we get only here."

But India Bazaar and India's Grocery, a mile north on 28th Street, offer much more than spices.

The shops brim with familiar and unfamiliar elements of Indian cuisine, mostly imported — frozen dinners, desserts, appetizers, breads and batters, meats, exotic pulses and flours, dry mixes, fresh produce and dairy, and even genuine Indian junk food.

Ayurvedic personal care products and an array of religious items, from incense to Ganga Jal, hand-poured holy water from the Ganges River, are displayed.

Faisal Alkaram, a CU undergraduate engineering student from Kuwait, comes to the Bazaar for the Halal meat, and the bulk rice in 20-pound burlap sacks.

Nuruzzuman said that his shop is the only one carrying Halal goat, chicken, beef and lamb in the north metro area. About a quarter of his customers are Americans, with an increasing number discovering the shop.

A social worker with two master's degrees, Nuruzzuman and his wife Shahana fled Bangladesh in 1994 seeking political asylum in the United States. When his professional credentials didn't transfer, Nuruzzuman worked as a security guard, then as a performance test specialist for IBM. Tired of recurring layoffs, he opened the grocery in 2011.

It's all about taste

India's Grocery is also in a strip mall, but faces the street. Owner Raj Mehta, a Bombay native, studied ayurveda in India and has a master's degree in food and nutrition from Kansas State University.

Mehta founded the grocery store and Veda-Life, an ayurvedic foods and herbal supplements company, in 1999. Ayurvedic practices involve ancient healing treatments.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Ang Sherpa, from the Sherpa restaurant family, was shopping to make goat curry. Sherpa, from Nepal, praised the quality of the milk, yogurt, vegetables, and Indian and Nepalese spices.

Mehta has a strong following among Americans as well. For Mike DeFries, an independent media producer from Boulder, it's all about taste.

"This man has consulted with me many, many times. When I'm having friends over and want to attempt something really good, I'm able to knock it out of the park," DeFries said. He added, "There are nice jar sauces out there, but it isn't that difficult to make something really great if you get the right ingredients and you have someone with expertise like Raj, who tells you the secrets."

DeFries welcomed Mehta's suggestion that pearl onions would be "less obtrusive" in his masala sauce than regular onions.

"Just a little thing I wouldn't have thought of," DeFries said.

For Boulder's Kai Barnhill, who's been shopping at ethnic groceries since she discovered them in Chicago years ago, it's about food freshness, affordability, cultural integrity and local economy.

Barnhill does food demos for Zest, a gluten-free Boulder bakery, and described her diet as "paleo-vegan."

"There's something about the ethic of coming to an Indian grocery — it embraces and supports the culture. I like supporting small business," Barnhill said.

"You can walk in and ask them, 'How do I do this? I had this in an Indian restaurant,' and they'll help you. It's really nice," she said. "I would much rather buy my ingredients here than at Whole Foods, 100 percent."

Sierra Brashear came in for brinjal (eggplant) pickles in a jar, but they were out of stock. Mehta talked up samosas, a popular fried wheat shell filled with spiced potatoes and vegetables, and kachoori, which he said were healthier because they contain lentils instead of potatoes.

Mehta pointed out that the frozen naan bread came from the best restaurant in India.

"I got sold on those kachoori," Brashear said. "I'm excited to try them." She also bought a jar of baby green mango pickles.

Brashear studies ayurveda at Alandi Ayurveda Gurukula in Boulder. She likes the Indian pickles they eat with lunch.

"In ayurveda we have six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent), and we're trying to satisfy them at every meal," she said. Pickles are sour and salty.

Khichri is another very important food in ayurveda, Brashear said, because it's very easy to digest.

"It's very nourishing and cleansing, depending on what spices you use. It's great for pacifying the doshas," she said. "The doshas are the combination of elements that are in our body. When they are out of balance, we use spices, herbs and food to bring them back into balance."

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