NEW YORK (AP) Kalustyan's is an exceedingly difficult place to shop, a jam-packed warren of rooms and uncomfortably tight passages, the navigation of which will require sucking in your gut to squeeze past the too many clerks. The other customers with their giant parcels and lingering ways will annoy you. The sometimes haphazard, sometimes obsessive-compulsive order to the shelves will confound you.
None of that will matter.
Because the moment you step into this Indian/Middle Eastern spice and specialty food shop nestled into a row of like-minded stores on Lexington Avenue, you'll immediately begin the calculations. First, of how much you can carry. Next, of how much you can afford. Then, of how much your spice cabinet at home can fit. And finally, how much it will cost to get a bigger spice cabinet.
This not-so-little gem of a shop known to New Yorker foodies, but off the map for most tourists really is that good.
Walk into Kalustyan's and you are confronted by a delicious abundance. To your left are display cases filled with Lebanese halva (sweets made from ground sesame seeds), flaky Greek pastries dripping with syrup and walnuts, semolina honey cakes, and dozens of others you won't be able to identify, but nonetheless will find hard to resist.