Amongst British people, it seems like everyone eats Indian food. It’s very mainstream there.
What about around the US?
I’m from NY and it’s not technically uncommon. There are dozens of Indian restaurants in NYC.
But, I can’t say I or almost anyone *I* know has eaten anything Indian before. It was only last year that I tried naan and samosas for the first time. They’re nice but hardly the full scope of Indian cuisine.
At the same time, Indian food is becoming more popular. I see Indian convenience foods in supermarkets more often.
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where i live in texas, it’s extremely common and ig popular. my school serves it often and plenty of people eat it on a regular basis. hell, there’s an entire section of my city that is dedicated to indian restaurants and markets.
My neighborhood is majority Indian, so…pretty popular, I’d say. But even outside this neighborhood, it feels like it’s safe to assume that pretty much everyone in the Bay Area (California) has had Indian food before.
Culturally, though, I think Mexican food fills the niche in the US that Indian food occupies in the UK.
i live in new england, you might have trouble finding solid indian food outside of cities.
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The first South Asian immigration to America took place just west of me.
Punjabi food has always been an option here.
They’re around in any mid-sized+ city, but we didn’t have the same density of immigrants y’all did awhile back so it’s not AS common as for y’all. Our equivalent is Mexican food and all the localizations thereof.
It has gotten a lot more popular in recent years, at least around me. There are half a dozen within a few minutes of our office.
Are you from NYC? There’s gotta be way more than dozens. There’s like 20 in a 10 mile radius of my LA suburb.
I’d consider it fairly mainstream here, though mostly similar to the kind of Anglicized Indian food popular in The UK. Not as popular as Chinese, Mexican, or Korean….but way more common than Middle Eastern or other cuisines. I wouldn’t consider it very exotic here…unless you’re talking about some very regional authentic stuff….but even that we have some enclaves around here catering to that market.
Here in NJ, 5 percent of the population is Indian or of Indian heritage, which is about 4 times greater than the national average. The population is so prevalent in some areas that we have movie theaters that play Bollywood releases alongside American ones. Plus, we’ve got the absolutely massive largest Indian temple in the country!
All that to say, we have a very populous and thriving Indian American community, so Indian food is extremely popular here in NJ.
I live in a rural area. There are not many restaurants and zero Indian restaurants nearby. I make some dishes at home. I don’t know what other people are eating in their homes.
Not really
It’s very popular here in California. I would imagine that there are probably hundreds of Indian restaurants around NYC tho. I’m kind of surprised that you haven’t met anyone that had eaten Indian food before. That kind of blows my mind…
My area has a decent size Sikh community, and they brought their delicious cuisine with them. Whenever I go to my favorite indian place it always gets crowded so I think indian food is popular in my area.
It’s very common in the greater Boston area, in part due to a fair number of Indian immigrants here as well as many here on H1B visas and due to the many colleges. We have Indian groceries as well.
I have been known to get Indian frozen meals for when I don’t have time or interest in cooking. Some are coming from fundamentally American companies though.
I live in a city of about 65k in East Tennessee and we have a couple Indian restaurants. I wouldn’t say its popular but many people enjoy it. Nothing like what its like in the UK but it is here.
Pretty much every supermarket will carry frozen Indian meals.
We didn’t colonize and rob India of its riches, so it’s not as popular here.
Any city with more than 30k people is almost surely going to have an Indian restaurant (or in an adjacent town) in most areas that aren’t heavily Indian American.
Though it’s very commonplace it’s maybe not as hard ingrained in life here as it is there. Most drunks don’t crave a late night curry here.
Pretty popular- there are a few restaurants (actual sitdown restaurants, not kitchens with a takeaway/delivery counter) in my area (MyCity). Back home, there was just one Indian restaurant in the county.
I’ve tried Indian food, and I think I might be allergic to something in some of it. Not *all* of it, but some dishes just leave me with a pounding headache.
There’s maybe a couple of dozen Indian restaurants in the Charlotte area, and maybe a couple in a lot of the smaller cities and towns around here. It’s common enough you can find Indian food in urban areas if you want it, but not so common that you’d be surprised to find someone who’s never had it before.
As someone already mentioned Indians are extremely common in the Bay Area (mainly Silicon Valley/Santa Clara county). As such Indian food is really popular/mainstream.
I think the Bay Area has the highest % of Indians living in the area in the whole US.
It’s pretty popular. I’d say probably fourth behind Mexican, Italian and Chinese.
Very popular. Many Indian restaurant and markets in my area. There are Indian foods if not sections in the large grocery stores.
Very but we have a huge indian population
It’s around. I would not say “popular” but it’s here.
I live in NW Indiana, close to Chicago. We don’t have a ton of Indian food, but the Indian restaurants that we have are very good. And Chicago has restaurants in every price point and from multiple regions.
From Ocean County, NJ…not popular. But we aren’t super adventurous in the shore area. I bought a place in Sarasota, FL…also not a thing, but Sarasota is kind of like the Jersey Shore with better weather and nicer beaches.
I currently live in Tokyo and it is super popular. I eat it every Sunday. They call it Indian but a lot of times it is Nepalese staff.
Very! Just about every other neighborhood has such a restaurant!
Monkey brains and snake babies
Very popular. I’d say I eat Indian food 2+ times a month.
I never had Indian food until I moved to the West Coast. It mixes well with Southern food.
I wouldn’t say it’s that common in the Southern US
It’s a lot less popular in the US.
I live in NJ we have the highest percentage of Indian Americans, so it’s very common especially in places like Edison and Jersey City.
Never lived outside the Midwest and South. It’s still everywhere. I know very few people who don’t eat it at least from time to time.
I live in Atlanta GA and there’s a very large Indian population here. WE have tons of Indian restaurants.
One of our favorite places to order takeout or delivery from is called Bombay Flame and they make the most amazing lamb biryani. We wound up ordering it so much that I eventually learned how to make it myself because we were spendign too much money on takeout. LOL
But we still order from them probably a couple of times a month.
my midwest town has about 12 indian restaurants. i first met the hare krishna in london in 1972, and they kept me well fed during my poor years.
there’s one place i go to sometimes, and another place where i will have to convince myself $15 is ok to spend on lunch. the best i’ve had was in edinburg. second best was in hannibal missouri, a hotel diner with no indian food on the menu, but if you knew to order ahead she’d make it for you. there’s a place across town that supposed to be vegetarian indian, so i should give that a try. we have about 7 indian groceries and a bunch of burmese ones. i have worked at a tibetan and a korean restaurant. best bosses.
not everyone eats it. most people have tried it and consider it exotic. most of the places are cookie cutter buffets, like a better mcdonalds.
i can’t think of any indian place local that has a chef doing their own innovative dishes. but i dont get out much.