Comfort food

Living abroad is more fun if one can find the right food or ingredients to whet the appetite, and Bloomington offers a variety of choices when it comes to appealing to everyone’s palate. Below is a selection of just a few of the different kinds of grocery stores and restaurants available in town.

For groceries
Kroger is one of several conventional food chains in Bloomington and has four locations. The store sells popular brands and also has its own brand of groceries sold at even lower prices. Coupons and the Kroger Plus Card are other tools that help save money. The Kroger Plus Card is free and available in Kroger stores or online at www.kroger.com. Coupons are available on Kroger’s website or in the newspaper.
Bloomingfoods is a different kind of grocery store that strives for good food (organic and fresh) and good health.

It avoids products that contain processing such as colorings, preservatives or artificial sweeteners. Grass-fed meat and organic vegetables are common and often grown locally.

Bloomingfoods also provides catering to your dietary needs and will order products that you can’t find in the stores. In addition, it has delis that serve hot food, soups and sandwiches, all made daily and fresh with organic items in the store. Bloomingfoods also accepts IU’s Campus Access Card.

Sahara Mart is one of a number of local, family-owned grocery store that offers ethnic food as well as organic food. Unlike Bloomingfoods, Sahara Mart offers other ethnic food ingredients such as kefir (fermented milk drink). It has two locations in town.

For dining out
If you were to Google search Bloomington restaurants, a long list would appear serving all the local and foreign food one could imagine. To narrow down the selections, restaurants described here are close to campus or accept the Campus Access Card.

Between downtown Bloomington and IU’s campus is Fourth Street, an area packed with Asian and other ethnic restaurants. Selections range from Burmese, Vietnamese, Korean and Turkish to Italian, Tibetan and French.

Mandalay, 413 E. Fourth St., is a Burmese restaurant that serves traditional dishes such as rice noodle beef soup and coconut curry chicken rice. If you are more daring and do not mind trying something more unusual, another selection would be the pork curry with mango pickle.

Aside from ethnic cuisine, there are still many restaurants around campus and the downtown area. For pizza lovers, Mother Bear’s Pizza, 1428 E. Third St., is a popular spot for anyone looking for a slice of a local favorite. It has a long list of specialty pizzas, ranging from pizzas that will appeal to anyone from vegetarians to meat lovers. In addition to pizza, the restaurant serves sandwiches, wings, salads and pastas. It also accepts Campus Access.

If chicken wings are what you crave, try BuffaLouie’s, 114 S. Indiana Ave. It offers different sauces to appeal to every appetite, and from 4 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday, it offers 50-cent wings for those looking to savor some wings and save a little cash.
If you are trying to find something light and not too costly, you might like the Bloomington Bagel Company.

As the name suggests, it is a sit-in restaurant that sells bagels, coffee and tea, bagel sandwiches, salads and other light foods. It prides itself as the first and only on-site, made-from-scratch bagel bakery in Bloomington. The location closest to campus for anyone looking for a quick breakfast between classes is at 113 N. Dunn St.