Jalebis Are Essential to Diwali Celebrations. Here's Where to Find the Indian Sweet in Phoenix

Move over Halloween, there’s another sweets-filled holiday on the fall calendar. Known as the festival of lights, Diwali is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in India every year. The holiday is an important aspect of Hinduism, but it is celebrated by many faiths around the world. It symbolizes the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and hope over despair.

This year, Diwali falls on Monday, October 24. In preparation, Indian restaurants all over metro Phoenix are revving up the production of their sweet treats to meet demand. One of the sweetest of them all is jalebi.  Davinder Singh owns New India Bazaar & Cuisine on Seventh Street north of downtown Phoenix. He first fell in love with jalebi, sweet spirals of dough that are deep-fried and soaked in sugar syrup, as a boy growing up in northern India. At age 13, he moved with his family to the U.S., and in 2006 opened his Indian market, restaurant, and sweets shop with his father and son.

But it wasn’t until 2009 that Singh started making and selling the sticky and sweet South Asian snack. At the time, he couldn't find anyone in Arizona making jalebis, Singh says, and he wanted to bring a taste of his homeland to Phoenix. So that’s what he did.

He returned to Hoshiarpur, a town in north India known for its sweets, and spent a month learning not just how to make jalebi, but how to make “mind-blowing jalebi,” as his son Brum Singh puts it. 

So what’s Singh’s secret?

“The perfect jalebi uses real ingredients without any shortcuts,” Singh says.

That’s the short answer. He also adds baking soda to the naturally fermented dough to keep the batter nice and fluffy. He found the perfect oil and syrup temperature so the dough rises and stays crisp. And then there’s his batter-twirling technique. No two jalebis are the same, but it takes a swift hand and lots of practice to pipe the dough into the hot oil so the swirly line holds its shape and comes out golden and consistent.

New India Bazaar serves all types of indulgent Indian treats, or mithai – colorful, decorative, melt-in-your-mouth confections like ladoo, jamun, balushahi, and barfi – but Singh’s jalebis take the cake. They are made fresh daily, and on any given day he sells 50 to 100 pounds of the much-loved sweet to both customers and wholesale accounts. That stretches to 300-plus pounds during Diwali.

“You probably see every second customer buying them,” Singh says.

Stop by and see for yourself. During Diwali, the store will open on Monday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and there will be a tent set up outside New India Bazaar where Singh will be making the festival favorite, which he sells by the pound. Inside, the store transforms into a sweets buffet, with customers filling up mithai boxes of bite-sized delights to eat, share, and gift to family and friends.

“Everybody loves jalebis,” Singh says. Here are five restaurants and markets to find the sweet treat in metro Phoenix.

New India Bazaar & Cuisine

2544 North 7th Street
602-712-0009

New India Bazaar offers two varieties: Regular and gur jalebi, which gets its deep golden color from jaggery, an unrefined cane sugar.

The Dhaba

1872 East Apache Blvd., Tempe
480-557-8800

The Dhaba, which specializes in Punjabi dishes like tandoori chicken and naan, sells jalebi on weekends.

Biryani Bowl

8960 West Bell Road, Peoria
623-583-1769

Biryani Bowl in Peoria serves north Indian-style curries, rice, and a sweet selection of desserts and treats.

Little India

1813 East Baseline Road, Tempe
480-730-7770

This Tempe spot is known for its sweets, samosas, and chaat or Indian snacks. Little India is also mostly vegetarian.

Sweet Magic Indo-Chinese

3607 East Bell Road
602-404-8888

Sweet Magic is a casual, counter service spot that serves south Indian food and has a mithai case full of sweets.