Quite a few of my friends had mentioned a little restaurant called ‘Hangla’s’ at Lokhandwala Mumbai recently.
Anyway, getting back to the food, the mutton roll was fantastic, even after we reheated it in the micro at night. The mutton stuffing had the pliant softness of the mutton in roll shops such as Karco and Badshah at Lindsay Street, Calcutta. Both Kainaz and I really enjoyed it. The fried onions (as per our request) added a nice sweetness to it. I felt the stuffing was a tad salty but Kainaz didn’t think so. Overall, quite heavenly.
See the making of the roll and the end masterpiece in the pictures below.
We then had the kosha mangsho (Bengali dried mutton in spices).
Let me give you Kainaz’s take first. She liked it though she felt that it paled in comparison to the mutton rolls that we just had.
I felt that the kosha mangsho sucked. The dish was too oily. Restaurant kosha mangshos can be oily. But this was not oil, it was rocket fuel. Both Kainaz and I woke up at night with itchy throats thanks to the toxic oil.
And the mutton? I have often written about tender cuts of mutton that we have had at Parsi places such as Britannia, Elphinstone and Ripon Club and Bengali places such as Oh Calcutta. The mutton in Hangla’s kosh mangsho was the other extreme. It was so tough that it would make any self respecting chewing gum seem as soft as butter. I got to exercise my biceps while trying to break the pieces of mutton.
My sources were right. The rolls rocked. But the other dishes were not quite there. Though I must admit that I didn’t try the regular Bengali dishes such as fish curry, mochar ghoto or even biriyani. But I think I will stick to the rolls that they make in front of me after my experience with the unbreakable kosha mangsho and after seeing the frolicking giant rats.
Notes:
- Hangla is apparently open from 1130 AM to 1 AM
- It is a stall and doesn’t have any seating as such. It is a stand and eat or take away operation
Calcutta is famous for rolls, there are varieties of rolls, like egg role, double egg roll, chicken roll, mutton roll, panir roll, egg-mutton roll etc. Calcutta is famous for foods. then punjabi foods r also good.
Kolkata street foods are variation of north indian and some brithis foods. like,
rosogolla (origin- british because of panir, it called panir ball)
rolls – (origin – british)
kebabs and biryani – (origin – laknow type muglai- mughal)
kosha mangso and fish kaliya, paturi – (origin bangladesh)
chops – (origin – british)
payes – (bangladesh)
chanachur – (rajasthan – marwar)
Kolkata Biryani is more famus than your mutton roll and kasha mangso, personaly I do not like hydrabadi style biryani, because it lacks original mutton and basmati rice flavours. After all Biryani is a north indian dish. and andhra is a southan province of india. You can find biryani in each and every street corner in kolkata, it is so so famus, good quality mutton biryani is Rs.130. bad one is Rs.80. If you taste original biryani of kolkata, you never can forget it. Its one of the most tasty dishes of the world(not only india).