u/another_lease

i used to shop at the asian grocery next to everest restaurant on w. main.

it closed down.

i used to shop at the curry masala on w. main.

it closed down.

then i used to shop at masala mart on e. st. joseph st.

it closed down.

there's still a decent asian grocery on e. north st.

i'm interested in opening or bankrolling a small ethnic grocery store. that sells east asian and south asian groceries. maybe also mexican.

my asks:

• if you know "Al Rodriguez" ("AL") who used to own curry masala and masala mart, i'd like to get in touch with him to get the low-down on the business (DM me on here).
• if you know anyone who worked at any of the stores that have closed down that i've mentioned above, and they are willing to share the low-down on the business, i'd like to get in touch (DM me on here).
• if you have thoughts you'd like to share, please comment below. in particular, i'd be interested in thoughts about neighborhood selection (in rapid), how to go about hiring people to work there, any suitable commercial properties available for rent or sale.

I have 2 homes, and 2 lots. (the lots are a buy and hold).

$200k cash in hysa.

850 FICO.

$120k job.

lcol area.

one of my homes has a $200k mortgage (3.3%) remaining on it. the other home and the lots are fully paid off.

what would you do next in my situation?

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in my area, apartment buildings are coming up for sale. e.g. 32-plexes for $2.5 million. i'd love to get my hands on something like that, but i'm guessing i don't have the 20% for dp.

thank you in advance.

Video of fish curry being served somewhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUZEpgeYNu0

I'm Indian but I live in the USA in a place where there's no Indian food store nearby. (Was initially raised in Calcutta, although am not Bengali.)

I have the following ingredients at home: mustard seeds, mustard oil, turmeric powder (and sundry other Indian spices such as methi seeds, methi powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, chili powder, and heeng).

Let's say you wanted to recreate something close to this fish curry using a less-bony fish available in an American grocery. How would you do that?

(A criticism I've heard about machher jhol is that it's often created using very bony fish (e.g. hilsa) and for non-Bengalis, who are not skilled at getting rid of the bones from their mouths, it becomes a pain to ensure one doesn't swallow one of the bones by mistake.)

Also, the arrow in the pic below (screenshot from the video above), is it pointing to a whole fish? Scales and fins and all? Do the Bengalis deep fry fish whole, before adding to the curry? Do they remove anything from inside the fish? (Sorry for my ignorant sounding questions, I'm not well-versed in machher jhol traditions.)

https://preview.redd.it/2oe23doq8szg1.jpg?width=958&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9cef59e68dfb91bc584052b4866b648a6dd74b37

The title, basically.