Restaurant Review #19: Shan Halal, Artesia, Orange County

After my meal at Udupi Palace, I wanted to go to the spice shop and to another grocery store but I decided to do my wallet a favor and settle for a sweet shop. Or maybe I was just chickening out from the further self-imposed mental discomfort of being an outsider in Little India. At any rate, I found a sweets and meats shop (a very odd combination, if you ask me, but I must be missing something) with a huge selection and I did something I rarely do: I actually asked for help. And help I got! One of the employees, who may have been an owner or a manager, loaded up a box of sweets for me--one of everything in the refrigerated display case, and two of his favorite. The majority of the sweets were made primarily of sweetened condensed milk, making them a bit like non-chocolate fudge.


Assorted Indian sweets

The dark brown circular thing is gulab jamun, the white-iced orange thing is carrot halva (totally different from middle eastern tahini-based halva), three more halvas, and I don't really know what the other stuff was. The yellow ball was the best and most different, I thought, as was the halva (I think) that had a faint rose flavor. The halvas could have all used a stronger flavor as they tasted a little too similar.

A deep orange ball which you can't see in this photo was the most intriguing, as it tasted like Thanksgiving dinner, like the essence of all the dishes somehow combined into this ball. If I returned, I'd get the yellow ball and the gulab jamun, and try some new stuff. Or I'd try a new place. Everything was good enough to devour rather quickly but you know me, always in search of amazing. I think I need to go to one of those more crowded places more in the main drag of Pioneer Blvd.

Shan Halal Meat and Grocery
18743 Pioneer Blvd, Ste 102 & 103
Artesia, CA 90701
562-924-1880
Closed Mondays