Hilal Groceries in Des Moines

1163 25th Street

Finding good bread often requires foraging skills in Grinnell, Iowa, though that is less the case than when I got here in 1993. You can get by on what the local supermarkets carry, but there are some amazing bread finds in Des Moines, including some amazing pita bread at Hilal groceries near Drake University. The bread section is the first thing you see as you enter; I knew this was a good place when I saw the bags of pita and other breads. One of my favorites: big, puffy pitas, four to a 1 lb, 14 oz. bag. And as for the rest of the store, it only gets better. You can find any kind of Middle Eastern product you can imagine. I get my chickpeas there, and every kind and color of lentil and dried pea you can think of. Zatar, coriander, turmeric, whole nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, black peppercorn, halva, dates, dried apricots, sultanas, and on and on. In the freezers: various pre-made products, like samosas, kebabs, naan. And there is a great meat freezer, with goat, beef, and lamb. I haven’t bought any meat here, because my freezers are full. But I do find it hard to resist big packages of lamb ribs, and full legs of lamb. I’ve only cooked goat once, years ago, and I’m conspiring to try it again someday. The dairy case has labna, and Egyptian feta, and other Arabic milk products. I was also happy to see Bulgarian feta there as well (though it is not called feta, because of EU law). Bags of basmati and other kinds of rice are stacked high along one wall, and the baklava and wide assortment of middle eastern sweets at the counter are amazing. This is a busy store, and there’s clearly a lot of turnover, which means that everything is fresh, and of the best quality. (Sometimes ethnic groceries without a large clientele have items that languish on the shelf; I’ve purchased more than my share of dusty jars of, say, Bulgarian peppers, sometimes to find that they’re of what a Russian writer once called “secondary freshness”). The store is clean, and the person at the cash register is friendly and helpful. I’ve added Hilal to my list of must-stops on my Des Moines food runs. I can’t believe I haven’t been going here for years.