Ethnic Foods Company

I purchased a $ 12 Living Social voucher for a «box» of produce. The «box» (paper grocery bag) was supposed to contain the following: «Our Real-​Good Food CSA Box will contain 7 – 10 local seasonal herbs & veggies and sometimes fruit — enough produce for a family of two for one week for about 3 – 4 meals. It will include recipes and will contain some special not-​local items from choices like spices, tomato, garlic, ginger, curry leaves, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, beans, lentils so you may have an amazing cooking adventure at home.»
When i got home to inspect my treasures, i found 3 potatoes (clean and green), 2 large onions, 3 carrots, 1 lime (waxed), 1 small orange (i think), 2 Braeburn apples (it even says so on the label from Washington), 1 waxed cucumber, 1 very limp head of broccolli (already clean and trimmed), a very limp handful of cilantro and a small container of «spicy» yogurt (which was pretty flavorless). I am doubting that any of these vegetables are fresh, locally grown, organic produce. I already had all of these items in my household that are organic and really didn’t need what i received. I was hoping for an ethnic experience as stated above. The amount received was worth about $ 8 max and i have no idea where this produce actually came from. I’m betting its the remnants from the closest Cub dumpster.
May i mention that if i hadn’t purchased the Living Social voucher the regular cost of the «box» above was $ 24.
Do not waste your money on this «box» (paper grocery bag) of «fresh» produce.

All the food and spices they sell here are extremely overpriced. You can get the same specialty stuff at the same quality for a fraction of the price at any Indian grocer such as Pooja Grocers, which also offer a larger variety. However the service was friendly enough when I went. However I probably won’t be returning as I can purchase any of these items for much cheaper at Cub or in bulk at an Indian grocer.

Took the Thai cooking class. It was a demonstration style cooking class. Loved it! Bey was a fabulous cook and very entertaining.
The store was filled with all of the ingredients that we needed to make the recipes with at home and then some, which I really enjoyed.
The administration is very disorganized. I booked online with my living social, but never received a confirmation email. I called, but did not receive a call back until weeks later, when I received a voicemail that I was in their Tuesday class and they asked if I would like to reschedule as they were over booked. When I called back, they no longer needed me to reschedule and said I was okay to attend their Tuesday class. When I arrived to class they did not have me on the list! However, there was a spot open at the table so I was able to stay for the class. I was supposed to receive an email for the recipes, and even stayed after class to make sure I was on the email list. Still did not receive the email 3 days later, and had to call and give my email address again. The woman on the phone was not very friendly, and informed me that the reason I did not receive the recipe email was because I am scheduled for a Thursday class not the Tuesday class. What? If that were the case why did someone not tell me that in the 3 earlier conversations I had with them? I don’t know what is wrong with their system, but clearly they are having organizational issues. I was not impressed with the administration.

I placed an order online and they delivered the wrong items. It meant I missed the dinner party that I wanted to use these items for. I’ve emailed and called several times to get the problem resolved, but no one is calling me back or responding to my email! This is the worst.
The company has now contacted me (after my email and several calls), so I’ve updated my review. They are giving me a refund, but I won’t use them again. Too much of a hassle.

I’m laughing because I was at the same class as the person that commented called «JJ» and he or she is spot on! I couldn’t have said it better myself. That being said, it did peak my interest in experimenting with some Indian spices and cooking techniques. The food was very tasty and I would try their restaurant for something different. One other thing that is bothersome is that she promised to email me the recipes and despite a second request I have not received them yet. I went on a Groupon deal so I wasn’t too upset but I would have been very disappointed to have paid the $ 79. Definately not worth it!!! Very unorganized and scattered which had me leaving feeling somewhat confused about what we even were eating. In the email she said wine could only be bought there yet she allowed others to open their own bottles that they brought in. This resulted in paying $ 30 for a $ 12 bottle of wine :(

this event would make an awesome hidden camera show!
the instructor (not certain if it’s Bey or Kavita) is a sweet, charming woman, for sure. and much of the «class» is spent tripping down memory lane about recent exploits with her college-​aged daughter, or how her mother nurtured her with food or frankly any musing that pops into her oft-​distracted head. lovely, for sure, but it doesn’t get the demo done, as she doesn’t generally story tell and cook at the same time. and i say ‘demo’ deliberately. make no mistake, this is not a cooking class. it’s definitely a demonstration, and it’s definitely a ton of anecdotal storytelling, but there’s no cohesive measure of ‘instruction’ in any real sense of the word. it’s a little like watching someone do something who’s highly ADHD and will gladly field pointed questions (e.g., what is that you’re cooking? what is in that dish?) but has no plan whatsoever of sharing any structured information with you.
unusual, really — this felt like a very first class — almost like she’d never done it before, but i see from other reviews it’s been almost a year (?). a bit of planning/​organization might go a long way considering the info she did share was largely only because someone happened to ask ‘um, what are you making? what is that?’ sorta like sitting in a pottery class and asking the instructor, ‘is that clay? are you making something?‘
the ‘instruction’ was addled and convoluted and UTTERLY disorganized, but on the upside, totally hilarious! literally like an internal monologue spoken aloud: «so now i’m gonna add a handful of this. nope, maybe. am i? hmm, no, i’m gonna add an onion… no, cancel that, wait, do we have a dry thing yet? maybe i’ll flip flop those two — i mean a dry and a wet. yep, let’s not do onion. what’s this? that’s a tomato. i put this and one of ‘those things’ into the curry. oooh, speaking of, the oil’s burning! okay, it’s burned, but no problem, i’ll just add a tomato. or, hmmm, maybe not. what time is it? okay, nope, no onion, and i’m gonna go ahead and flip flop what i was gonna make. what? what’s in the spices? well, lots of things, all things i make and sell right here, conveniently enough! the mix is called XYZ and it’s $ 11. ooops, burning again!»
i dunno, adorable i suppose. i mean i genuinely love a casual affair, and i’d seriously love to have the instructor over for dinner, but at $ 80 a head to call this a ‘class’ is a pretty gross overstatement. she’d be a perfectly wonderful guest, but teaching isn’t exactly her forte.
on the upside, though, it’s a super pleasant place to sit for few hours, and there’s nothing wrong with a story or two, and it really is hilarious on some kinda silly, absurd level. be advised, though, you’re prolly gonna want some wine (the folks sitting two down from us offered a bribe for ours ;)). also be advised, the pressure cooker they sell whose price we’re told ‘just went up’ to $ 89 is currently on sale on Amazon for $ 37.

This was a living social deal that we bought as a group. We thought how perfect a cooking class that we can enjoy some wine.
Right? Wrong! I should have read the reviews… it is NOT hands on it is demonstration, so if that is what you are looking for… Keep looking.
Positives: Bey was a delightful instructor a I learned a lot about technique and different spices.
The store alone is what got the 3 stars… They carry a wide variety of sugars, spices, mixes, and sauces.
Negatives: They were not the friendliest when making the reservations or flexible.
Since this was a girls night, of course we were excited for some wine! However, we were told a few hours before class that we could no longer bring wine. Huge disappointment! Now to be fair they did give us a green curry paste and send us a $ 30 voucher for another class. This needs to be mentioned because that is trying in my book!

My wife spent a great evening at an ethnic foods cooking class. The tastes brought on by adding spices that we had never heard of was fantastic. This was not a hands on class which was fine with us. I would recommend an evening well spent and don’t forget you can bring a bottle of wine.

Ethnic Foods Co is an unexpected treasure. I have wanted to learn to cook with Indian spices for a while so decided to purchase a Living Social deal for one of their cooking classes. I took my sister-​in-​law and a friend and we truly had a great time. The store is beautiful — welcoming, clean, organized, and authentic. We were also invited to bring our own wine to sip during class which made it a perfect way to spend a Friday evening :) The instructor (and owner), Kavita, is entirely charming. And she is knowledgeable. The reverence that is given to food (regarded as a gift from the earth) is inspiring. This may sound a little far out to some — but it’s really a cool way to look at your food. Food preparation, in part, is seen as a way to connect your guests or family members to the earth and is also a big part of how you build and maintain relationships. I did not expect to have principles of Ayurveda and nutrition woven in, but Kavita did this in a gentle way that was informative and gave depth to what we were learning beyond just putting food and spices together. We didn’t necessarily get a step by step run down of how to do everything (and she did preface the class by saying that there are many rules that govern how you cook in India which means you can’t learn all of them in one 2 hr class), but what you get instead are nuances of Indian cooking you can’t get from someone who simply has learned to put the ingredients together. With all of that said, from just observing what Kavita did, I am now far less intimidated by cooking Indian food. The food she made for us was SO good (my friend actually didn’t think she liked Indian food before coming — she is a total convert). I purchased a number of items on the way out and am excited to go back for more!

Like many other reviewers I attended a cooking class. Since I read reviews beforehand I knew to expect a demo. I did absorb some techniques but was a little disappointed with a few aspects. Bey (instructor) made this amazing dipping sauce for the spring rolls, but we didn’t get a recipe or get to see her make this. Secondly, the class started out with a pitch by their owner for joining their CSA. I thought that was in poor taste. The shop was cute and seemed to have a vast array of unique options but I didn’t see prices on anything. That alone made me not likely to purchase anything.

I bought a 2.5 hour cooking class for 2 on crowd cut for my husband and I and we signed up for the Thai class. I believe «Bey» was our instructor along with another gal that helped. The room is in the back behind the small ethnic foods grocerery store. It is large rectangular style seating and the instructor is inside the tables so we can all see and hear her. All the prep work is done, which is fine considering I didn’t pay money to learn how to chop veggies and cook noodels and rice, etc. I wanted to learn how to make authentic Thai dishes, which I did, and they made 5 different dishes which is a lot more than the other cooking classes I have taken.
None of the classes I have ever taken have been full participation so I was not expecting that as some of the other reviewers had stated. If you want a full participation cooking class than you need to go to a cooking school. These 2 – 3 hour cooking classes offered at most small grocers are typically «watch and learn» with a little bit of participation and a lot of eating. We left full from this class!
You can aslo bring in your own wine (we opted to bring in a growler from a local brewery instead) and had fun drinking beer while learning Thai food techniques, ingredients, etc.
I love the fact that most classes offer all of the products in their store so that you can purchase them right after the class. I left with a bag full of goodies. I have also gone back twice since to purchase more items to make the recipes we learned in our class. I love this store too! They have a wide variety of unique, fresh and very tasty spices from all over the world. The owner is very helpful in explaining what they are and giving you idea’s on how to use them.
I recommend any of their cooking classes as well as the store if you are looking for a laid back yet very authentic ethnic cooking class. We will be going back for their Indian cuisine (not sure the exact name) class.
Another thing I wanted to add quick is that they email you all of the recipes used during the cooking class. You will want to take some notes during the class if you want to make exactly what the instructor is making because like most cooking classes, they change some things. We tweaked our recipes to our liking but the recipes emailed are a good base to get the jist of it.

I purchased a Living Social Deal for their «cooking class». My friend and I were going to go and were excited to give it a try, and were excited to actually try a cooking class. We got there and the tiny room was already pretty much full of people. It didn’t look like a cooking class, either. It looked like a demonstration. They had over-​booked and the lady at the entrance pretty much begged us to come back at a different time for the same class, and said she would give us 2 classes for doing so. She took down our emails and said she would send us the information. We agreed since we didn’t want to be packed in like sardines but didn’t hear anything from her. We both tried to contact her and nothing, no response whatsoever. I would not recommend this place to anyone. Additionally, I keep seeing more and more deals through different deal sites — I wonder how many other classes they’ve overbooked and screwed over other people? A waste of my time and my money.

The following is a review of an Indian cooking class @ EFC:
The classes offered @ EFC are largely demonstration classes, not participatory. If you want hands on experience you should look elsewhere.
Additionally if you are looking to learn how to balance the multiple spices used in Indian cooking you should look to other resources as the class only uses spice blends that are produced @ EFC. The instructor also took great care to advise the class not to «cook» the spice blend. When the spice blend was passed around I saw why you wouldn’t want to «cook» the spices — the blend included some dried cilantro, which if bloomed in oil as is traditional in Indian cooking would have burned the cilantro, causing it to become bitter. Also a different spice blend was required for every dish, so to prepare a full menu you are still going to wind up buying a lot of different products.
The dishes prepared were tasty but I found two of them to be excessively salty. The instructor frequently said to add salt to taste but did not follow through and actually taste what she was preparing. While most of the others in the class ate all of their food, I could not bring myself to finish the items that I found to be too salty. (I am not salt phobic for the record.)
Basically this is a demonstration style cooking class that relies on using the prepared spice blends on sale at the store. If you are the kind of cook that needs a packet of McCormick seasonings to make tacos this class will work for you.
I would have been very unhappy if I had paid full price for this class, thankfully I had used a CrowdCut voucher.

I went to ethnic foods a few weeks ago for a cooking class that I had bought through groupon (or was it living social?). The class was not what I expected at all. My girlfriend and I were prepared to roll our sleeves up and learn some techniques but that was not the case. The class consisted of us sitting around the instructors and watching. She is extremely passionate and I learned a lot about her food/​cooking philosophy. However, being type A, I did not really retain a lot of the actual cooking techniques as she does not use recipes at all. I don’t think I would go back and pay full price for another class experience.
However, I did love all the ingredients in the shop. I especially enjoyed the jaggery (a type of less processed sugar). I will for sure be back to sample some of her blends.
Overall — 2 ½ stars for the class experience and 5 stars for the store. This netted out to 4 stars in my book.

I’ve taken two classes here and they were wonderful! I learned a lot about techniques and spice use. After the class, I was able to purchase just a few items and make four different dishes that wowed my family! I need to sign up for another class! I must say that the owners were great hosts and the quality of theirs products and services will have me coming back !

The class was a small intimate setting. The instructors Kavita and Sunita, were so engaging and full of wonderful Indian cuisine knowledge. I have taken many cooking classes at other places and this was my favorite. It was a wonderful education about Indian food and culture. Then their shop was fantastic to buy the ingredients we were just using in class. I will return for another class and have also found a fantastic new place to buy spices and grains.

This is the sort of place you dream about finding. There are shelves of spices, mixes, sugars, and sauces. It is simply one of the most phenominal spice shops I have ever imagined.
If you are even remotely interested in cooking you must come here. The proprietor will helpfully discuss spicing, receipies, and suggestions for Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern food. Again I say, phenominal.