Surati Farsan Market

Located in the Little India Center strip mall in Mira Mesa...

is a fantastic Indian place serving snacks and sweets...

I was excited to try Surati Farsan after having seen Kirbie and Kirk's posts. In fact, I was meeting Kirbie for lunch that day. We'd been meeting to have lunch much earlier to finally exchange Christmas gifts, yes, in February! It was also an opportunity for me to try this place and also for Kirbie to do a revisit. But most of all, it was great to spend some time with a fellow foodblogger whom I admire for her creative twists on cookies, cakes, and breakfast food along with her mad photography skills.

Lots of folks there that morning before noon. It was crowded by the time we left...

You order your menu items first at the counter. When your order is ready, they call out your receipt number and you pick it up and take it back yourself. These are all little snack plates which are fun to share. Most items are $3.99 with a few over $5.

So many exciting dishes to choose from! We ended up trying four different items that we'd never tried before (with the exception of the Mysore Dosa - I had a rolled up version of it at Banana Leaf in Hillcrest).

Three of our four dishes...Look at all of that fried goodness! Loved that puffy bread!

Mysore Dosa -  triangular crepe made of rice flour and lentils and filled with potatoes; served with a spicy soup. Underneath one of the triangle points was some sort of spicy sauce.

In fact, the guy working the counter calmy warned us, "This is spicy" when we ordered it.

"We know..." I said.

"It's my GI tract and if I want to do some damage to it, let me order it!" No, I didn't say that.

This was a humongous sized crepe! Kind of like a massive food bandanna. Hi-ho Silver!

We each sampled a corner and had a little bit of the soup with it. You are supposed to pour it over the crepe but I had it separately since I didn't want to make the crepe soggy and also because I'm anal and I don't like mixing my foods.

Pani Puri - These were small fried cups filed with lentils, diced potatoes, and a spicy sweet sauce served with a thin mint sauce. The filling was cold but it tasted refreshing. It wasn't really that spicy but there was a slight kick to it. TC really enjoyed the leftovers pieces that I took home...

The Chole Puri - Four fried round pieces of puffed wheat bread served with a chickpea soup mixed with spices and topped with fresh cilantro. As I said earlier, I really liked this bread! So puffy and hot and fresh. I liked its slightly pliable but crisp texture as well.

This was the Khasta Kachori - two fried puffy whole wheat shells filled with potatoes, beans, spicy and sweet sauces, topped with yogurt and crunchy noodles, which looked like cheese but wasn't.

This dish was one of my favorites that day. The yogurt helped with the mild heat of the sauces. Lots of flavors and textures going on there...

The side case by the register held so many types of Indian sweets. The other display window facing the tables had assorted snack items (many of them seemed to be fried chips of some sort). I'll have to come back and try those next time.

This was one of the most unusual sweets I've ever seen and tasted, the Rose Kaju Anfir Barfi - rose flavored kaju sweet with fig, cashew, and almond filling, covered in silver leaf. The pieces were already cut into quarters. Later on at home, TC expressed her fascination with this silvery dessert as she sampled the leftovers. I joked that she would see it in the toilet the next day. Yes, I have a gross sense of humor!

Desserts are sold by weight with the minimum purchase of a fourth pound (or was it half?). These seven assorted sweets chosen by myself and Kirbie equalled $4.00. Almost all of the pieces were already pre-scored, making these pieces much easier to share. Kirbie did the "knife" honors.
[Update - I went again on 2/26 with Bert and TC. I chose 11 or 12 different sweets this time and the price was still $4.00. So, I think what happened is that Kirbie and I were charged the set price for 1/4 lb. of the sweets, so even though we only had a few pieces, we still had to pay the set price. Aargh, we could have ordered more kinds! My goal is to try all of these desserts!]

We kind of chose by what looked appealing. When I pointed out the silver covered dessert to the gentleman working the counter, he said, "Oh, that is my favorite!". So we asked him to pick out his other favorites for us. That seemed to be the easiest way to experience these sweets through his recommendations.

Our sweets assortment:
Watermelon Barfi - pistachios and cashews rolled to look like watermelon slices with raisin seeds, Rose Kaju Anfir Barfi (described earlier), Chocolate Badam Barfi - almond squares layered with chocolate and almond chips, Sugar Free Date Rolls - a ball made of dates mixed with almonds, cardamom and sprinkled with finely shredded coconut , Barfi - a small sweet square made of whole milk and sugar sprinkled with nuts and cardamom, Chocolate Rose Coconut Ball - chocolate covered balls with a rose flavored coconut filling, and Kaju Badam Roll - small cashew rolls with a fig filling.

The pink coconut filling was a surprise. I thought it would be white coconut. It also had a different taste to it, not realizing it was "rose" flavored. Kirbie thought it tasted like a Mounds bar. This was one of my favorites. Below are six out of the seven pieces. I liked the chocolate and almond sweet so much, I ate the whole thing, therefore it's missing from the composition below.

Who else ate at Surati Farsan Mart?

Kirk went here twice in 2009 - Visit 1 and Visit 2 while Kirbie was here more recently last November.

Official website of Surati Farsan Mart

I most definitely want to go here again and try even more items on their menu, along with the other types of sweets! So many good choices!