Fresh India, Woodbury MN - Indian Restaurant & Groceries, Halal Meat — Restaurant in Woodbury

This is a review of the take-out food of Fresh India. I gave them a 5-star review in 2021, but now in 2024 we only experienced 3-star food.

When we ate here soon after it opened, my whole family was impressed by the food, the bold bursts of flavor from the spices, and the consistently great quality of the items that we ordered. All of the menu items were vegetarian, but the meat-eaters in our house didn't mind because the food was so delicious! The Malai Kofta was so good that we ate the leftover sauce over rice after the veggie balls were gone. Overall, we had the impression that we were eating really excellent homemade Indian food. (See 2021 review at bottom.) That was then. This is now...

We hadn't ordered from Fresh India lately, so we placed an order this evening. The Malai Kofta veggie balls were not as flavorful and tasted "brown" instead of bright and tasty. We couldn't taste any spices in the sauce, unlike in past years. The Veggie Korma that had been a previous favorite was not bad, but it wasn't good either...a bit boring. Overall, the vegetarian options were mediocre. The Mango Lassi was as refreshing a drink as it had been in past visits (but that is a pretty easy drink to make). They now have chicken and goat options, so we ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala. It was more flavorful than the vegetarian dishes that we ordered and there were plenty of chicken cubes in the dish, but it was nothing special; it was comparable to that of India Palace. The homemade flavors are gone, and the food now tastes like that of an ordinary, everyday restaurant.

My review from 2021: Our family of 4 (with 2 college students) likes Indian food, so we stopped by to pick up dinner from this recently-opened grocery-and-take-out business. WOW! We have never before had such tasty Indian food, and we didn't realize that we could be totally satisfied with a 100% vegetarian meal. This is truly the freshest, most tasty Indian food we have ever eaten! Each bite was bursting with flavor on each of the 4 entrees (and the appetizer) that we tried, and each dish had a unique flavor. It was apparent that Fresh India took no shortcuts on preparing these dishes...small bits of mint leaf and ginger root and complex flavors of spices. My descriptions won't do their dishes justice, but just know that we are a family that isn't easily impressed by food (with a husband that is a former professional chef), and we were all flabbergasted at how delicious every one of our dishes was. We are excited to go back and try other dishes! The only thing that we would change is to make the mango lassi a bit less sweet. (But, we like things less sweet than many people, so you might really like it just the way...

I stopped in the other day to pick up some spices, but walked out with a whole variety of snacks & frozens..! The store is organized & clean, and it was very easy to find the products I was looking for.

They have multiple brands & sizes of spices. They also have a large selection of spice mixes for particular dishes, if you are craving a particular meal but want to cut corners. I also noticed several no garlic/onion spice mixes, something Jains will appreciate.

There's an entire aisle of snack mixes, and I found my favorite snack, spiced crushed chickpeas! ("chana jor garam") and amazingly, they are super flavourful without being too hot -- I'm a spicy foods wimp.

Everything is vegetarian, so just something to be aware of when shopping (e.g. they have frozen momos, but paneer instead of yak).

Speaking of frozens, they have a decent selection of meals, appetizers, and breads. I picked up a Mysore dosa pack that contains 4 small dosas & chutney for $2.50. You won't find a deal that good at Trader Joe's. If you don't know what a dosa is, buy the Mysore dosa four pack, you won't regret it!

They do have a fresh produce section, with curry, mint, and cilantro. Some tropicals (yellow mango, banana flower, banana stem) ginger, taro, peppers, lemons... because this is a small grocery, they don't have the fancy water mister set up that Supermarkets have... this means the cilantro etc gets wilted over time. That's the only fault I could find with this store..!

The people working there were very nice and welcoming, particularly the lady at the checkout. They have a rewards program too, and you only need your name & phone number, not all your financial info like Target requires.

They have a hot food section as well, but I was there at closing, so I didn't get a chance to check it...

We got a Too Good To Go order from here today. We have never had Indian food before and thought that would be a good introduction for me and my two teens, and it's pretty close to where we live.

After googling a lot to figure out what we got (I didn't even think to ask what was in there lol), I believe that we got a container that had Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka Masala, and Biryani. We also got a container of Gobi Manchuruan (I think), and a couple of flavorful bread puffs.

This food was amazing. My kids and I are "kind of" foodies, and really enjoy trying new things and foods from different cultures.

The Gobi Manchurian (I hope I'm right on that) was fried cauliflower with a wonderful mix of seasonings, it was a little spicy on the back end, and it was absolutely perfect. I would eat a whole plate of that. One of the best things I have ever eaten. My daughter ate most of it, she loved it.

The Butter Chicken and Chicken Tikka Masala, omg so flavorful it was hard to stop eating both of them. We broke apart the little fried bread puffs and dipped them in those sauces. I know that these are basic dishes that most white people order lol, but the flavors in them are not basic AT ALL, very deep, complex, and comforting flavors.

The Biryani (If that's what it was) wasn't our favorite on it's own, but we also are not used to the seasonings that are in Biryani yet, so no shade is being thrown there. I actually did enjoy some of the rice with the Tikka Masala sauce, they seemed to complement each other really well, which I thought was cool.

All in all, great value for what we got, and AMAZING food! I appreciate this for our first time trying it! We plan on getting take out from here later...