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Koraishootir kochuri & ghoogni at the ITC Sonar, Kolkata |
Kolkata grit and grunge
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Not every meal in Kolkata is great to be honest. Luckily I found good phuchkas in the Lindsay Lane leading to Badshah at this stall after having some mediocre ones near New Empire the previous day |
plane at Mumbai itself. The Oberoi in Kolkata is located at the New Market/ Lindsay Street area which was the place to head to when I was in school and then college here in the late 1980s and early 90s. Going by the crowds that jostled us this time, I doubt if anything had changed even if ‘cooler’ hotspots have sprung up in the city.
for lunch.
The scent of a biryani
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The gentleman at Aminia who helped me land the perfect biryani |
visited the restaurant in 1990 after I had gone to Maine Pyar Kya at the Elite Theatre next
door after our school exams with my classmates. I developed a crush on the heroine Bhagyashree (go judge me)
from the movie that afternoon and fell in love with the biryani at Aminia too. While I grew out of my Bhagyashree fan phase soon, the biryani at Aminia remains close to my heart after all
these years.
Kaniska. We had sat in the AC section that night. I chose the non-ac section this time. I love the atmosphere in the non-air-conditioned section at
such places. The ac section in contrast is usually musty and rather inert and sterile. I must add that it did not feel hot at all in the non-AC section at Aminia on that hot and sweaty April afternoon in Kolkata.
chicken chaap too as the one going to the neighbouring table looked lovely. I
exercised restraint and did not do so though.
me for a bit and I will tell you why I did not order the chaap. It might make sense to you too then.
mutton)
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Not Instagram friendly for sure but yet looked so pretty to me. As it always did. With apologies to Mark Knopfler. |
is nothing worse than white tube-lights to kill food photos taken on the phone.
Except blue ones.
around.
plate, whose designs had faded with time, was not Instagram friendly either. I tried to
use the portrait mode of my iPhone but the gentleman at the table facing me decided to go
into an extensive teeth cleaning session with a toothpick at that point and that sort of killed the frame.
me is that while the folks at Aminia might not know how to make their food look pretty for Instagram, they sure knew how to make it taste gorgeous.
wonderfully and yet subtly flavoured.
turned out to be a man of his words. How tender and succulent was the piece of
mutton in the biryani that afternoon? It was truly symphonic.
perfect frame for Instagram!
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The biryani station at Aminia. Eating for Instagram |
chef who removed the lid on the deg (vessel) of biryani whenever a waiter came up with an order. Steam would come out of the vessel when he did so and through that, the chef would
dig in a small plate into the gigantic vessel and take out a portion and put it on a plate.
frame. Even our elderly waiter was in one corner of it.
perfect and I did not need to edit it further either.
it had at Aminia that afternoon.
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The Oberoi arcade. No Fitbit can measure the number of steps that I have taken here during my Kolkata days and later too |
known as the New Market area . This time with K, my wife, who had fallen in love with Kolkata ever since she first visited the city after our marriage.
The Badshah of rolls
just the biryani and had no more at lunch, was the Badshah Restaurant (estd 1969). The restaurant is located
beside Sreeleather at Lindsay Street in what was once the Globe entry. It is popular for its mutton rolls and has a roll counter at the entrance. You
can buy your roll there and sit on the bench by the cash counter and eat it or
step out and do so. It has a sit down section which is popular with shoppers at the New Market and I had been there a few times when I was in college. I reckon that ordering from inside the restaurant would
turn out to be more expensive than outside.
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Badshah mutton roll on my second visit in two days with the New Market at the background |
Nizam’s (where rolls are said to have been invented) for rolls, it has its fair
share of fans too. A former boss of mine from my market research days in Mumbai,
who had studied in Kolkata, had once even gone from the airport to Badshah to
have a roll and then gone back to the airport during a transit flight to Dhaka.
We did not always agree on things at work but definitely saw eye to eye on our love for
Badshah’s rolls. I usually go to Nizam’s for rolls when at New Market but was
very disappointed by the poor quality one I that had when I last went there last year. I had decided to go to
Badshah the next time I was at new Market since that day and was glad that I did so this time.
egg mutton roll. Yes, just one (Kainaz said she didn’t one though I knew that she
would nibble on mine).
smile. A smile which seemed to say, put yourself into our hands and all will be
well.
really tiny. Like Arya Stark’s sword, the Needle.
double take. The thin paratha was the perfect foil for the moist and succulent
mutton boti (kathi kebabs) inside, kebabs which gave in lovingly to your bite. The spike of
raw red onion, the heat of the green chillies, the tartness of the lime juice
added at the end…were all in perfect proportion. Our man was right, the onions were good raw. There was no need to fry them. He knew his stuff.
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With The Needle of mutton rolls |
The roll at Badhhsah was pure Valyrian steel. Arya’s Needle indeed.
This time K stayed in the hotel room and napped and I did not have to share my
roll!
Cinema Paradiso at New Market
needed to buy some tea and we asked folks at Badshah for directions to any tea shop that would be nearby.
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Deep inside ‘Hogg Market’ |
Some suggested that we go to Lal Bazar where there are wholesale teashops. Our ‘no fried onions’ guy suggested New Market and kept referring it
to Hogg Market and explained it to us as if we had come from Mars. I smiled and
tried to explain that Kolkata is where I have grown up and that the New Market and its treasures were a big part of my life then and continue to be so. Memories that continue to draw me back to Kolkata.
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Cinema Paradiso. Now playing at New Empire |
opposite the New Empire cinema where we used to have chow and which now seems to have become a permanent snack
bar with the truck gone. Memories of the movies that one had seen at the New Empire theatre. The
most special place to watch English movies back then (the 90s). The hall
displayed a Hindi film poster this time and there were so many QSRs and
restaurants at the ground floor now that I even wondered if they still showed
films here of, if like the other legends of New Market… Tiger, Globe, Jamuna
and Lighthouse … New Empire too was just a house for commercial premises now.
shown him the Globe gulley, the lane where I had lost my pav bhaaji virginity
way before I moved into the pav bhaaji
city of Mumbai. They serve buns here and not the Mumbai pav. The Portuguese being responsible for both. I could have shown him
Shreeram Arcade where we went to enjoy the air-conditioning after watching a
movie and then an alu and not mutton roll at Karko at the end of the month when that’s all the
ones empty wallets allowed. Or Regent, the cabin restaurant, where my grandparents had taken me in 1986 or so when the Metro had started in Kolkata and we took a ride from Park Street to Esplanade, the first two stations to open.
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Regent. Where dadu and didu had taken me for a snack After our first Metro ride. Park st to Esplanade |
could have shown him Chamba Lama. the Tibetan jewellery shop, where the girls in my class in
college would come to buy trinkets from. Or the snack bar at the middle of the
market where we used to have cold coffee at. The snack bar remains, the cold
coffee costs Rs 40 now. The cannon kept beside it gone.
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The shop where we bought tea from at New Market. We bought packed teas for folks in Mumbai. They had loose tea, which people in Kolkata love, too. |
Green-shoots
young roll counter salesman and you, I do not want to fall in the trap that probashi Bangalis (expats) often fall into while writing about Kolkata. That of getting lost in nostalgia.
lot that is happening in the city that is new too. Let me tell you about a couple of
meals that we had this time, to make my point that the new gen behind Kolkata’s dining out scene today look promising too.
There’s curry in your pocket
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Auroni Mukherjee’s mangsho ravioli at the Salt House. It has alu too! |
hosted by our friends Kaniska and Manishita. This was my third visit to the
restaurant whose head chef is a young expat Bengali named Auroni Mukherjee.
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With chef Auroni and some lovely roast pork belly & a Goan choriz pulao |
moved into Kolkata to pursue his career as a chef. The food that he creates at The Salt House is of the
sort of contemporary European fare which is fairly new to Kolkata, the city where the
classic French influenced ‘continental’ fare (think heavily sauced stroganoff & tetrazzini and baked Alaska) still rule. He keeps trying new
things in the kitchen and the dishes that he comes out with show a good understanding of both technique and taste
pairings. Some of which would be what one calls ‘fusion’. In most cases, they work.
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Pui green and pumpkin ravioli. Kolkata winter hangover |
cauliflower salad and the ravioli with pui greens & pumpkin puree (all winter favourites in Kolkata), the mangsho ravioli in bone
marrow broth (perfectly done ravioli pockets which spoke of mangshor jhol/ mutton
curry Sundays in Kolkata the moment one took a bite and which had potatoes too to make the picture complete) and the chingri malai
curry spaghetti (a take on the malai curry risotto from the menu which he made for K who does not eat rice).
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Mangsho ravioli |
is intensified by the use of the head and brains of the scampi. This is very Bengali too as the head and tail of prawns are relished here and are chewed at the end of the meal.
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Malai curry risotto |
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Prawn malai curry spaghetti. Pan mee’d me |
Chef’s Table, Kolkata chapter
dinner which our friends Rukshana Kapadia and Suneha Saha had organised for us
at the all day dining restaurant at the JW Marriott, Kolkata. The chef in question is Saugata Ghosh. A Kolkata boy and a professional chef who had started his career at the Hyatt Kolkata,
then worked at the Hyatt at Muscat and has now returned to Kolkata, this time
to the JW Marriott.
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Prawn and squid tartare with pepper water chilli oil. Refreshing in the heat and so Spanish in concept |
was all about native European (Italian/ French) brilliance. K and
I both agreed that this was one of the best examples of the genre that we had
experienced in India.
balance of flavours, the quality of ingredients, the presentation and above all, the taste of the dishes,
were truly world class. The young chef came out with his colleagues with each course, explained what was being served and how one should eat it and then headed back to the kitchen for more. It was soon clear that one had experienced something truly special that night.
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Fettucinne with noisette butter. Flavour perfection. Texture perfection too. |
squid tartare in chilli oil that he started the dinner with, or the great
technique used to amp up the flavour in the fettuccine (beautifully textured pasta) with noisette
butter, or the 70 mm blockbuster of wine soaked tenderloin, done medium rare to perfection and with
Gorgonzola sauce, which he made for me after my last minute request for a steak, made with local New Market
meat and which tasted as if it could be at home in Italy, chef Saugata had left me spellbound. The steak was so good that I ignored the fact that I was a fine dining dinner table, ditched the cutlery and used my finger to wipe clean my plate. Social niceties and table etiquette be damned.
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Epic steaks. #eatlocal |
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#chetepute |
of Kolkata are ready and up there for being counted among the best around when it comes to cooking contemporary global dishes. That the city which ruled the country’s ‘continental’ eating out scene for long thanks to the legacy of the British Raj, and had then lost a bit of its sheen for a while, is now all set to stake its claim in the sun again in ‘new India’ too.
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With chef Saugato Ghosh. This meal was specially curated by the chef & hosted by Rukshana Kapadia |
The Grand life
and the heritage eating houses of Kolkata, I do not want to fall into another
trap that happens while writing about Kolkata by focusing just on that. Kolkata
does offer some of the most luxurious experiences around, especially when it
comes to hotels. We split our stay into two of them this time, both very unique and memorable as luxury hotels go, and were lucky to get room upgrades in both.
Breakfast with Lady Mary
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Breakfast in our room at the Oberoi Grand< Kolkata |
Oberois took it over and who have run it since as an iconic hotel.
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Eggs royale in the executive suite with inner view |
excellent quality eggs (perfectly poached and with dark yolks) and perfectly done waffles (not too
crisp, not too soft) in our suite at the Grand with K, and looked out of the balcony which
looked onto the pool, I told myself that this is the closest that one could
come to Downton Abbey experience. Or Darlington House for that matter (I saw
the Remains of the Day on Netflix finally a few days after the trip).
a hotel in India which could match this. You would have to go to London, Paris
or Rome instead for an experience that is so classy and vintage. An experience
to be cherished indeed.
Our gold standard
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Koraishootir Kochuri and ghoogni in our ITC One room at the ITC Sonar |
favourite hotels in the world. There was a strange sense of calm that came over me the moment we walked into the familiar ITC One
room which looked on to the landscaped pond outside. K said that she felt the same too.
to have a perfectly done Bengali breakfast of koraishootir kochuri and ghoogni from the ITC Local
Love menu in our suite. The kochuris were so marvellously cooked that K nicked a few bites from me too and we called for seconds. As we had our morning cappuccinos, we looked at each
other and knew that one could never feel more at home in a hotel room than
this. We do really look forward to our stays here.
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Pampered at home |
dining experiences that one has had where the chefs had not led the obstacles
that the format brings in come in the way of their delivering perfection.
I must also add that both hotels put firm mattresses on the beds at our request. A must today with so many folks having back problems and soft mattresses are like Kryptonite for them.
In Kolkata, its food first and that’s what makes the city special
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At the end of our meal at the JW Marriott Kolkata with our friends Rukshana & Suneha, Manishita and Kaniska and the JW Marriott team |
Meals served with loads of passion… a passion that you would expect in a city where food comes first. Passion that leads to perfection on the plate.
Appendix:
A video that we shot at Badshah. Please do subscribe to my YouTube channel, Finely Chopped TV by Kalyan Karmakar, to catch more such videos.
A story told in pictures
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The lane behind Nizams. The other side of Lindsay Street |
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Nahoum’s. The most famous food stop inside New Market |
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A favourite with the girls in my class when I was in college |
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Great rolls lie ahead |
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Proud Mohd raf fan outside Aminia in the city of Kishore. Niloy Guha told me on Fb that this is the paan shop that the legendary singer (Rafi) would frequent when in Kolkata (updated) |
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The food truck outside New Empire is a snack bar now |
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The road leading to Aminia |
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Kolkata Chinese (never eaten here) |
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Lane behind Nizam’s |
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Chowmein in roll shops became big when I was in high school Rs 5 for a plate of veg noodles back then |
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‘Mounties’ meant there’s a match at the Maidan |
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Bought Bandel cheese from New Market this time. Rs 10 a bob |
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Aam shokto. What you know as mango leather |
It’s all about friends and family
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At the Salt House with Kaniska & Manishita and chef Auroni |
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So happy to see them both back in action. Rukshana & Kaniska |
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Chef’s Table, Rukshana Kapadia style |
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Our Kolkata frame of joy |
To read more stories on Kolkata from me, please read my book, The Travelling Belly. Here is where you can get a copy.
You might also like:
1. My visit to my granny’s house on the same trip
2. A recent post on what’s new in Kolkata
3. An earlier post on staying at The Oberoi Grand
4. A post on revisiting my College Street food memories
5. A post on my New Market and Park Street memories
6. When I had gone to Aminia for dinner a few months back