Halal Food in Artesia, CA: Little India and Norwalk Blvd

Where is the halal food in Artesia, CA?

Halal food in Artesia, CA sits in two places: the Pioneer Boulevard Little India district, with its Indian and Pakistani restaurants, sweet shops and groceries, and a short drive away on Norwalk Blvd, where the Ribs 'n' Kabobs halal BBQ kitchen is. Artesia is a small city in southeast Los Angeles County, next to Cerritos and Norwalk, and it draws South Asian families from across Southern California on weekends. This guide covers what is where, what to ask about certification, and how to take the food home frozen.

RNK Foods is the frozen-food line of the family behind the Ribs 'n' Kabobs restaurant at 18925 Norwalk Blvd, Artesia, CA 90701. We have cooked in this city since 2014, so this is written from the kitchen door, not from a search engine.

What is Little India on Pioneer Boulevard?

The stretch of Pioneer Boulevard that runs through the center of Artesia is what people mean when they say Artesia's Little India. It has been the South Asian shopping district of Los Angeles County for decades: sari and jewelry shops, Indian and Pakistani groceries, sweet shops with jalebi, barfi and gulab jamun, and restaurants from several regions of the subcontinent.

Two places on the strip that have been there a long time:

• Ashoka the Great (18614 Pioneer Blvd) is an Indian restaurant that has been serving on Pioneer Boulevard since 1988.
• Biryani Factory (18521 Pioneer Blvd) has made Hyderabadi biryani on the strip since 2011.

A note on halal: certification varies from place to place on Pioneer Boulevard. Some kitchens are fully halal, some serve halal meat on part of the menu, and some are vegetarian. Ask at the counter who certifies them and whether the whole kitchen is halal. A good restaurant will answer without hesitation.

The groceries are the other reason to visit. Several carry halal meat counters, frozen parathas, spices by the pound and the snacks that are hard to find in a regular supermarket. If you live in Long Beach, Anaheim or Irvine and cook Pakistani or Indian food at home, a monthly trip to Pioneer Boulevard is normal.

Where is the halal BBQ in Artesia?

A short drive from Pioneer Boulevard, on Norwalk Blvd, at the Ribs 'n' Kabobs restaurant. It is a different kind of kitchen from the Little India strip: American BBQ plus Pakistani and South Asian grill, with Korean and Mediterranean touches, all of it 100% Zabiha Halal and certified by the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America since the restaurant opened in 2014. It is one of the very few halal BBQ houses in Southern California.

What people drive in for:

• Back ribs and short ribs smoked over hickory, in Hickory Smoked BBQ, Korean BBQ, Spicy, Spicy BBQ or Tikka sauce
• Brisket burnt ends, after about 12 hours low and slow
• Beef Seekh Kabob, Chicken Koobideh, Chicken Malai Kabob and the Grandma Recipe Lamb Seekh Kabob off the lava rock grill
• Chicken Biryani, Goat Curry, the Nihari Burger and Masala Fries
• Samosas by the plate, and frozen samosas by the 20

For directions and anything time-related, use the contact page rather than this post, since hours change and a blog post does not.

How do you take the food home frozen?

This is the part that makes Artesia useful even for people who do not live nearby. RNK Foods packs the restaurant kitchen's kabobs and samosas for the freezer:

Product	Pack	Cook from frozen
Beef Seekh Kabobs	1 lb	Pan 4 to 6 min on medium, oven 375°F 8 to 10 min, microwave 2 to 3 min
Chicken Seekh Kabobs	1 lb	Same as the beef kabobs
Beef Samosas	20	Deep fry 350°F 5 to 8 min, oven 400°F 15 to 18 min, air fryer 380 to 390°F 12 to 16 min
Chicken Samosas	20	Same as the beef samosas
Spicy Potato Veggie Samosas	20	Same as the beef samosas

Two ways to get them:

1. Pickup at the restaurant. Order on the RNK Foods menu, choose pickup, and collect at 18925 Norwalk Blvd. If you are already on Pioneer Boulevard for groceries, it is a few minutes further.
2. Delivery across Southern California. Orders ship in insulated packaging to ZIP codes starting 900 to 935, which covers Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and Ventura counties. Nothing ships outside Southern California. The shipping policy has the free-shipping threshold, and this post on RNK Foods delivery walks through how an order arrives.

How do you plan an Artesia food trip?

A pattern that works for a lot of families from Orange County and the Inland Empire:

1. Lunch or an early dinner at Ribs 'n' Kabobs on Norwalk Blvd. Ribs for the table, a kabob platter, samosas to start.
2. Pick up the RNK Foods frozen order at the same time, so it goes straight into a cooler in the car.
3. Drive over to Pioneer Boulevard for groceries, spices and a box of sweets.
4. Home before the kabobs thaw.

Artesia sits where the 91 and the 605 meet, so Cerritos, Norwalk, Lakewood and Buena Park are minutes away, and Anaheim and Long Beach are not far either.

A note on who this guide names

We have named only places whose address and history we could verify, and we are not ranking them. Pioneer Boulevard has dozens of restaurants and shops, and new ones open often. Walk the strip, ask about halal certification where it matters to you, and treat this as a starting point rather than a list.